Jessica Biel Biography
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Jessica Biel rose to fame as the wholesome preacher’s daughter on the WB television show 7th Heaven, then gained greater notoriety for trying to get herself kicked off the show via a risquי photo spread in the men’s magazine Gear. Making such statements as, “Mary Camden is dead,” the 17-year-old Biel indeed got out of her contract to pursue a movie career; when that floundered, she found herself reconsidering her haste and returned for guest spots on the program.
Biel was born on March 3, 1982, in Ely, MN, then raised in Boulder, CO. She was first discovered at the 1994 IMTA Los Angeles Convention, which earned her a scholarship to Diane Hardin’s Young Actors Space in Los Angeles. Teen print modeling followed, and in 1996, Biel began her run as Mary Camden on the Aaron Spelling-produced 7th Heaven. Shortly thereafter, she was cast as Peter Fonda’s granddaughter in Victor Nunez’s rich character study, Ulee’s Gold (1997), and as Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ love interest in I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998).
But Biel grew tired of playing a good girl on television and tried to force the producers to fire her from 7th Heaven, claiming her pristine image was a factor that kept her from landing the role that went to Thora Birch in American Beauty (1999).
When the producers would not release her from her contract, she posed on the cover of the March 2000 Gear under the headline “Fallen Angel.” The images inside featured her sprawled topless on a bed and against a bathroom mirror, her hands providing insufficient cover in a manner that pushed even Gear’s lax standards for showing skin. The issue become one of Gear’s most popular ever, with terrific resale value on Ebay, and got Biel canned from the show.
However, the controversy and exposure did not immediately improve her film career. Biel’s first post-Gear role was as a bikini-wearing babe in the Freddie Prinze Jr. baseball movie Summer Catch (2001), but the film barely made a flicker at the box office after being bumped from its initial release date. Biel has since been making guest appearances in her initial Mary Camden role and has been cast in director Roger Avary’s The Rules of Attraction (2002).
In 2003 Biel began work on the third installment of the Blade film series, Blade: Trinity. Almost immediately after finishing it in 2004, she headed to Australia to shoot the action-thriller Stealth. Both movies were critical and box office failures. Stealth had a budget of $130 million but grossed $76 million worldwide. Biel also made a cameo appearance in the 2004 film Cellular.
Biel went on to audition for the role of Claire Colburn in the romantic comedy Elizabethtown, but the role eventually went to Kirsten Dunst. Biel was instead cast in a smaller role as Ellen Kishmore. She then played the title character in the indie film London.
Biel’s film career blossomed when she played a turn-of-the-century duchess in the period piece The Illusionist, co-starring Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti. The movie received mostly positive reviews and was a turning point for Biel, who had previously played more contemporary roles. She received the Rising Star Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and an Achievement Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival for her performance.
Biel played an Iraq War veteran in the 2006 film Home of the Brave, a drama about soldiers struggling to adjust back into society after facing the hardships of war. Her performance was well-received but the movie was a commercial failure. After being pulled from theaters twice, it eventually went to DVD in late 2007. Biel and Home of the Brave co-star Samuel L. Jackson were nominated for Prism Awards for their performances.
Meanwhile, after a three-year absence from television, Biel returned for what was to be the series finale of 7th Heaven (the show was later unexpectedly renewed at the last minute by The CW Television Network). The episode had already been initially shot, but producer and creator Brenda Hampton was determined to have Biel featured in the episode, so Biel agreed to shoot her scenes during a break from filming her upcoming 2007 movie Next.
In Next, Biel played alongside Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore. She then played in the summer comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, co-starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James. Like her earlier film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Chuck and Larry received mixed reviews, but opened its first week at number one at the box office. Biel also produced and starred in a short film titled Hole in the Paper Sky, which was released in 2008.
Biel was invited to announce nominations at both the Golden Globe Awards (with Rosario Dawson and Matthew Perry) and the Academy Awards in 2007. In late 2007, Biel signed on to play a stripper in Powder Blue, alongside Forest Whitaker (who also produced the film) Ray Liotta and Patrick Swayze.
At the start of 2008, Biel shot Easy Virtue, an adaptation of the play by Noël Coward. Like the play, the movie is set in the 1920s and Biel plays young widow Larita, who impulsively marries John Whittaker in France and must face her disapproving in-laws on returning to England. The film premiered in September 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Critics praised Biel for her performance, with Todd McCarthy of Variety saying Biel “more than kept up” with veterans Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth and praising her “sparkling” performance. The Hollywood Reporter described her performance as “an irresistible force of nature — a kind, witty, supremely intelligent and beautiful woman who … is capable of rejoinders that thoroughly undercut her opponent’s withering criticism.”
In April 2008, Biel began working on the political satire Nailed, with Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie centers around a woman who accidentally gets a nail lodged in her head, then travels to Washington D.C. to fight for better health care. Filming wrapped up in late June after several production shutdowns. She is also co-producing and starring in Die a Little, a contemporary adaptation of the novel by Megan Abbott. A filming start date has not been set. In 2009, Biel lent her voice to the animated science-fiction film Planet 51.
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