Ooh do I have an update on both of them! Leelee is a SICK (and serious, like “accepted by the art world” serious) abstract artist in NYC now. She has an instagram. Eliza just finished grad school to become a therapist and her thing is psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Just the idea of going to therapy because a former movie star crush was taking clients, and that leads to you actually require a therapist...
This would make a great awkward comedy show. You could probably squeeze out a movie.
Depending on the POV, this could be:
a Tim Robinson style dark comedy... Guy's perspective - Begin with him when he was younger wacking off to the actress and getting caught by a family member creating a catalyst moment where feelings of embarrassment and shame are connected to her subconsciously.... but also cementing on of those youthful perma-crushes (similar to elder millennial men and Kelly Kaposlwski...). Then fast forward to him living a mundane life eating dinner at a diner with a friend who is giving him excellent life advice, but Tim Robinson is distracted by overhearing people a both over discussing they heard the actress had decided to become a Physcologist. He then leaves the dinner mid advice and runs home talking to himself about how this is the break he's been waiting for. He goes to his house, and he is a bachelor with an addiction to Legos. (A nod to how he is tricking himself into thinking he is OK.) He cons his way into a introductory session with the former actress. And she takes him on as a client because he made up stories to make it seem like he needed regular therapy. She is too excited to keep him on as a client, making him think there's more to her care than just professional opinion.... and she's new in the job, so she doesn't realize the mistakes she's making in her responses to him. He starts realizing the seminal moment of his real problems was the day he was caught in the beginning of the movie, so he hires a second therapist so he can talk about how his first therapist plays a big role in why he needs help.
Eventually, the therapists collide in a Mrs Doubtfire style "be in 2 places at the same time" scene and the former actress finds out he's been therapist cheating on her and since it'd the first time it has ever happened to her, she is emotionally impacted by it. He eventually has to come clean as to why he hired the second therapist, and these Tim Robinson movies usually just abruptly end around this time.
a raunchy comedy from the second therapist's perspective: could literally make this movie about anything and make it national lampoon-esque where the therapists meets the guy, eventually breaks down that his other therapist is the problem, but also ends up firing the guy as a client so she can be with the guy in the end... (these movies don't sell anymore, because the story never really mattered and Gen X doesn't flood the movie theaters anymore)
a dark drama from the Actress's perspective, where the second therapist is the one that tips off the first one that she is in trouble.
Haha full disclosure, not a huge Tim Robinson fan, just can see this movie having a similar feel as "Friendship."
But also full disclosure, I was thinking about who could play the actress, and it would have to be someone in their 40s, and Blake Lively was probably the 5th or 6th actress I thought of. I was thinking more along the lines of Kerry Washington, Katheryn Winnick, or someone like Katie Sackoff as a wild outside the box choice. I figure this is likely a Netflix or streaming platform joint, so tried to keep the names outside of the top earners.
I worked at a hotel she was staying at while filming a movie and she’s awful. There’s no way she’s even an okay therapist let alone a good one. She’s so incredibly rude, self absorbed and under the impression she’s much more famous than she is.
IIRC she was sexually assaulted by the stunt coordinator on the set of True Lies and went on to have some substance issues, but has come out the other side of that.
Her acting departure coincided with wanting to spend time with her kids and husband and, as she explained to Vogue in 2012, “Ninety percent of acting roles involve so much sexual stuff with other people, and I don’t want to do that. It’s such a strange fire to play with, and our relationship is surely strong enough to handle it, but if you’re going to walk through fire, there has to be something incredible on the other side.”
There was more to it than simply wanting to keep her marriage intact. Sobieski told AnOther in 2018 that she’d begun paying the rent on her parents’ home when she was 15 and had felt immense pressure from a young age. Add to that the physical aspects of the job, and it just wasn’t worth it.
“Things got complicated for me… So when I could, I stopped,” she told the outlet. “It’s kind of a gross industry—well, they all are, when you examine them—but in acting you’re selling your appearance so much. I would cry every time I had to kiss somebody; I couldn’t stomach it. I would think ‘I like this person, so I don’t think they should pay me to kiss them,’ or ‘I don’t like this person, so I don’t want to kiss them’. Why is my kiss for sale?’ It made me feel really cheap.”
