A sex symbol reluctant for the spotlight. An unfortunate award winner with a passion
for animals. And above all, someone who wants people to stop showing their butts on Instagram.
Here are some of the reasons why Hollywood won't cast Kim Basinger anymore.
Kim Basinger's position as a Hollywood sex symbol came about when she played Domino in 'Never Say
Never Again' and was further cemented when her photoshoot for Playboy was published soon after.
She made an effort to get out of her comfort zone with projects like the 1987 crime comedy
'Nadine', but the reviews weren't always kind, and Basinger came to
realize that she couldn't generate any buzz without getting a little raunchy.
"In 'The Getaway', I do two nude scenes."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"God that is awesome."
She almost lost interest in making movies as a result, but director Curtis Hanson
convinced her to play to her strengths. According to the Los Angeles Times,
Basinger was hesitant about taking on the part of prostitute Lynn Bracken in Hanson's neo-noir
smash hit 'L.A. Confidential', which to this day remains her role of greatest acclaim.
It was a remarkable turnaround considering she had filed for bankruptcy just four years earlier
after being sued by producers for backing out of the indie movie 'Boxing Helena'.
Basinger hadn't been working much when Curtis Hanson sought her out for 'L.A. Confidential', and
despite the fact that the film was a hit, it would be a few years before she popped up again — when
it became clear that she'd been pouring her time and energy into a passion project.
In 2000, Basinger's big-screen adaptation of the memoir 'I Dreamed of Africa' was released,
the true story of a single mother who risked everything to move to Kenya with her son
in pursuit of adventure and a new start. Making the movie on location
was a life-changing experience for Kim, but the movie failed to resonate with critics.
'I Dreamed of Africa' has a pretty dire 10 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes,
criticized for failing to move or entertain critics. The whole thing cost $50 million to make,
but it only managed to pull in $14 million at the worldwide box office.
In 2002, Basinger reunited with director Curtis Hanson to play Eminem's mother in '8 Mile'.
While it was a good move for Basinger's career in some ways, it came with an unwanted side effect.
As the 2000s ticked on, Basinger realized that she'd been typecast in a different
role as the wife and/or mother. A number of high-profile actresses
have spoken about rampant ageism in Hollywood when it comes to women,
and Basinger has been on the receiving end of this disturbing trend for years.
Speaking to Elle, Basinger said that all of
a sudden she was getting countless offers for motherly roles, saying:
"People don't think outside the box very often. They're just not thinking beyond. There are
always these roles of the mother. [...] Women are important, and they have to be in the movies."
According to Basinger, if you want to get ahead in Hollywood then you have to be willing to network,
something she's admittedly terrible at, telling Interview magazine in 1994:
"I'm not a real social person. I'm shy, and a lot of the business is just social. It really
is. I don't think it's a bad game, but early on I didn't know there was a game. I know now."
In 2016, she told Net-A-Porter that she had struggled with social anxiety for a number
of years. Basinger was in her mid-20s when she had her first panic attack, a traumatic
experience that stopped her career dead in its tracks for a while, telling the Independent:
"I stayed in my house and literally cried every day.
I didn't know what it was. I didn't know how to define it."
"And once you have an anxiety attack or a panic attack, you never wanna go there again."
Basinger still has the odd onset of anxiety today,
but she's worked on making it not quite as debilitating as it once was, telling Net-A-Porter:
"I've found that it helps if I take the focus away from me — ironic for an actress, I know!
That's why I love being a mom and advocating for animals: that's when I really feel powerful."
During her candid interview with Net-A-Porter, Basinger bemoaned the state of the modern movie
industry and explained why she just isn't cut out for it. She came into her own in a time before
Twitter and Instagram, when famous people weren't expected to be constantly connected to the public
through their phones, and Basinger much preferred it that way, saying:
"Social media has changed everything. There was more mystery before, but now,
people just show their butts all over the place. [...] It's a shame how out of
hand this industry has become, and where the value system has gone."
As she's gotten older, Basinger has realized that
she cares less of what anyone thinks of her, including Hollywood, saying:
"The best part of aging is learning to shed all the s*** that has weighed you down your
whole life. People don't bother me so much. It's not my business what they think of me."
The issue of equality was thrust to the forefront of the conversation in Hollywood
when the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke into the mainstream in 2017,
and it's since become clear that the problem isn't a new one.
Basinger hinted at that during her 2016 interview with Net-A-Porter:
"It would be great if we could have full equality, for all races and genders — not just in Hollywood,
everywhere — but I don't think we'll get there. People think of Hollywood as this very liberal
place, but if you look at the underbelly, the discoveries you'll make are mind-boggling."
Basinger has proposed a radical remedy to the problem, suggesting that women should
point blank refuse to reproduce until meaningful changes are made. She told The Blot that women
across the world needed to present a united front on gender equality, and when she spoke to Elle,
she once again suggested that female celibacy would lead to female domination, saying:
"We can stop having babies,
we can stop having sex, everything. And then women will rule the world."
As a passionate animal rights activist, Basinger isn't afraid to call people
out over the mistreatment of animals, telling Samaritan Mag in August 2018:
"The bad thing about animal protection is it never
seems to get better. It's an ongoing fight to protect any kind of animal."
"Really um, evil people, sick people are out there torturing animals."
