An attractive blonde teen player of TV and film who bears a passing resemblance to Helen Hunt, Leelee Sobieski achieved her big screen breakthrough in 1998 as Elijah Wood's young bride in the disaster-themed hit "Deep Impact" and as the daughter of an expatriate family in the Merchant-Ivory production "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries". The latter in particular offered the young actress a meaty role as she took her character from puberty through adolescence and the scenes she shared with her onscreen father (Kris Kristofferson), who offered guidance without judgment, were quite moving. Sobieski demonstrated a maturity beyond her years that ranked with other former child players like Hunt and Jodie Foster.
The daughter of artist and a novelist, she was christened Liliane which was shortened to Leelee. Raised on a ranch in the Carmarque region of France and in Manhattan, Sobieski was spotted by a casting director who was visiting her school and was cast as Marlo Thomas' daughter in the 1994 CBS TV-movie "Reunion." She then played the daughter of a detective (Mark Harmon) in "Charlie Grace" (ABC, 1995) and made guest appearances on such sitcoms as "Grace Under Fire" and "The Home Court". Sobieski moved to features as Martin Short's daughter in Disney's "Jungle2Jungle" (1997) before landing her star-making roles. Director Stanley Kubrick also tapped the rising starlet for a supporting role in his much-anticipated "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999). The actress also earned critical plaudits and a Best Actress Emmy nomination for her strong portrayal of "Joan of Arc" in the 1999 CBS miniseries, though her pronouncement that she was the first virgin to play Joan gave grist to the tabloid mill.
Sobieski continued her fast and inexhaustible rise with a leading role opposite Chris Klein in the teen romantic drama, "Here on Earth" (2000), then played Tosia Altman, a young Jewish woman who sees her family deported to a Nazi death camp and joins the resistance movement inside the Warsaw ghetto in the NBC miniseries, "Uprising" (2001). Back in the feature world, she had a banner year in 2001, starring in the psychological thriller, "The Glass House," the cross-country road thriller "Joy Ride" and the dark comedy "My First Mister," playing a tattooed Goth girl who falls into an unlikely friendship with her rigid, middle-aged boss (Albert Brooks). In "Max" (2002), a fictional look at the life of Adolf Hitler as a failed artist before his rise to power, Sobieski was the tantalizing mistress of an art dealer (John Cusack) trying to convince the future Führer to channel his dark thoughts into his paintings.
Though prominent onscreen throughout 2000-2001, Sobieski began to settle into the background because of her matriculation at Brown University. Her career as a student, however, lasted only a year, as she put college on hold to return to acting. After appearing as the young Cécile Volanges in a miniseries version of the oft-adapted "Dangerous Liaisons" (Women's Entertainment Television, 2004), she costarred in the NBC movie-of-the-week, "Hercules" (2004), playing the half-man, half-god's main squeeze, Deianeira. Returning to features, she was part of an ensemble that included Nicolas Cage in "The Wicker Man" (2006), playing the curiously-named Sister Honey in a remake of the 1973 horror classic. She then signed on to star opposite John Rhys-Davies in "Dungeon Siege" (2006), an adaptation of the epic fantasy video game. |
