You definitely remember her as Bill Murray's wholesome love interest in Groundhog Day,
but did you know that Andie MacDowell's first acting role was in a Tarzan flick?
It happened!
Keep watching to see how she's transformed over the years.
Andie MacDowell began her career as a model after being spotted by a Wilhelmina Models
representative while in Los Angeles in the '70s.
MacDowell initially thrived in the new environment.
However, as a young model, she didn't enjoy every aspect of her new career.
In fact, MacDowell almost quit due to how alienated she felt by the industry and the
prevalence of drug use within it, telling The Guardian:
"There was a lot of cocaine around.
I had a small experience at the very beginning and hated it.
[...] I really didn't like the way it felt."
Consequently, she told her agency she wanted out.
Instead, they advised her that she was, quote, "hanging around the wrong people" and flew
her out to Paris, where she met a young man who didn't drink or do drugs.
As MacDowell told The Guardian, this clean-cut gentleman turned out to be the Moët & Chandon
winery heir, so her whole life opened up following their meeting.
MacDowell told The Guardian:
"I started working non-stop."
Andie MacDowell was more than just a pretty face, and in the early '80s, people were starting
to notice.
The young star subverted model norms by arriving to fashion shows in a T-shirt and jeans and
wowing people with her personality.
MacDowell mused to The Guardian:
"I think it was my sense of humor and realness that people liked."
A now-iconic commercial for Calvin Klein featured the young model unleashing that humor and
realness with a charming Southern accent, but she wanted more, telling Bustle,
"I did theater in college and knew since I was a child that I wanted to act."
She got her wish, landing her first role in the 1984 Tarzan flick Greystroke at the age
of 23.
However, the memory of the film continues to be one of the most embarrassing for the
star, whose natural accent was dubbed over by Glenn Close for the entire film.
"I love you Johnny.
I love you."
Stating that she received no complaints about her performance prior to learning of the vocal
switch, MacDowell told the Chicago Tribune that the experience was "devastating."
"I was by myself when I found out.
I mean, I could barely function.
I was so devastated."
She said that critics were "mean-spirited" about the decision to remove her voice from
the film.
However, it only made MacDowell more determined to prove herself to the industry.
MacDowell told The Chicago Tribune:
"I knew I was going to have to fight really hard.
So I just took a lot of classes and worked on every aspect of myself."
At 27, Andie MacDowell landed a role in Joel Schumacher's brat-pack graduate melodrama
St. Elmo's Fire.
She played a doctor obsessively pursued by Emilio Estevez's fanatical law student.
It didn't give her much to flex her burgeoning talents, but it was a crucial career step.
MacDowell told The Chicago Tribune:
"It took until I was 30 [...] to get a role that I could prove to everybody what I was
capable of."
The role in question was her breakout performance in Steven Soderbergh's indie hit, Sex, Lies,
and Videotape.
As Andie MacDowell told Interview, the film was a rare blend of success — "a great piece
of art" which also made money.
The star won an Independent Spirit Award and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award
for her performance, as well as a Golden Globe nomination.
The project changed things for her, and she told Interview,
"I went from being kind of discarded to being wanted, and it was the most magical thing."
It was a magical period in general for MacDowell, who married former model Paul Qualley in 1986.
She gave birth to their first child later that year despite not "planning on having
children," as she told Bustle.
Speaking to the website about her style of rejecting "glamorous" looks in favor of "flowy
dresses" and other casual pieces, MacDowell said,
"I think a part of me was just wanting to feel comfortable."
That sentiment would become her signature.
The '90s heralded a fresh start, as Andie MacDowell followed up her smash indie debut
with the romantic comedy Green Card opposite the French actor, Gérard Depardieu.
As Entertainment Weekly enthused about MacDowell at the time of the film's release, the project
was positioned to serve as her passport to the "big time."
The actor followed up the performance by packing six films into a two-year period, including
the Bruce Willis action flick Hudson Hawk, and indie dramedy The Object of Beauty opposite
John Malkovich.
Somehow, the star also found the time to have two more children with her husband.
The disparity between the domestic comforts of her personal life and the demands of her
career must have been tricky to navigate.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, MacDowell confessed to her discomfort at having to stay
out late into the night around this time, stating that partying was not in her nature.
Similarly, she found the paparazzi's newfound affection for her "frightening," telling Entertainment
Weekly,
"I'm not accustomed to people yelling my name."
Though the actor hit red carpets looking the most glamorous she ever had during this time,
she had all the flair of a woman clocking in for her 9 to 5.
Acting may have been her dream, but fame seemed little more to her than a necessary evil.
By 1992, Andie MacDowell had gotten used to depicting the love interest in a variety of
Hollywood films, big and small, so it's no wonder two of her biggest films to date would
center around just such a role for the star.
The first, Groundhog Day, would position the actor as an endearing suitor opposite improv
superstar Bill Murray's character, a misanthropic curmudgeon repeating the same day over and
over.
The oddball comedy was a surprise success and helped to showcase the actor as a star
capable of delivering savvy, smart quips with heart and nuance.
She'd need those skills for her next trick as another love interest — this time, to
Hugh Grant's neurotic everyman in the Richard Curtis rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Speaking to The Guardian, MacDowell reflected on reading the script during promotional duties
for Groundhog Day, telling the outlet:
"[Four Weddings and a Funeral] one of the best [scripts I'd] ever come across.
