“A lot of bad material”: Why did Kim Basinger take a step back from cinema?
In 1997, Kim Basinger won a ‘Best Supporting Actress’ Oscar for her role in LA Confidential, based on the novel of the same name by James Ellroy. Her performance as Lynn Bracken saw her beat the likes of Gloria Stuart and Julianne Moore to win the coveted prize, yet in the years that followed, she began to appear much less frequently on screen.
Basinger started acting in the 1970s, debuting on an episode of Gemini Man and appearing in a string of other television episodes before bagging a starring role in the TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold. However, after landing a part in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again, Basinger’s Hollywood career really took off. Acclaim followed with her Golden Globe-nominated performance in The Natural, although criticism wasn’t far behind.
A few years later, she appeared in 9½ Weeks, directed by Adrian Lyne, an erotic drama that saw Basinger’s character engage in a heated affair with Mickey Rourke’s John Gray. While the movie is well-known for its steaminess, emerging at a time when erotic movies were particularly popular in the mainstream, Basinger wound up with a ‘Worst Actress’ nomination from the Golden Raspberry Awards.
Still, she seemed to prove that the Razzies don’t determine the course of an actor’s career by continuing to land roles that maintained her place in Hollywood, like parts in Tim Burton’s Batman and Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter. Then it was LA Confidental that landed Basinger an Oscar, of course, proving that she was a versatile star.
Yet, in the decades that have followed, prominent roles for Basinger have been few and far between. While she appeared in the acclaimed 8 Mile, she then starred in many movies that received mixed reviews, like Elvis Has Left the Building, Cellular, The Sentinel, While She Was Out, and Charlie St Cloud. Her last role to date (apart from a voice role in a short film, 2021’s Back Home Again) was in 2017’s Fifty Shades Darker, which was unsurprisingly panned by critics.
So, what happened? In a 2025 interview with Variety, she revealed that she’s “very picky” when it comes to selecting roles, and unfortunately, she has been given “a lot of bad material” to read that hasn’t exactly made her want to take the movies on. Thus, she has only picked movies she has been particularly interested in – sadly for the actor, most of these have been terrible. As one of the most Razzie-nominated actors – earning her first win from the organisation in 2017 for Fifty Shades Darker – Basinger’s Oscar win feels like a distant dream.
It’s a shame because Basinger has undeniable talent, yet so much of it has been wasted over the years on movies that have quickly faded into obscurity or earned terrible reviews. Thus, it’s no surprise she’s taken a step back from cinema over the past few years, and whether she returns to the big screen anytime soon seems dependent on whether she finally receives a good script in her mailbox.