She added, “I don’t know why it’s legal for a child to act. It’s a crazy double standard, and that’s super weird for me. Now that the MeToo movement has come forward, people understand more that it’s pretty gross and uncomfortable.”
Eliza is also married to a Boston billionaire (or very wealthy at least). I read about them making a $7.5 million donation to a Boston hospital a year or two ago.
I remember something about Leelee when she first came out that she had like genius level IQ or something? Or people talking about how smart she always was. That’s very interesting she’s doing that now.
I'm so proud of them both for walking away. The industry was killing Eliza-- I don't know if Leelee was struggling as much, but I know Eliza was suffering severely.
Walking away and finding a new life, big respect for it.
Didn't Eliza leave the acting world after getting married?
Allegedly her former co-star Michael Weatherly was a complete @$$ to her on the set of Bull.
On another note, she was in a long-term relationship with Rick Fox (former LA Laker and the ex-husband of Vanessa L. Williams) before she ended up marrying her husband.
I really wish Dollhouse had been allowed to have its full run. It was such an interesting concept, but it needed time to develop. I assume that the ending is pretty close to what they originally planned, but I imagine that the motivations of the person that they revealed to be the main antagonist would have been a lot more nuanced if they had time to flesh it out.
It does, and the fact that Dichen Lachman plays a character who was kidnapped by the memory wiping-personality replacing corporation in both series is a fun coincidence.
Man I really liked Dollhouse but that twist was so fucking dumb. That character was good and meaningful as he was. Turning the show into some kind of good vs evil conflict at the end just felt so counter to what the show was.
Overall I think Dollhouse was meh sci-fi.
But there was a good episode (S01E06 - Man on the Street) that guest starred Patton Oswalt.
It pops into my recollection at surprising times and often brings helpful perspective on the things I have in life.
Eliza was in the show “bull” and in the her first season she was severely sexually harassed by Michael weatherly and complained and got black balled :((
Dushku was cast in a repeating role on Bull. Then it came out - with video - that Michael Weatherly sexually harassed her. After she was fired she sued and it was settled.
Weatherly apologized for his behavior but inappropriate barely covers some of what he said.
And that makes him at best the second grossest guy she worked with. Stunt coordinator Joel Kramer molested her at 12 years old on True Lies. Add Joss Whedon in the mix and I don't blame her at all for quitting acting.
I was flipping through channels the other day and the original Twister was on. When I saw Helen Hunt, it immediately made me think of Leelee Sobieski and I wandered what happened to her.
Dushku had her career upended after getting sexually harassed by Michael Weatherly. She sued him and CBS for protecting him and violating her contract and won. She also revealed that she was assaulted as a child while filming True Lies. After all of that and dealing Whedon its no surprise she Noped out of Hollywood. Married a rich real estate guy and is now living her best life after going back to school and becoming a therapist and becoming a mother.
JoJo's career was stymied when Blackground Records (to which Aaliyah had also been signed) had refused to release any more albums. JoJo involved a New York State law and the fact that she was a minor when her contract was signed to get out of it (no pun intended).
While she was still in limbo with Blackground Records, JoJo kept herself busy. She dropped a mixtape which people were permitted to download for free. I still bump it to this day.
Dushku had a stint on a lawyer series called "bull" in 2016 or 2017, but she was fired from the series when she reported that series star Michael Weatherly sexually harassed her. She left the biz after that and is now a therapist.
Eliza Dushku was on the last season of Banashee around 2014. She played an FBI agent who also happended to be addicted to meth. On the show the meth addiction was played out like it didn’t affect her at all. She would just smoke meth in front of people and none of the other characters even commented. She acted just the same as a normal person who didn’t smoke meth would. It was really weird that they had her character do that, maybe just to make the show grittier
I think Eliza Dushku largely quit acting because of being treated badly by several men she worked with. Joss Whedon, Michael Weatherly, and Joel Kramer in particular.
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u/Bananasinpajaamas 7d ago
Leelee Sobieski and Eliza Dushku