Intelligent humor is something I really enjoy doing."
She went on to add that Curtis' talent for humor with a, quote, "beautifully romantic
heart" was something she deeply appreciated.
Arguably, these sensibilities also seemed to suit the star, who seemingly thrived when
her down-to-earth nature was beautifully juxtaposed against a sharp, irreverent script.
As the '90s ended, Andie MacDowell arrived at her 40s — an age that isn't always appreciated
in a woman's acting career.
"That is the main question I got at 40.
That was it.
It was like, 'So, it's done.
How does it feel to know that your career is over?'"
In fact, while speaking about the "lack of interesting characters" available to her in
the latter half of her career, the actor admitted to The Guardian that she'd "felt lulls" since
leaving her 30s, declaring,
"I've been struggling since I was 40."
Clearly, this was a major age of transformation for the star, who also divorced her husband
Paul Qualley in 1999.
Speaking to People on the painful nature of divorce, MacDowell stated,
"It's not an easy transition.
I think that the sooner you can let go of any anger, the better off you are."
It's understandable that the actor may have felt angry at this time.
Not just for the dissolution of her marriage, but also for the limitations she was facing
in her career.
Either way, you would never have known what the actor was going through by looking at
her.
MacDowell continued to look the picture of professionalism, wearing slightly more relaxed
styles on the red carpet, aesthetically fighting back against Hollywood ageism with youthful
defiance.
She looked glamorous, yet comfortable: a woman willing to play by Hollywood rules, but without
having to compromise her own style and values to do so.
Work didn't get much easier for Andie MacDowell as she entered her 50s, but the actor refused
to be ground down by her struggles.
She worked consistently.
MacDowell told Fox News:
"I may not be the lead or I may not get the starring roles that I used to because so many
movies revolve around youth, but I refuse to go away, because I enjoy it.
I always find a way to get work."
In a fashion sense, MacDowell wasn't hiding herself away, either.
On red carpets, the actor arrived in complete ownership and celebration of her age and sexuality,
pairing a series of chic looks with the ultimate accessory: her personality, which she once
described to The Guardian as being, quote, "kind of goofy."
This was a woman making the most of her life — peaks and slumps and all — and loving
every second of it.
It's telling that during this period, the actor pushed herself into new territories
professionally, and in a myriad of different ways.
She voiced a CGI hen in family film Barnyard, played a butt-expanding salon stylist in Beauty
Shop, and brought to life what she described as a "narcissistic sex addict" in the Lifetime
movies At Risk and The Front.
Luckily, that next big piece was awaiting Andie MacDowell as she entered her 60s.
While speaking with Michael Keaton for Interview, she indicated that the business could be brutal
and hard to predict, telling the actor,
"You feel like it's all over and you'll never work again.
Then all of a sudden, people like something you do, and you get a great script and feel
revived, like, 'Oh wow, okay.
I'm not dead yet.'"
For the first half of the 2010s, the great scripts that infused her with renewal could
have been the whip smart Kat Dennings-led teen drama Daydream Nation, or the male-stripper
film Magic Mike XXL.
Unsurprisingly, MacDowell's career resurgence looked phenomenal on the star, who stepped
out looking the most radiant and confident she possibly ever had.
Admittedly, the actor had maintained a consistent sense of style since she arrived in Hollywood
— the only thing that ever changed was her overall vibe.
Previously, MacDowell appeared on red carpets dressed for the job.
Now, she looked like she was dressing only for herself.
By 2016, Andie MacDowell was maintaining a career balance by appearing in TV movies such
as Christmas Inheritance, while also challenging herself with fulfilling performances in indie
flicks.
Love After Love, one such indie film wherein the actor depicts a heartsick widow, saw the
star doing some of the best work of her career.
There was just one problem.
MacDowell told The Guardian,
"Not as many people have seen it as I would have liked."
On top of being one of MacDowell's strongest performances, the role also pushed the actor
out of her comfort zone to deliver her first nude scene, at 61.
Something which the media focused on a great deal, causing the actor to gripe to The Daily
Beast:
"It was embarrassing how it was written about."
Ultimately, she was proud of how the scene helped to express "the vulnerability" of her
character and that it gave her "a lot of confidence."
Fashion-wise, it seemed that MacDowell's spirit had shifted in some way.
Turning 60 may have given the star a sense of assurance and liberation.
But being given the space with which to try new things in her career gave her even more
freedom to be herself, without apology.
By 2021, Andie MacDowell's delightful boldness reached new levels when the actor allowed
her natural grey hair to come through.
Speaking to Interview, she suggested the decision was as easy as it was satisfying, stating
that it was "exhausting" to maintain the illusion of youth.
MacDowell told Interview:
"I'm not young.
And I'm okay with that.
I feel so much more comfortable.
It's like I've taken a mask off or something."
MacDowell had never looked more at home in herself or her career.
On top of enjoying a fun cameo as herself in the Ted Danson sitcom Mr. Mayor, the actor
also starred opposite her daughter, Margaret Qualley, in the Netflix show Maid.
As the actor told Michael Keaton, her role in Maid demanded her performance be "bigger"
than she's normally used to in a way that found to be "terrifying."
But clearly, that element of the unknown is also something that drives MacDowell in her
career and her subsequent performances.
Her trajectory isn't the standard, and it's thrilling to see.
MacDowell told The Guardian:
"Everyone has their own journey.
Maybe something fabulous is going to happen for me at 70."
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