Keri Russell’s best screen roles
The Hollywood actress turns 42 today. Aref Omar lists some of her works in cinema and on television
1 EIGHT DAYS A WEEK (1997)
This comedy movie that got its name from the Beatles song of the same name sees 21-year-old Keri Russell as her childhood friend and next-door neighbour’s object of infatuation. He camps out on her lawn for the summer in order to make her realise that she actually loves him.
A Disney family fantasy comedy, it chronicles the magical adventures of a hotel handyman, whose life changes after the elaborate bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start to come true. Russell plays his love interest and helps him to get things under control. Russell and co-star Lucy Lawless have both voiced Wonder Woman before in DC animated films.
2 FELICITY (1998)
Russell won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series — Drama after starring in this TV drama series that lasted four seasons. She played the titular character and the series chronicled her college experiences after moving from her Californian hometown to study in a fictional university in New York. Based on a true story, this medical tearjerker sees Russell and Brandon Fraser playing a couple with children who suffer from Pompe’s disease, which usually kills children before their 10th birthday. With the help of an innovative researcher, played by Harrison Ford, they race against time and establish a biotechnology company to develop a drug to save the children.
3 THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (2005)
This romance comedy focuses on the blossoming relationship between the characters played by Kevin Costner and Joan Allen, who has four daughters. Russell took on the role (after actress Lauren Ambrose dropped out) of the daughter whose obsession with dance and dieting almost kills her. When she was younger, Russell had studied classical dance.
This short-lived comedy TV series that lasted one season followed the awkward attempts of a self-centred heir to an oil fortune to rekindle the affection of his childhood sweetheart, played by Russell. Although she’s a hardcore environmentalist who has been living in the South American jungle, her young daughter secretly uses him to help keep her mother at his mansion in order not to have to follow her back into the jungle.
4 AUGUST RUSH (2007)
Based on the plot of Oliver
Twist by Charles Dickens, this sentimental drama follows the story of an 11-year-old musical prodigy. Living in an orphanage, he runs away to find out who he really is, while his mother is searching for him and his father is searching for her. Russell took on the role of his mother after actresses Liv Tyler and Claire Danes passed it on. Set during the Cold War in the early 1980s, Russell plays one of two Soviet KGB officers who are posing as a married American couple living in a US suburb.
The actress was heavily pregnant during the fourth season so the filmmakers set it during winter in order for her to conceal this by wearing heavy coats. CGI was also used periodically to remove her bulge. Her role garnered her
Golden Globe and Primetime
Emmy nominations for Best
Actress in a Drama
Series.
5 WAITRESS (2007)
This quirky independent cooking comedy drama sees Russell as a woman stuck in a small town, loveless marriage, dead-end job and an unwanted pregnancy. She then sees a way out after falling in love with her gynaecologist played by Nathan Fillion. A musical based on the film, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, opened on Broadway in 2016. Felicity co-creator Matt Reeves, who directs this epic sci-fi movie reboot of the Planet Of The Apes movie franchise, cast Russell as the female lead 16 years after he did the same for her on that popular TV show. Here she plays a nurse and wife of the leader of the small group that forms a strong bond with a clan of apes led by Caesar.