Robin Wright Looks Back on Her Career, From ‘The Princess Bride’ Audition to Jenny Snorting Cocaine in ‘Forrest Gump’

Will Tizard
·3 min read
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From auditioning for “every John Hughes movie that I never got in” to having Oliver Stone yell at her in a helicopter over her pronunciation of “’Nam,” Robin Wright confesses she’s seen Hollywood from all sides over the years.

Speaking to admiring crowds at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where Wright is being honored with the festival president’s award, the actor-director-producer recalled a career that began at age 14 — which, in many ways, is really beginning to take off now.

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Of “The Princess Bride,” the beloved 1987 Rob Reiner sardonic fairytale, she said, “It was not a hit.” Of course, the film made up for low box office scores with VHS sales and is now considered a classic.

She also suggested to a disbelieving crowd that she likely got the part because she had a flawless British accent, owing to an English stepfather, and because Reiner was just exhausted after hearing 250 other actors read for the part of Princess Buttercup.

In reality her acting chops even in her early 20s, when “The Princess Bride” was made, were well-proven, thanks to daily work on soap opera “Santa Barbara,” her first major role, which she compared to serving in the army.

People still had doubts about her after “The Princess Bride,” Wright said, including Stone, who was considering her for a role in “Born on the Fourth of July,” with Tom Cruise, when he got her into that helicopter for a ride.

FORREST GUMP, Robin Wright, 1994.
Robin Wright as Jenny in “Forrest Gump”

But Wright also had opportunities for major stardom and the cover of Vogue that she declined, she said, after having two children with former husband Sean Penn. Despite loving acting and the process of making movies, she said she has never craved massive fame.

“I’m a private person,” said the Dallas native, who later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Interviewed by Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, Wright said she has found a new love for the movies in directing. A major mentor, she says, was David Fincher, who brought her into the seminal Netflix hit “House of Cards” at a time when few yet understood the implications of streaming.

Fincher understands how to direct actors by “telling them a story” rather than demanding particular emotions, Wright said: “That’s the kind of director I want to be.” She added that unlike Fincher, most directors who have never been actors don’t really understand what actors do.

When asked what she felt was her proudest moment in another film that helped launch her career, “Forrest Gump,” Wright didn’t hesitate in naming the scene from the film in which her character, Jenny, has become a drug addict: “Snorting lines of cocaine,” she said, before trying to jump off a balcony. She joked that she still tends to get roles for “really unhappy” characters.

Rest assured, Wright says her next film role, in “Here,” helmed by “Forest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis, is bound to be more about love than misery.

As a kid, said Wright, she dreamed of being a nurse “somewhere around the world in a conflict zone.” These days, she’s proud of the philanthropy work she’s done to help women in Congo who are exposed to dangerous conditions on the ground. Her organization, Pour Les Femmes, has helped nudge Apple to use mostly ethically sourced electronics materials. “It’s a domino effect,” she said, explaining that other corporations are starting to join the cause.

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