Remember how fantastic Thora Birch was in American Beauty? And Ghost World? It really felt like she was going to be the Next Big Thing. Kinda like Wes Bentley. And Mena Suvari. Hmmm. I’m beginning to see a Beauty alum pattern. But now Birch is doing Z-grade schlock like Winter of Frozen Dreams (probably my favorite Huh? film title since Bruce Willis’ Tears of the Sun), a true-life crime drama where she plays a prostitute turned murderer. The trailer for the flick, costarring Keith Carradine(!), just recently popped up online. What do you think PopWatchers? Are you as bummed about Birch’s career path as I am?
Thora Birch: Latest victim of the 'American Beauty' kid-star career curse?
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Comments (1-30) of 63 Add your comment
I’m “bummed” about her unfortunate forehead; the entire article could’ve been written on it.
her career sucks now cause she did that awful dungeouns and dragons movie
I loved her in Fly Away Home, wasnt she also on a sitcom with Julie Louis-Dreyfuss?
Chichi, that’s too small to be a forehead. It’s a fivehead. Maybe five-and-a-half. Loved Thora in Ghost World, but just sayin’…
You’re right. She was great in “Ghost World” I thought was going to be a big star, instead it was her co-star, Scarlett Johansen that broke through with “Lost in Translation.”
I don’t think Thora Birch was in “Fly Away Home”. I believe that was Anna Paquin. I miss the young Birch days where she was in “Hocus Pocus” and “Monkey Trouble” and who can forget “Now and Then”? Those were the good old days. Thora could rebound though. She could make a comeback.
She was just a teenager when she did American Beauty. It’s often hard for them to keep the momentum going. And she’d be hardly the last ex-teen actress to spend time making small independent films after a blockbuster. Anyone follow Kate Winslet’s career path post-Titanic? The number of people who saw the films she made in the years immediately following (including her more recent successes) could probably fill a large bus. If Birch is still acting in film, then she’s being successful.
I think (based on looks and past work) that there might be a good sister movie to be made with her and Mary Lynn Rajskub.
From what I’ve heard the fault for Thora’s career decline may lie with mismanagement of her career by her ex-porn actor parents.
Andrew, I had that very thought. Ironic, isn’t it?
Come on! Any teenager can show her tits; that does not mean she’s taleted and that does not make her a star. What it means though, is how ignorant you are about the world that it would at all surprise you that “actresses” who start their “careers” by showin skin might end up in the Z flicks. Hang up your pen and go back to the school of hard knocks, dummy.
The forehead comments are stupid, the question was about her career.
The majority of stuff Hollywood releases is garbage anyway…maybe she should try theater.
The last thing I saw her in was a Lifetime movie, “Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story.” It was OK, but I think she’s a better actress than that. It doesn’t help that she’s not “conventionally pretty” like Lohan or Hilary Duff, who were starting to populate the silver screen around that time.
Well, let me stop typing and hang up my pen on that pen hook I keep by my desk. Then it’s off to Hard Knock School where maybe I’ll learn how to decipher Kikide’s incoherent ramblings.
I too thought she was gonna be the next big thing. Heres hoping she come back strong in her 30s.
There are plenty of young Hollywood actresses and it’s always a tough competition with more and more budding talent. I never considered Thora Birch to have a strong fanbase regardless of her talent.
The poster for “Winter of Frozen Dreams” screams, “Straight to DVD!!!”
Thora got “Silverstoned.” Mina Suvari, Christina Applegate, Alicia Silverstone, and Nikki Cox made a mint playing jail bait ingenues back in the day but their dirty-old-men fans dropped them when they aged out of Lolitas roles. Some like Juliette Lewis have carved out decent indie careers. For the rest their oblivion is well deserved. Lay down with Bobcat Goldthwaite and you come up with fleas.
lol this is vanessa hudgens in a year no more high school musical for her so now what oh she can be zac efron’s wifey and make bank that way
Nobody wants to hear a non-success story. But that said, I hate _American Beauty_ with a fire of a thousand suns. Talk about narcissistic tripe that is built upon lofty ideals shoehorned into plot contrivances worthy of a Three’s Company ep.
If you think about the set-up of Hollywood, once you get out of teenage years, there really aren’t many mature thoughtful roles for twenty-something women. People might have thought she was fantastic but if no one was prepared to write or produce roles that suited her, it was never going to happen.
love Thora 4-ever…
Love her!!!
Never thought Thora Birch was particularly pretty. She had a great rack and evidenced in “American Beauty” but that was about it.
I met Thora Birch at the 2003 Savannah Film Festival, and she was very ungracious. I believe her lack of a file career is proof of karma.
Nick -
Aren’t those just words dumb people use to make themselves sound smart???
Kind of strange when both your parents were porn stars….
Dan… if you have to look up any of the words in my post, then you deserve American Beauty. Enjoy your plastic bag in the wind!
dumb ppl most likely wouldn’t use those words, because they most likely would not know of them.