with Jesse Bradford in A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries
©1998 All rights reserved
Pamela's Film and Entertainment Site
Call her Hollywood's new hope. Or the next Helen Hunt, whom she strongly resembles. Better to be Helen Hunt than Monica Lewinsky, she cracks. Leelee Sobieski, all of sweet sixteen, is currently onscreen giving an eloquent portrayal of a girl in the midst of an emotional crisis in director James Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries.
Discovered in her New York school cafeteria, Sobieski has appeared in Jungle 2 Jungle and, most recently, the summer blockbuster Deep Impact. She still has not seen Armageddon, which bears a similar end-of-the-world storyline to Deep Impact. "All of my friends drive me crazy. They're obnoxious, I love it. They tease me to no extent, like, "We saw Armageddon and it was great. And Liv Tyler was amazing!"
The road from Deep Impact and the quieter A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries may have been a marked transition but Sobieski notes that both directors made sure the sets had a family atmosphere. "Deep Impact was a much bigger crew; I didn't even know half the people working on the film. In A Soldier's Daughter, everybody went over to each other's house for dinner. In Deep Impact, everything was more separate and official. Mimi [Leder, the director] is a woman with a lot of heart and she made it a family also."
Next up for Sobieski is a role in the highly anticipated Eyes Wide Shut, which perfectionist extraordinaire Stanley Kubrick is directing. Sobieski herself can't divulge any information; even if she didn't sign a confidentiality agreement, she wouldn't have anything to reveal. She only received the pages of the script she appeared in and everyone on the set was almost ridiculously tight-lipped. But, she predicts, "everyone's going to be surprised." Also on the slate is a role as a high-school student in the Drew Barrymore vehicle, Never Been Kissed.
Playing pretend has its advantages (or perhaps disadvantages) for the teen: "I've been through [experiences] and I don't have to in real life, which is great. I've done all these things in the movies. It doesn't mean I'm not going to get married now because I married Elijah [Wood in Deep Impact]. But it just means that, if I ever had the desire to become a little bit of a slut [like her character in A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries]...well, I mean, I didn't actually do anything in the movie. It's just I've already sort of went through the feelings...I've already sort of been through that so I don't really have to experience it."
