Description：Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress, who enjoyed a career as a child model after a friend of her parents suggested that she should audition. She subsequently appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America. As a teenager, Connelly continued her career as a model, at the same time starring in films such as Labyrinth and Career Opportunities. She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in Darren Aronofsky's 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream.

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Born  Jennifer Lynn Connelly
December 12, 1970 (age 40)
Round Top, New York United States
Occupation  Actress
Years active  1984–present
Spouse  Paul Bettany (m. 2003–present)
Children  3

In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress along with a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's biopic A Beautiful Mind. Other film credits include the Marvel superhero film Hulk, the thriller Dark Water, the drama Blood Diamond, the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You.

Magazines including Time, Vanity Fair and Esquire, as well as the Los Angeles Times newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.

Life and career
Birth and early life

Connelly was born in Round Top, New York in the Catskill Mountains to Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father was a Roman Catholic with Irish and Norwegian ancestors, while her mother was a yeshiva-educated Jew of Polish and Russian stock. She was first raised in Brooklyn Heights, near the Brooklyn Bridge, where she attended Saint Ann's, a private school focused on the arts. The family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976. Four years later the family returned to Brooklyn Heights where Connelly resumed her education at the same school.
Child modelling and early movie appearances

When Connelly was ten years old, an advertising executive friend of her father suggested she audition as a model. As a result she joined the Ford Modeling Agency and began modelling in print advertisements, before moving on to television commercials. She appeared on the cover of the issues of Seventeen magazine of April 1986, August 1986, April 1987, and December 1988. In December 1986 she recorded two pop songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love", Connelly sang in phonetic Japanese as she did not speak the language.

After Connelly's frequent appearances as a model, her mother started to take her to acting auditions where she was selected for a supporting role as Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. In a scene of the film, Connelly had to perform a ballet routine. During the audition for the role, and without any knowledge of the dance, she made random movements imitating it that finally convinced the director to include her in the cast. Connelly described the movie as "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making". Her first leading role was as Jennifer Corvino in Italian giallo-director Dario Argento's 1985 film Phenomena, followed by the lead in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven the same year.

Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University in 1988 and 1989 before transferring to Stanford University in 1990 to study drama. There, she trained with Roy London, Howard Fine and Harold Guskin. Encouraged by her parents to continue with her film career, she left college and returned to the movies the same year.
1980s–1990s

Connelly gained public recognition with her next picture, the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth, in which she played Sarah, a teenager on a quest to rescue her brother Toby from the World of Goblins, ruled by King Jareth (David Bowie). Although a disappointment at the box office, the film later became a cult classic. Her portrayal was lamented by the The New York Times: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. Perhaps Mr. Henson gave too much attention to his puppets and not enough to developing a compelling performance in his lead actress. She looks right, but she lacks conviction and seems to be reading rehearsed lines that are recited without belief in her goal or real need to accomplish it. Since the film has only five human characters – Sarah, her parents, who appear briefly at the beginning, baby Toby and Jareth, the goblin king – Sarah's role is very important". Two years later, she starred as a ballet student in the Italian film Étoile, and portrayed college student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's Some Girls.

In 1990 Dennis Hopper directed The Hot Spot with Connelly cast as Gloria Harper, a woman blackmailed by Frank Sutton (William Sadler). The movie was a box office failure. In the same year, director Garry Marshall considered her for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, but ultimately felt that she was too young for the part. Connelly's next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities, in which she starred alongside Frank Whaley. Criticized for exploiting Connelly's image, the complaints were caused by an ad that showed a scene where Connelly rode a mechanical horse while being looked at by Whaley. The cardboard had written on it the phrase "He's about to have the ride of his life". In an interview with Rolling Stone during her sophomore year at Yale, Connelly stated: "I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about. That sure as hell wasn't a subject that I was trying to learn about from my professor". The big-budget Disney film The Rocketeer followed later that year, but failed to ignite her career. New York Magazine said of her participation : "Connelly is properly cast; she has the moist, full-to-the-cheek bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of that period, but she's a little straight too". She appeared alongside Jason Priestley in the Roy Orbison music video for "I Drove All Night" the following year.

