A rocker takes a stab at Shakespearean horror, while two SNL alums try to keep a straight face.
From Oscar nominees to MCU favorites, you won’t believe who’s gotten a paycheck from Lifetime.
In a 2020 interview with TV Insider, Sigourney Weaver called her role as fundamentalist mother
turned LGBTQ+ advocate Mary Griffith in the 2009 Lifetime movie "Prayers for Bobby'' the
hardest part she'd ever played from an emotional standpoint. The role, based on the experiences of
the real-life Griffith, required Weaver to take an unsympathetic turn as a homophobic mother who
tried to convert her son, played by Ryan Kelley, after he came out as gay. After his suicide,
she rejects her bigoted views and becomes a powerful voice in support of gay rights.
"If I had just listened to my son,
when he poured his heart out to me, I would not be standing here today."
Weaver earned Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for her performance as
Griffith, who came to believe that her church's interpretation of scripture
was wrong and worked tirelessly until the end of her life for pro-gay causes. Reversals of
faith and deep moral searches are no small feats to depict on screen, but Weaver's performance
taps directly into Griffith's anguish over losing her son to find both healing and renewed purpose.
Depicting Griffith as a heartless figure wouldn't have made her newfound beliefs and direction
so moving, or been accurate to the real-life Griffith. Weaver instead does the heavy lifting to
find the humanity and humility in Griffith, which lends extraordinary depth to her performance.
Made at a point in Kristen Stewart's career when she was just emerging from juvenile roles — and
long before her vault to stardom in "The Twilight Saga" and a string of critically praised adult
performances — the 2004 Lifetime drama "Speak" confirms her exceptional acting talent. Stewart
plays a high schooler who has difficulty talking after being sexually assaulted at a house party.
"Speak," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 before airing on
Lifetime and Showtime in 2005, is based on a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Both the source material and the film handle their subject matter with great sensitivity
and emotional depth. "Speak" gets tremendous support from the uniformly excellent cast,
which includes Elizabeth Perkins and D.B. Sweeney as Stewart's parents, Steve Zahn as
a sympathetic teacher, and Michael Angarano as a fellow outcast who befriends Stewart.
But it's Stewart's performance that anchors the film and elevates it beyond typical Lifetime fare.
The trials of her character are a lot for any actor to carry,
but Stewart shoulders it with strength and maturity.
Jason Momoa's acting career was still in its embryonic phase when he signed on to play a
mostly shirtless love interest for Virginia Madsen in the 2003 Lifetime movie "Tempted."
"You know what you need? To get in the water. It's healing."
"I'm not the best swimmer." "I am."
Momoa completed his first screen assignment — a two-season run on "Baywatch:
Hawaii" — shortly before signing on to "Tempted." Despite its Hawaiian setting,
"Tempted" was actually filmed in New South Wales, Australia.
Maggie Greenwald, a talented and award-winning director of such well-regarded indie dramas
as "The Ballad of Little Jo" and "Songcatcher," benefits from the
natural beauty of her film's locations and her cast. The film pairs Momoa with
Virginia Madsen as a woman who travels with the ashes of her former guardian,
a native Hawaiian. There, she meets Momoa, who plays her late guardian's nephew, and sparks fly,
despite the fact that Madsen has a husband waiting for her on the mainland.
Momoa, who is a naturally charismatic and intense performer, doesn't have much to do
here beyond staring longingly while wearing as little clothing as possible. If you're a fan of
his work in "Aquaman," "Dune," and "See," this isn't an exemplary showcase for his abilities.
But if you're interested in his chiseled build, "Tempted" is a two-hour box of eye candy.
Though Mark Ruffalo is one of Hollywood's busiest and most acclaimed actors today, the Emmy, Grammy,
Tony, and Oscar nominee was largely anonymous in the 1990s. Ruffalo's resume during this period
included low-budget horror and indie films, but he also kept busy with occasional forays into TV
like "On the Second Day of Christmas," which aired on Lifetime Television in 1997.
Directed by James Frawley, "On the Second Day of Christmas" takes place in a department store
during the holidays, but it's no "Miracle on 34th Street." Despite being a little girl,
Patsy, played by Lauren Pratt, is an experienced pickpocket who works as a team with her aunt,
played by Mary Stuart Masterson. Ruffalo is the department store security guard
who catches them in the act, so writer Brian Hohlfeld bends logic
to force the trio to spend Christmas together while awaiting sentencing.
"Christmas is supposed to be a time of compassion, don't you feel the least bit sorry for us?"
"Look lady, you choose a life of crime, you gotta take the consequences."
While many holiday romance couples seem forced together by the plot,
Ruffalo and Masterson's chemistry helps to make their eventual connection seem believable.
