Shannen Doherty claims Kevin Smith movie ruined her career
Before the paradigm shifted in the age of prestige TV and streaming, the easiest path to big screen stardom was to be an important part of a hit show and then graduate to success in features, but Shannen Doherty holds Kevin Smith responsible for her failure to make the transition.
Even though she had a prominent role in 1988’s coming-of-age black comedy classic Heathers, Doherty found her calling on television and gained widespread fame by starring in the drama series Our House and Beverly Hills, 90210.
Doherty’s first major film role after wrapping up her four-season stint as Branda Walsh on the latter came in Smith’s Mallrats, where she took top billing as Rene Mosier. The buddy comedy caper wasn’t as well-received by critics as the filmmaker’s debut Clerks and failed to recoup its budget at the box office, something Doherty hasn’t forgotten.
On her Let’s Be Clear podcast, Doherty welcomed Smith as a guest and didn’t hold back on how the failure of Mallrats impacted her prospects: “That’s kind of the thing about Mallrats, rights, is that it wasn’t a box office success,” she said. “It died. So did my film career. That was it.”
Doherty would never again play the lead in a major theatrically-released movie, which she blamed directly on Mallrats crashing and burning: “People literally thought I was carrying the movie, so therefore [because] it was a box office failure it was directly on me,” she continued. “So there was no film career after that, which was a little brutal.”
She admitted that she “really thought Mallrats was going to kick me into that gear,” which didn’t happen.
Smith would voice his sorrow later on in the podcast, coming clean and acknowledging, “She’s right, man.” Echoing Doherty’s feelings, he offered that “if this works, here goes the movie career. And it really did not. Boy, I apologise for that.”
Listen to their full conversation on Let’s Be Clear below.
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