During the mid-1990s, Connelly demonstrated her ability to handle more mature roles with a 1995 appearance in the role of a collegiate lesbian in John Singleton's Higher Learning. She subsequently began to appear in small budget but well-regarded films, such as 1997's drama Inventing the Abbotts set in the late 1950s in which she played the part of Eleanor, one of the three daughters of the town millionaire Lloyd Abbott. Her next appearance was in the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film Dark City, where her supporting role was backed by renown actors as Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland.
Early 2000s
A brown haired woman, wearing a white dress with small flowers detail and a black ribbon in her hips. She is also wearing pendants. Behind her there is a woman dress with a white shirt and a white skirt with big flowers details.
Connelly in Central Park, New York City, June 2005

In 2000, Ed Harris directed Conelly in the biopic Pollock in which she played Ruth Kligman, Jackson Pollock's mistress. The same year she appeared in her breakthrough film, Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, and based on the novel of the same name. Connelly played Marion Silver, Harry's (Jared Leto) girlfriend in a movie that also starred Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn and featured characters with different drug addictions who are all on the edge of mental breakdown. Critics acclaimed the individual performances, especially those of Connelly and Burstyn, due to the courage needed to demonstrate their characters' constant physical and mental degradation. Connelly stated that she was interested in the script for the depiction of the addictions of the characters and the impact in the life of their relatives and affections. Critic Elvis Mitchell wrote in The New York Times: "Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself down to a new weight class, and it's her performance that gives the movie weight, since her fall is the most precipitous. By the end, when she curls into a happy fetal ball with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement[...] Her dank realization is more disturbing than anything in the novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before done anything to prepare us for how good she is here." During 2000 she made her first television appearance as Catherine Miller, in the FOX drama series The $treet, about a brokerage house in New York City.

Also in 2000, she appeared in Waking the Dead, a film based on the 1986 novel of the same name playing Sarah Williams, an activist killed by a car bomb in Minneapolis while driving Chilean refugees. About her role, Connelly said: "Waking the Dead was the first film I worked on where whatever I did felt like my own thing. I was really trying to make something of the part and threw myself into it, so that meant a lot to me". The New York Times described her performance: "As Sarah, Ms. Connelly captures a burning ethereality and willfulness that are very much of the period. And she and Mr. Crudup connect powerfully in love scenes that convey the fierce tenderness of a relationship whose passion carries a tinge of religious fervor."

Connelly stated that she was excited after reading the script of Ron Howard's 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, which was loosely based on the 1998 biography of John Nash by the former New York Times' reporter Sylvia Nasar. She was hired by the film's producer, Brian Gazer, to portray Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician (played by Russell Crowe). Connelly was invited for an audition after her agent, Risa Shapiro, sent the producers a tape with a clip of the then-unreleased Requiem for a Dream. Other actresses who auditioned for the role included Rachel Weisz, Hilary Swank, Mira Sorvino and Frances O'Connor. Impressed by Connelly's charisma, she and the others were auditioned alongside Russell Crowe; Howard and the other producers noted the impressive chemistry between Crowe and Connelly and chose her for the part. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $313 million worldwide, and earned Connelly a Golden Globe, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Time called her performance "luminous" and Connelly stated afterwards: "[A Beautiful Mind] is the film I'm really proud of and really love." A.O. Scott of The New York Times said: "There is, for one thing, Ms. Connelly, keen and spirited in the underwritten role of a woman who starts out as a math groupie and soon finds herself the helpmeet of a disturbed, difficult man."

