The two movies that made Patricia Arquette fall in love with acting
While some actors burn big and bright in the spotlight, some simmer away steadily in the background, quietly captivating us for years. Patricia Arquette is undoubtedly one of those actors who might not be the most prolific, but the select roles that she does pick up can be counted on to impress deeply.
Getting her start in the most beloved entrance in the Freddy Krueger saga, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, she received wide recognition with her role in Tony Scott’s True Romance. The violent love story might not have been a box office smash, but it has since become a cult classic due to Quentin Tarantino’s script, and Arquette was roundly praised in her role as a kind-hearted sex worker Alabama.
Despite being selective in her roles, she went on to win an Academy Award for her performance in Richard Linklater’s time-lapse epic Boyhood. The landmark coming-of-age drama was shot over 11 years, taking the meaning of epic to the next level. Over those years, Arquette played the protagonist’s single mother and was also lauded highly for her handling of such a time-bound and layered role.
Since then, she’s mostly worked on the small screen, starting with her acclaimed turn in NBC’s Medium between 2005 and 2009. Then, in 2018, she entered into her first successful partnership with Ben Stiller for the gritty limited series, Escape at Dannemora. Something must have clicked, for she sustained the relationship, appearing most recently to captivate us all once again in the critically acclaimed dystopian satire Severance, as the icy and calculated Harmony Cobel.
Both shows have seen her as a woman poised and unhinged, desperate to hold on to power and control while also exploring a vulnerable side; yet, despite her clear passion and dedication to her art form, Arquette didn’t always aspire to be an actor.
Although she came from a line of actors, she told RTE that she had been considering becoming a midwife until two films changed her trajectory at 17 years old. “I saw the films Frances and A Woman Under the Influence, and those were the two movies that really made me want to act,” she explained, “I wanted to work with people like that.”
Even this far into her career, it’s easy to see the influence of these two films on the kinds of roles she has played. For many actors, A Woman Under the Influence is cited as a massive inspiration, a real actor’s film due to the dynamic duo of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands’ heartbreaking performance. The film follows Mabel Longhetti, a complex housewife whose unusual behaviour causes conflict with her husband and friends, and is a groundbreaking depiction of how mental health issues stifle married women with no acceptable outlet to express their pain.
It’s unshocking why many have found this film such an inspiration, given Rowlands’ captivating and physically dynamic turn as the lead Mabel. And it definitely would have done much to shatter the young Arquette’s romantic illusions and show that women could be complicated and layered onscreen. Similarly, Frances was another depiction of the life of a complex woman.
A biographical film following the life, career and involuntary institutionalisation of the 1930s actor, Frances Farmer, the lead role was expertly played by yet another powerhouse, Jessica Lange. Considered by many, including the actor herself, to be Lange’s best performance to date, it seems to have been somewhat forgotten by the world.
Clearly it lives on in Arquette’s mind, along with Rowlands. Though these incredible actors played difficult roles that demonstrated the hardships of real life and fame, they spoke to Arquette and showed her the power of acting. Her own emotionally nuanced and powerful performances as strong female characters have clearly taken a lot from those that came before her, helping her make her own mark with a short but spectacularly studded roster of roles.
