The album Juliette Lewis listened to for “an entire year”
Making her debut on the big screen as the troubled teenage daughter in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear, Juliette Lewis quickly gained recognition. Starring in three significant films in the 1990s –What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Natural Born Killers, and From Dusk Till Dawn – Lewis marked the robust rise of fresh talent, demonstrating an incredible range that has persisted throughout her career.
As an actor with a strong cult following, Lewis strived to enhance her appeal to film and television producers by pursuing legal emancipation from her parents to facilitate more flexible work opportunities. In her own words: “I know that sounds all radical, but when you start acting when you’re younger, you talk to other actor kids and their moms, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, if you want to get a job, they like on your resume to say emancipated minor versus minor because you then can work over eight hours.”
This paved the way for Lewis to secure her first major opportunity in Cape Fear, earning her an Oscar nomination for her supporting role. Portraying Danielle Bowden, the teenage daughter of a lawyer facing the threat of a relentless assailant, Scorsese’s film marked a significant milestone in Lewis’ burgeoning career.
Lewis’s career has been adorned with numerous triumphs and creative pursuits, such as Strange Days, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the creation of her band, Juliette and the Licks, in 2003. “I’d got complacent in the movie industry, and I needed to write songs,” Lewis explained. “I had to give up movies. That’s what I had to do. All I wanted was a future that allowed me to make records.”
Comprising guitarists Craig Fairbaugh and Emilio Cueto, bassist Jason Womack, and drummer Ed Davis, the band has gained popularity with songs like ‘You’re Speaking My Language’ and ‘Hot Kiss’. The band’s sophomore project, Four on the Floor, brought them to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who stepped in to record with them after their drummer withdrew just weeks before the recording sessions.
As a huge music fan, Lewis’ influences span far and wide. As an indie rocker at heart, one of Lewis’ major musical loves is The Cure and the band’s celebrated album Disintegration. Speaking in a feature with Pitchfork, Lewis said: “Some of the themes that I resonate the most with are what I call “guttural purging songs.”
In Disintegration, this person is ripping his soul out: ‘Through the eye of the needle/It’s easier for me to get closer to Heaven/Than ever feel whole again’. Only later do you hear like, oh, he was using drugs. But to me, it was never about Robert Smith. I didn’t know him as an identity. It was just the song.”
She continued, “I knew about the Cure from ‘The Love Cats’ and I don’t think I heard Disintegration at the time of its release. I think my ex-boyfriend turned me on to them. I have no idea how it became my record but I listened to it pretty much for an entire year. I was just there, living and feeling exactly what that man wrote about.”
