Lewis is generally a welcome addition to most films – she’s known for taking smaller roles in comedies like Starsky & Hutch and Old School – but this seems like a vanity project on the surface. Not so, says Lewis, since “In music, your fan base is everything.”
She did convincingly portray a rock star in Kathryn Bigelow‘s underrated 1995 futuristic thriller Strange Days. So there’s that. There’s also the undeniable fact that she has over a hundred rock gigs under her belt, with Juliette and the Licks and The New Romantiques. Even if her music is not likely to change the course of rock ‘n’ roll history, she has performed in Redding, Leeds, Brazil and on the Warped Tour.
It’s easy to shoot down a movie star’s musical aspirations. The roll call of rock shame? Try Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp, Billy Bob Thornton and Russell Crowe. They’re all better actors than, say, Jack White, but really, who rocks harder? I like Juliette Lewis, though, and I kind of hope she takes the Joaquin Phoenix/I’m Still Here meta-route with this, although that’s not the most likely scenario.
Still, there’s no denying her passion. In her own words:
“I knew when I was 28 that I had to keep pushing myself into areas where I felt uncomfortable and exposed,” Lewis said in an interview in Toronto this week. “I’ve always been interested in living dangerously so going into music like this has sort of been my unleashing my love affair with my audiences — a joyful middle finger to the world. I have a real muscular voice that gets compared to AC/DC.”
Right on.
Do you buy Juliette Lewis as a rocker chick? Would you see this documentary?