Amber Heard is certainly avoiding the limelight after losing the defamation case against Johnny Depp. There are heavy rumors that her role in Aquaman 2 is a fraction of what it was originally intended to be. To add to that insult, the actress is seemingly hiding in Spain and any acting career she had is now over.
But once upon a time, more than 15 years ago, when Amber Heard was just getting started in Hollywood she did a film that one of the most versatile stars of today, Emmy Rossum, refused. In a way, Heard should be glad, because that film launched her in Hollywood for her short acting career.
Why Did Emmy Rossum Refuse The Film That Began Amber Heard’s Career?
Emmy Rossum, best known for Shameless, was first approached for the film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. She was offered the role of the titular character but as per IMDb, she declined because she didn’t want to star in a horror slasher. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she revealed what she looks for while choosing her projects and characters. She said:
“The care about what you create is what resonates with me, but I’m not particular. For me, my image is changing constantly. For a character, I’m comfortable showing blemishes or imperfect skin. That helps me tell the story.”
Looking at the stats of the film. It looks like she didn’t lose much after declining it.
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) was made on a shoestring budget of $750,000 and only managed to net $1.89 million at the box office. Its Rotten Tomatoes ratings stand at 46% critic score and 31% audience score. As such, it doesn’t look like the film wowed audiences or critics in any way. However, it has a cult following because it did manage to subvert expectations.
Amber Heard Explained How Her First Hollywood Film Subverted Audience Expectations
In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Amber Heard explained that the Jonathan Levine-directed horror film, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, doesn’t follow the simple slasher formula. She revealed that audiences will come in with a set expectation of how the film will play out because there’s a hot blonde in it. But ultimately something entirely different happens. Heard said:
“It kind of mocks you a little bit and your expectations. It plays into, ‘Oh, you wanted to see a teen slasher film with the hot blonde,’ and it mocks you for that in a sense. It’s brilliant because it plays into the expectations and it plays into the fact that you went and saw it with those expectations and how wrong you were and how simple your expectations were for what it could have been.”
As for the reviews and scores of the film, Heard wasn’t too bothered by them because the film didn’t have an adequate budget to do anything too compelling. She said:
“We made it for no money and in a very short amount of time in the middle of nowhere. It was really, really difficult in terms of how they make things comfortable for big-budget films. This lacked everything and yet it is so much better than 99% of the things out there that are made for ten times as much.”
Today, Heard has pretty much been ostracized from Hollywood, and Aquaman 2 could very well be the last film of her career. However, it looks like she won’t be able to go out with a bang because there are rumors that the film isn’t as entertaining as the first one. It now remains to be seen how the film ultimately gets received by audiences.
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: THR, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb
