Monday 16 February 2009

Whatever Happened To Rachael Leigh Cook?

Remember her? She was in a few episodes of "Dawson's Creek" as a girl who was in a short film Dawson was making. Then Dawson fancied her, making Joey seethe with jealousy/anger. Then she suddenly went "Kthxbai!" and left the Creek forever. (At this point I should probably admit that, yes, I did used to watch "Dawson's Creek". Yes, I know it was irritating as fuck, and virtually all the characters were detestable and the storylines were stupid and the whole "What the fuck? No teenager on the face of the planet talks like that!" factor, but I still watched it. Like that friend that you would always hang out with even though they were a cunt.)
Then she was in the film "She's All That" (a re-make of "Pygmalion"), one of the main flaws of which was that, if I remember correctly, in order to show that Rachael Leigh Cook was ugly, they put her in a sweater/cardigan, trousers, glasses and had her wear her hair up. So basically, she didn't look anything approaching ugly. (Another main problem was that the film was essentially a vehicle for Freddie Prinze Jr. Thank fuck you never see that smug talentless little prick doing anything anymore.) Oh, and they introduced her into the film by having her trip on some stairs and dropping her stuff. HAHAHAHAHA!!! ONLY UGLY GEEKY DICKS EVER FALL OVER!! WHAT A LOSER!!
Anyway, even though she was in total gash, I seem to remember that she was actually pretty good in them, and was certainly pretty good looking in them, and it looked like she was gonna be some sort of next big thing. Then she kind of disappeared. She was in "Blow Dry" & "Josie & The Pussycats" which pretty much no-one paid attention to, and I don't recall seeing her doing anything since. A quick look on IMDB tells me that she has been doing stuff, but I haven't heard of most of it (was very surprised to see that she was one of the voices in the "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children" film though!), which for someone who was at one point seemingly being primed for big things strikes me as rather odd. Where were her superhero movie parts? Where were her Asian horror remake roles? Where were her mainstream rom-com leads? She could've made a mint in mainstream rom-coms. She was a lot better at acting than a lot of the leads that are in them.
Maybe she decided to turn her back on the mainstream and just do what she wanted. I hope so. I hope she's not just been cast aside by a cruel industry and is happy doing what she's doing. I miss you Rachael Leigh Cook. Come back soon, ok?

3 comments:

Too broad a church said...

I like Dawsons creek my favourite series is three. I used to go to my local library in the summer to check out how pacey and joey were getting on whilst they were off sailing. It was the only thing I enjoyed doing in Consett

Too broad a church said...

On tinternet that is

Pipsywoo said...

The last film I saw her also featured Patrick Swayze (wait, hear me out) and Hilary Swank called 11:14 and it was brilliant!!!!

I highly recommend! It's a cracker!
But yes, I think it's safe to say she turned her back on 'ye olde mainstream' and good for her.