In a scene early in the new film “Janie Jones,” Elisabeth Shue’s character Mary Ann, a crystal meth-addicted ex-groupie, confronts Ethan, the aging rock star with whom she conceived the 13-year-old title character. Ethan, played with gorgeous emptiness and lazy arrogance by Alessandro Nivola, has never met his daughter and doesn’t even know she exists. Mary Ann is escorted backstage at a small club where Ethan’s band is set to play. He doesn’t recognize her, or at least pretends not to in front of his bandmates. Squirming uncomfortably in a too-short jean skirt and low-cut blouse, Mary Ann is a beautiful, sad, haggard mess. She’s a party girl who stayed at the party way too long, trying desperately not to appear so desperate. She’s found Ethan because she can no longer take care of her daughter, needs to get clean and wants Ethan’s help.
“You have a daughter,” she says, clutching her purse strap, her head cocked toward the ceiling, struggling to convey a dignity she no longer possesses. “She’s 13 years old. Her name is Jane but a lot of people call her Janie. So her name is ‘Janie Jones.’ ”
Mary Ann is sweating now, her face locked in a grimace that suggests physical pain. Ethan casually flicks the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray.
“Sorry, what’s your name again?” he asks.
It’s a devastating scene, agonizing to watch but impossible to turn away from, and easily the best thing about the film. Shue’s role in “Janie Jones” is a supporting one — she’s probably on-screen for less than 10 minutes altogether — but she makes a lasting impression.
“That scene is why I did the movie,” Shue, 48, said, interviewed on the phone from her home in Venice, Calif. “That was really, really tough. You have to be able to embody all of her history in one scene. I don’t think I’ve ever played a character that has that much self-hatred, that much inability to take responsibility for their life. Out of all the characters I’ve played, that was probably the most awful, darkest place I’ve ever felt like I’ve gone to.”
Shue’s performance begs a few questions, not the least of which is: Why is this talented veteran actress who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas” pouring her heart into such a small role in an independent film that — let’s face it — not that many people are likely to ever see?
“It’s hard because at my very old age, there’s a little less choice, so you have to navigate less and still try to find things that interest and excite you,” she said. “It’s a weird balance of trying to just work and trying to satisfy myself as an artist.”
Early in her career, such a dilemma seemed an unlikely future for Shue. She has been Hollywood’s “It girl” not once but twice. After starring in a run of successful ’80s studio films that included “The Karate Kid,” “Adventures in Babysitting,” “Cocktail” and the “Back to the Future” sequels, Shue hit the spotlight again in the ’90s with “Leaving Las Vegas.” Her Oscar nod seemed to be a signal to the industry that she had really arrived.
“At that time, I did have huge expectations,” she said. “I had more opportunities, for sure. I was finally seen as more complicated than I appeared to look on the outside and able to play more complicated parts. Unfortunately, at the time, those parts didn’t seem to be in abundance. When I look back, it wasn’t like I was turning down incredible parts.”
In the years following “Leaving Las Vegas,” Shue appeared in a series of mostly unmemorable studio films (“Trigger Effect,” “The Saint,” “Palmetto,” “Hollow Man”) and recently has migrated toward more independent fare (“Molly,” “Mysterious Skin,” “Don McKay”) though a breakout art-house hit has thus far eluded her (unless you include last year’s ultra-campy “Piranha 3D,” which was a modest success).
“It’s easy in hindsight to look at your choices and go, ‘What the f*** was I thinking?’” she said. “However, what’s the point? At the time you make those choices, you do your best work and hope for the best. If it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, you can’t change it so you can’t resent it. It’s part of your growth. So I don’t really go back too often and try to dissect them all and wonder why they didn’t work. It’s not really worth it.”
Shue resists blaming the adversity she’s faced in her career on Hollywood’s well-chronicled lack of good roles for women over 40, pointing to Annette Bening, Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon as examples of actresses whose careers have defied this accepted wisdom. Ultimately, a determination to maintain a life outside of acting — she has limited her work over the years so she could graduate from Harvard and raise three kids with her husband, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim — has had at least as much influence on her career path as anything else. It’s also kept her sane.
“When you’ve been around for 25 years or so, there are so many ups and downs,” she said. “You have one moment when you’re in a film that happens to hit and then everybody thinks you’re going to be the next big thing. Then you go away to college or have life interrupt your career and everyone’s like, ‘What happened to her?’ Then I did ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ and it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh, now I have a new career!’ Then you don’t make the right choices and it’s ‘Oh my god. What happened to her?’ [Acting] wasn’t something I put my whole life into. It never fully defined me inside. That’s probably saved me because otherwise I would’ve had much more pain over the ups and downs or taken it personally.”
With her youngest child now in kindergarten, Shue is looking forward to having a little more time and energy to devote to work. She’ll be appearing next year in the indie horror flick “House at the End of the Street,” and is currently working on director Curtis Hanson’s (“Wonder Boys,” “L.A. Confidential”) biopic of the late pro surfer Jay Moriarity, “Of Men and Mavericks.”
“I still have dreams of doing great work with great people,” she said. “That still motivates and excites me. It’s challenging when you go through those ups and downs. It forces you to either quit or keep at it. I like the philosophy of ‘just keep at it.’ ”