In Hulk (2003), she played Betty Ross, a scientist and former girlfriend of the main character, Bruce Banner. Connelly stated that director Ang Lee's philosophical perspective on the Marvel Comics superhero was what had sparked her interest in the project, she described Lee's perception as: "a family psycho-drama with hints of Greek tragedy". The film was a moderate success. It was followed the same year by The House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by Andre Dubus III. She portrayed Kathy Nicolo, an abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold at auction to the Iranian emigre Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley). The struggles between Kathy and the foreign colonel intensify throughout the story as the characters enter a downward spiral of events. The film was generally well-received worldwide and received critical acclaim with a BBC reporter commenting, " convinces totally as a selfish, desperate and lonely woman who confesses to her brother, 'I just feel lost'."
2005–2007
A brown hair woman signing autographs. She has brown hair and wears a red dress. At a side there are fans.
Connelly at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009

After a two-year absence from the film scene, Connelly returned in the 2005 horror/psychological thriller Dark Water, which was based on a 2002 Japanese film of the same name. She played Dahlia, a frightened young woman traumatized by her past, who moves with her daughter (Ariel Gade) to an apartment on Roosevelt Island in New York City where paranormal happenings take place. In his review, critic Roger Ebert wrote: "I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works".

Both films that she appeared in the following year were nominated for multiple Academy Awards. She played a major role in an adaptation of the novel Little Children alongside Kate Winslet, a movie which focuses on the relationship between Sarah Pierce (played by Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson). Connelly co-starred in Blood Diamond opposite Leonardo DiCaprio where she portrayed journalist Maddy Bowen, who is working on exposing the real story behind blood diamonds. New York Magazine praised her performance: "Connelly is such a smart, sane, unhistrionic actress that she almost disguises the fact that her character is a wheeze."

Her next appearance was as Grace in the drama Reservation Road with Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, a film that saw limited release in 2007. By her own account, the character she played in the movie proved tougher than any of her previous roles. USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna commented: "The strong performances of Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo [...] raise the film above overheated melodrama".
2008–2011

In 2008, Connelly was named the face of the Balenciaga fashion house's advertisements and appeared in their publicity shots for 2009, as well as becoming the new face of Revlon cosmetics. Publications such as Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times have included Connelly in their rankings of the most beautiful women in the world.

Connelly appeared alongside Keanu Reeves in the 2008 remake of the 1951 science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. She played Princeton University astrobiologist Helen Benson. Unlike the original movie, where Benson was a secretary and her romantic relationship with Klaatu was the focus of the story, the remake did not feature a love story and instead presented Benson in a troubled relationship between her and her stepson, portrayed by Jaden Smith. Astronomer Seth Shostak helped her understand the requisite professional jargon of her character.
A brown hair woman looks to the right. She is wearing a black sweater. In front of her there are two water jars and two microphones over a table with a grey carpet. Behind her there are logos of the comic conference.
Connelly at the press conference of Tim Burton's 9, at the 2009 Comic-Con International

She was included in the ensemble cast of the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You (which also featured Jennifer Aniston and Ginnifer Goodwin), based on the self-help book of the same name. Variety Magazine praised her portrayal: "Despite its layer of darkness Connelly gives a really rich performance as a woman whose principles back her into a corner". Her next project was a cameo appearance in the 2008 fantasy film Inkheart.

In 2009 she appeared in the costume drama biopic Creation, in which she played Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin, opposite her real-life husband Paul Bettany. Set during the writing of On the Origin of Species, the movie depicts Darwin's struggle with the subject of the book as well as with his wife, who opposed his theories, and their mourning for their daughter Annie. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Darwin's wife, a religious woman who disapproved of her husband's theories, is played by Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life wife, in the kind of casting that doesn't always work, but it does here. We believe in the Darwins' history together, their familiarity and affection. Connelly's English accent is also as good as Renée Zellweger's and Gwyneth Paltrow's. She doesn't get just the sounds right, but also the music and the attitude". She then voiced the character named "7" in the animation film 9.

What's Wrong With Virginia premiered on September 15, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the film Connelly portrayed Virginia, a mentally unstable woman who has a 20-year affair with the local sheriff, whose daughter then starts a relationship with her son. According to Cinema Blend "Virginia is propped up by a strong central performance, with Connelly doing some of her best work in years".