In 2011, Lifetime presented "Five," an anthology feature featuring stories about
the impact of breast cancer on patients and their families. The project, created by Marta Kauffman,
drew high-profile talent behind the camera, including Jennifer Aniston, Alicia Keyes,
and Patty Jenkins. It also attracted talented performers like Patricia Clarkson, Tracee Ellis
Ross, Rosario Dawson, and Tony Shalhoub. Two years later, Lifetime returned to the "Five"
format for "Call Me Crazy," which focused its quintet of stories on mental health issues.
"Five" gained an Emmy Award nomination for casting and numerous nominations for its
actors and directors, so when the network decided to return to the format for 2013's "Call Me Crazy:
A Five Film," they garnered an even more impressive roster of talent. Directors included
Oscar winner Laura Dern, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ashley Judd, and Bonnie Hunt, while three Oscar
winners – Jennifer Hudson, Octavia Spencer, and Melissa Leo – each headlined one of the stories.
By the age of 20, Kirsten Dunst had amassed an impressive body of work in films and on
television: She earned her first of four Golden Globe nominations at the age of 10
for "Interview with the Vampire," and featured in such popular and critical hits as "Little Women,"
"Jumanji," "Wag the Dog," and "The Virgin Suicides." During this incredibly busy period,
the future Oscar and Emmy nominee also starred in a Lifetime original movie, "Fifteen and Pregnant."
Dunst is the titular teenager, Tina, who becomes pregnant by her deadbeat boyfriend Ray, played
by Daniel Kountz. She decides to keep the baby, causing friction between her separated parents,
played by Park Overall and David Andrews, and her sister,
played by Julia Whelan. The film hits all the pregnancy drama tropes:
Tina's dramatic reveal, Ray bailing on being a dad, and a birth sequence filled with screaming.
But it also does well in dividing the focus between Tina and her extended family and friends.
"You're not my leader, I don't act and think like you."
"Well it wouldn't be so terrible for you to be a little less shallow,
maybe a little more responsible."
"You're not that great either, you know."
Dunst portrays the confusion of teen life and the upheaval of an unexpected pregnancy
with the same depth and confidence she's shown throughout her career. The majority
of her scenes pit her against Overall and Andrews — two extremely capable,
stage-trained performers — and she holds her own in every scene.
The drama "Stockholm, Pennsylvania" surprised many Sundance filmgoers by premiering on Lifetime in
2015 rather than hitting theaters after garnering mostly positive reviews at the festival that year.
The film features an impressive cast led by Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Emmy winner Cynthia
Nixon and tackles a difficult subject: the impact of an abduction on both the victim and her family.
Ronan plays 22-year-old Leia, who was held captive from the age of four by a man with apocalyptic
delusions named Ben, played by Jason Isaacs. Eventually, she returns to her parents, played
by Nixon and David Warshofsky, that she barely knows. What follows is, at times, an even more
intense take on life after trauma than is depicted in "Room" with Brie Larson: Leia's refusal to
accept her parents and fond recollections of life with Ben. All signs point to Stockholm Syndrome.
Ronan avoids the pitfall of overplaying a deeply damaged character: She remains quiet
instead of explosive or unhinged, allowing the viewer to guess at her true emotional state.
When Lifetime steps out of the romantic thriller or suburban drama box,
the end result is often a high-profile project like "Call Me Crazy" or "Betty and Coretta."
Trying something different rarely meant casting Courtney Love, Dominic Monaghan, and Paul Walter
Hauser in a horror-themed series based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night Dream."
Of course, that's exactly what Lifetime provided with 2017's "A Midsummer's Nightmare."
Produced in partnership with A&E Studios after the success of their hit drama "UnREAL," Lifetime
appeared to be aiming for "American Horror Story" territory with "A Midsummer's Nightmare."
"A Midsummer's Nightmare" opens on a strong note, with a character dragged through the
woods by masked figures that hurl her into an open grave filled with bees. Once that initial
shock fades away, however, the film becomes a routine mix of trysting and low-wattage mystery.
"Okay, campers? Time to scamper."
"A Deadly Adoption" is sort of a meta-Lifetime movie. It's a parody of the network's sudsy
plotting with Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig playing the sort of hapless suburbanites
usually portrayed by the likes of Eric Roberts and Kellie Martin. Though produced by Ferrell's former
partner Adam McKay, "A Deadly Adoption" unfolds with an entirely straight face,
requiring the audience to find the laughs in the inherent absurdity of the story itself.
Ferrell and Wiig, who work hard to achieve a sort of earnest blandness,
are Robert and Sarah, a married couple who lose their second child in an
unfortunate dock accident. They soon decide on using a surrogate to have another child,
but their prospective birth mother Bridgette, played by Lifetime vet Jessica Lowndes,
is more than she seems: she's actually obsessed with Robert. Ferrell's trademark near-hysteria and
Wiig's overdramatic reveries are put to good use here, but the humor is almost too subtle: there's
just a razor-thin margin between the comedy and the histrionics of a real Lifetime movie.