“I don’t sell tickets”: the sobering realisation that inspired Robin Wright’s second act
Early in her career, it felt like Robin Wright was destined to become one of the biggest stars of all time.
In 1987, she played the eponymous character in Rob Reiner’s cherished favourite, The Princess Bride, then seven years later, she landed her biggest role to date, the ever-controversial Jenny Curran in Robert Zemeckis’ sappy masterpiece, Forrest Gump. With two roles like that under her belt before her 30th birthday, the sky appeared to be the limit, but alas, that’s not how it worked out.
Though she would find success throughout the rest of the 1990s, being nominated for a SAG award for She’s So Lovely, she never quite reached those same dizzying heights. Her films didn’t attract the same attention as they once did, and she found herself losing out on parts to her contemporaries and, more alarmingly, stars younger than her.
She stayed in the headlines mainly due to her tumultuous relationship with Sean Penn, which ended in divorce in 2010. She’s still regarded as an inspiration by those in the know, but her profile is not nearly as strong as it was three decades ago.
In an interview with Town & Country in 2014, Wright spoke about this period of her life and how it affected her. While she never set out to become somebody who was just cast for their looks, always preferring the idea of becoming a character actor, she still struggled to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t “bankable” in the same way that other female stars were.
“[It] makes me sad,” she said, “What actors do is share stories. So in a sense it hurts, because you’re like, ‘I want to play too! I just don’t want to play that way’. I’m not up there with Kate Winslet and Julia Roberts. I don’t sell tickets. I’ve known that for a long time.”
As hard as this was to take at the time, it led to a significant shift in Wright’s approach to her work, wherein she vowed that if she wasn’t going to be a mainstream star, then she wouldn’t compromise on the roles she was offered. She upped her standards, and this led to a significant increase in the quality of her work, peaking with House of Cards, the Netflix drama that represented a return to the top. When Kevin Spacey was removed from the show following allegations of misconduct, her character, Claire, became President of the United States, which was quite symbolic.
“Hollywood is difficult to navigate if you have integrity,” she boldly claimed, “I opted not to work if there wasn’t enough to do in a role, which doesn’t have to do with the role’s size. If there’s nothing for me to do as an actress, that’s frustrating.”
Wright’s new, outspoken era has given her a new lease on life, and by not settling for anything she saw as beneath her, she has found herself more in demand than ever, even breaking back into the mainstream by appearing in Blade Runner 2049 and the two most recent Wonder Woman movies.