In 2011, Connelly starred in Ron Howard's comedy The Dilemma, which premiered on January 14 that year. Connelly played Beth, opposite Vince Vaughn. Although the Austin Chronicle's review noted "Vaughn nails it, and his nicely nuanced everyguy performance is aided by the always-excellent Connelly", the movie opened to generally negative reviews. Variety Magazine wrote: "Connelly, though a shade looser and more spontaneous than usual, seems stuck at an emotional remove from the action". Her next project, George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard, premiered during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In the film Connelly played Gwen, the wife of Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear); the couple are members of the Church of the Third Millennium, led by pastor Dan (Pierce Brosnan).
Personal life
A brown hair woman signs autographs for fans. She wears a red dress. Behind her there is a blond man dressed with a suit. The woman and the man are facing a crowd of fans.
Connelly and her husband, Paul Bettany at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

Connelly has stated that she prefers life with her husband and children when she is not working and in 2009 cited her family, with whom she lives in TriBeCa, New York City, as the most important thing in her life.

Her first son, Kai, was born in 1997, from her relationship with photographer David Dugan. In 2009, she stated "Becoming a mother has made all the difference in terms of learning to take more responsibility for myself and my life[...] Parenthood changed the way I do everything." Once a vegan, she gave it up during her first pregnancy. On January 1, 2003, she married the actor Paul Bettany, whom she met while working on A Beautiful Mind, in a private family ceremony in Scotland. The couple's first child and Connelly's second, Stellan, named after their friend, actor Stellan Skarsgård, was born the same year. She gave birth to her third child, Agnes Lark, on May 31, 2011 in New York City.

Connelly has contributed to several charities. On November 14, 2005, she was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education and featured in an advertisement highlighting the global need for clean water which encouraged donations for drilling projects in Africa, India, and Central America. On May 2, 2009, she participated in Revlon's annual 5k Run/Walk for Women along with Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel.

In 2010, along with TriBeCa neighbors including James Gandolfini, John Slattery, Casey Affleck, and Kirsten Dunst, Connelly filed a motion in the New York State Supreme Court to stop construction of a sanitation garage that was 5 feet (1.5 m) larger than legally allowed and that would increase truck traffic. Although New York City judge Jeffrey Oing initially granted a temporary restriction, the restraining order was lifted, and the appeals court later approved resumption of construction work.

Connelly speaks both Italian and French fluently.
Filmography
Year↓  Title↓  Role↓  Notes↓
1984  Once Upon a Time in America  Young Deborah Gelly  
1984  Phenomena  Jennifer Corvino  
1985  Seven Minutes in Heaven  Natalie Becker  
1986  Labyrinth  Sarah Williams  
1988  Étoile (Ballet)  Claire Hamilton / Natalie Horvath  
1988  Some Girls  Gabriella d'Arc  
1990  Hot Spot  Gloria Harper  
1991  Career Opportunities  Josie McClellan  
1991  The Rocketeer  Jenny Blake  Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1992  Heart of Justice  Emma Burgess  TV Movie
1994  Of Love and Shadows  Irene  
1995  Higher Learning  Taryn  
1996  Mulholland Falls  Allison Pond  
1996  Far Harbor  Ellie  
1997  Inventing the Abbotts  Eleanor Abbott  
1998  Dark City  Emma Murdoch / Anna  
2000  Waking the Dead  Sarah Williams  
2000  Requiem for a Dream  Marion Silver  Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female
Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
2000  Pollock  Ruth Kligman  
2001  A Beautiful Mind  Alicia Nash  Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
American Film Institute Award for Best Supporting Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Empire Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2003  Hulk  Betty Ross  Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
2003  House of Sand and Fog  Kathy Nicolo  Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
2005  Dark Water  Dahlia Williams  
2006  Little Children  Kathy Adamson  
2006  Blood Diamond  Maddy Bowen  
2007  Reservation Road  Grace Learner  
2008  The Day the Earth Stood Still  Helen Benson  
2008  Inkheart  Roxane  Cameo
2009  He's Just Not That Into You  Janine  
2009  9  7 (voice)  Character voiced for an Animated film
2009  Creation  Emma Darwin  
2010  What's Wrong with Virginia  Virginia
2011  The Dilemma  Beth  
2011  Salvation Boulevard  Gwen Vanderveer