2014's Interstellar unfolds in a dystopian version of the year 2067 in which Earth is
rapidly becoming uninhabitable thanks to climate change.
A group of astronauts travel to a wormhole near Saturn in hopes of finding a new home
for humanity.
Former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper leads the team of researchers on the mission through
the wormhole.
The mission doesn't exactly go the way they planned, but don't worry -- this is a Christopher
Nolan movie, so you don't have to stress about everything making perfect sense.
"They constructed this three-dimensional space inside their five-dimensional reality to allow
you to understand it."
"Well, that ain't workin'."
Cooper's daughter, Murphy, often called "Murph," is played by Jessica Chastain in adulthood.
Murph becomes a NASA scientist herself as the story unfolds, but at the beginning of
the film, before Cooper has taken off on his mission, she's still just a kid.
Since Hollywood de-aging software isn't quite ready for primetime, the 10-year-old version
of Murph is played by another talented actress: Mackenzie Foy.
The young Murph doesn't just dazzle with her heartbreaking portrayal of a young girl about
to lose her father in act one — she also makes a surprise return in act three, long
after Chastain has picked up the character's mantle.
By the time Foy appeared in Interstellar, she had already become somewhat recognizable
from her role in the final two Twilight films, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Breaking Dawn
– Part 2.
Additionally, she played Cindy Perron in The Conjuring, one of the kids living in a haunted
Rhode Island farmhouse.
But what about since Interstellar?
While some child stars fizzle out in their teen years, Foy is still shining brightly.
While she hasn't appeared in anything as widely recognizable as Interstellar, Foy's acting
credits since the 2014 film include a couple lead roles.
In 2018, Foy landed the lead role of Princess Clara in Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four
Realms.
The high-profile fantasy treatment of the classic tale was announced in March 2016,
and Foy joined that summer alongside Kiera Knightley, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman
— very accomplished company for the up-and-comer.
Unfortunately, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was a flop with both critics and at
the box office.
The film's shortcomings shouldn't be attributed to Foy's performance, however.
As Allison Rose of FlickDirect pointed out in her review,
"Mackenzie Foy does a very good job as the smart and beautiful Clara and offers a believable
performance as this iconic character."
"Thank you."
That seems to be the consensus — a capable young actress in an otherwise mishandled film.
As a result, Foy moved onward and upward from the project, even appearing in yet another
Disney film just two years after The Nutcracker's debut -- a modern retelling of Black Beauty.
The classic 1877 novel about a girl and her horse by English author Anna Sewell has been
a part of pop culture for decades.
It's been adapted for film eight times — and twice rendered into episodic format for British
TV.
The most recent attempt at a feature length treatment found Mackenzie Foy in the lead
role of Jo Green.
Disney updates the story a smidge to the present day.
Despite the time displacement, many of the important details from Sewell's novel are
still present.
Jo is still a young girl who forms a close bond with narrator and titular Black Beauty,
in this version characterized as a wild mustang.
Though Foy claims top human billing, Beauty is really the star of this adaptation, and
as such the horse has a properly famous actor giving voice to its equine narration: Kate
Winslet.
"I knew that if Jo could feel the wind in her mane, it would help her to heal."
The film was supposed to have a theatrical release in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic
put a damper on those plans, and Black Beauty ended up going straight to Disney+, where
it's currently streaming.
Critics were a little kinder to Black Beauty than they were to Foy's prior Disney adventure,
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
The equine escapade earned a 48 percent critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, with one critic
summing it up as, quote, "mostly pleasing."
That might not be a clear-cut whinny, but it's far from a neigh.
Mackenzie Foy isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and you'll no doubt see her on the big
screen again before you know it.
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