MOVIELINE magazine recently observed that there is no actress 
under the age of 30 today who could play the role that 
Kathleen Turner created in the movie "Body Heat."  (Turner was 
26 at the time.) 

Is that really true?  Maybe I'm just not using my imagination, 
but I have to admit I can't think of a younger actress I'd 
cast in a remake of "Body Heat," either.  Juliet Lewis?  Laura 
Dern?  Alicia Silverstone?

9 responses total.

Your impressions are being made on the basis of what?  The roles and characters
previously played by the actresses in question?  Silly!  The better the actress
the more likely you are to believe that they really like the characters they
play, unless you know them personally well enough to see through it.
I suspect that if given the opportunity, many of today's young actresses
would blossom quite nicely in serious roles.

Agreed.  In fact, most of them already have.  I don't think
Movieline is saying that Turner's role in "Body Heat" was
a "serious" one.  The character did have depth and exuded
grownup sexuality, and had what politely used to be called
"a past."  There was an old-fashioned vampy something about
her that it really is difficult to imagine any current young
actress capturing.

One actress that comes to mind is Rebecca D'mornay. But she may be old
enough now that she doesn't fit the "young actress" category you're talking
about above.
I've always thought that Kathleen Turner had alot of Lauren Bacall's style.
I think that's the kind of sophisticated sensuallity they're talking about.

I don't think of the Mattie character as particularly young,
maybe early thirties or even later.  She had been around some.
The part needs a deep, sexy voice, and a slow delivery. Amanda
Plummer and Uma Thurmann (?s) come to mind.

I think that was the point Mary, Kathleen Turner was only 26 when she played
the role, yet she was able to portray someone who had "been around" and
seemed older. I think the opinion of the original posting is that there
arn't any 26 year old actresses around today who could pull that off.

At first I thought the answer might be that Turner's performance 
was anomalous, in that even then there was no one else her age 
who could've pulled it off.  But when I thought back to who else 
was in their twenties back then, there were plenty of actresses 
who could've done it: Sigourney Weaver, Geena Davis, Melanie 
Griffith, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone and Mimi Rogers, to name half 
a dozen of them.  (Six different kinds of performance there.  If 
you enjoy mind games of that sort, it's fun to imagine the six 
different movies that would've resulted.)

Mimi Rogers would have been great.

She still could!

Apropos nothing, did anyone catch Sharon Stone on the Dennis
Miller show?  She turns out to be quite a nice person.  At one
point, Miller was clucking his tongue over the younger generation
of actresses, comparing lovely Sharon in her pink flouncy dress
with ugly Juliet Lewis in her torn jeans (or words to that effect).
Stone smiled politely at Miller and said, "Well, maybe if I had
Juliet Lewis's talent, I wouldn't have to wear pink flouncy dresses."

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