She gave the interview in the hope of raising awareness about the inhumane dog meat trade
that remains rife in parts of Asia,
though she's also been known to take issue with animal abuses happening at home in the States.
At times, Basinger's image has actually suffered as a result of her well-intentioned actions.
Her behavior was criticized by doubters after she campaigned to stop horse-drawn
carriages operating in New York, telling Interview that she witnessed a horse
collapse from heat exhaustion not long after arriving in NYC as a teenager, and adding:
"I just feel passionately about the horses and I will until it's no longer a tradition in New York.
Time should change traditions."
Basinger herself was once called a hypocrite after it emerged that
circus elephants were used during the making of "I Dreamed of Africa."
In 2015, Basinger brought another long hiatus to an end with "The 11th Hour,"
a bizarre horror film that starred Basinger as a successful businesswoman sinking into
insanity after suffering eight miscarriages in two years. The low-budget release was dubbed
largely panned by critics, with one scathing review from the Observer's Rex Reed saying:
"If Kim Basinger still knows how to act, there is no evidence of it here."
"This is a big pill to swallow, that's all."
The film ended up with a telling 13 percent rating
on Rotten Tomatoes after all the top critics picked it apart.
Speaking to the Daily Beast, Basinger said that 'The 11th Hour' was supposed to be a metaphor
about businesswomen and the choice they have to make between work and family. But as a comeback
vehicle this was a disaster for Basinger, who hasn't appeared in a leading role since.
In 2018, Kim Basinger sat down with Interview to look back on the in-depth chat she'd had with the
magazine almost two and half decades earlier, and she was asked to review the answers she'd given
in 1994 to see if she still felt the same way. For the most part, her opinions hadn't changed,
but she revisited one question about having a bad experience making a movie
and changed her initial answer, admitting that she had a terrible time making 2013's 'Grudge Match'.
The boxing comedy, which stars Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro
as past-their-prime rivals who get drawn out of retirement for one last showdown,
didn't go over well with the majority of critics. Basinger neglected to go into
detail about what made the experience such a bad one, though some leaked set photos from the time
appeared to show her arguing with Stallone as they filmed a scene in a New Orleans park. It's
possible that the two were simply in character, but the way it was reported made it seem as though
they were clashing for real. Basinger was still trying to rebuild her reputation at the time,
and regardless of whether it was true, the story was likely a setback for her.
For a person to get a boost in any business, it can often require a respected and powerful insider
taking notice and making a stand on their behalf. For Kim Basinger,
it took the attention and enthusiastic advocacy of auteur filmmaker Curtis Hanson to help her stage
one of the biggest comebacks and critical reconsiderations in modern movie history.
After back-to-back commercial duds "The Getaway" and "Ready to Wear" in 1994, Basinger didn't take
on any movie roles for years. Then Hanson cast Basinger in "L.A. Confidential," for which she
received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 2002, Hanson would again seek out Basinger's
acting services, giving her the plum role of Stephanie Smith, the troubled mother of the
aspiring rapper played by Eminem in the loosely biographical and widely acclaimed "8 Mile."
The close and fruitful working relationship between Basinger and Hanson wouldn't last,
however. Hanson only made three more theatrical films after "8 Mile,"
before he died in 2016. In a tribute to the filmmaker, Basinger said:
"I just felt like I was in the hands of someone incredibly special.
Few actors get to have somebody who truly, truly, truly believes in them."
"L.A. Confidential," could be considered an aberration on Basinger's acting resume,
as her work is largely devoid of major awards and praise. Basinger earned a Golden Globe nomination
in 1984 for "The Natural," a Boston Society of Film Critics Awards nomination for "The Door in
the Floor," and an AARP Movies for Grownups prize for "The Burning Plain." But among the circles
that ironically celebrate and savagely mock movies and acting performances deemed terrible
or sub-par, Basinger is a big name and a prime, perpetual target.
Basinger won the 1993 Yoga Award for Worst Foreign Actress for "Final Analysis," was
nominated three times by the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for "Bless the Child,"
"I Dreamed of Africa," and "The Getaway," and holds the dubious distinction of being one of
the most recognized performers ever at the Golden Raspberry Awards, popularly known as the Razzies.
Basinger received nominations for Worst Actress for "Nine 1/2 Weeks," "The Marrying Man,"
"Final Analysis," "Cool World," "The Getaway," "I Dreamed of Africa," and "Bless the Child," before
taking home Worst Supporting Actress in 2018 for "Fifty Shades Darker."
Poor critical assessment can only go so far in determining an actor's future work prospects.
Kim Basinger, whose work has almost never earned praise from critics, built a storied
career because so many of her movies turned into big-time box office hits. But once they stopped
bringing in the cash, big Hollywood producers simply didn't want to work with her much anymore.
Since 2002, Basinger has headlined the audience-averse, barely noticed films
"People I Know," "The Door in the Floor," "Even Money," "While She Was Out," "The
Informers," "The Burning Plain," "4 Minute Mile," "Third Person," and "Black November."
If you've seen any of these movies, you're in the minority. The only films from this period
of her career that could be classed as moderate hits are "The Sentinel," "Grudge Match," and
"The Nice Guys," with the latter film being the only one to receive any kind of critical acclaim.
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