How is the Oscar-winning actress navigating the commercial/creative waters in Hollywood? We take a look.
For a movie star who has made their mark, the "One for me, one for Them" stratagem is a good way of maintaining ones career path. By taking "one for them," i.e. commercial pictures that pay well even if theyre not hugely artistic, they can give themselves the freedom and clout to take "one for me," i.e. more creatively challenging/daring projects. Its the Matt Damon approach. The George Clooney approach. And it seems to have been, at least for the last six years or so, the Susan Sarandon approach.
Sarandon has reached that precarious age in Hollywood where good roles for women are even harder to come by than usual (and theyre already pretty hard to come by). In the 1990s, there were few actresses more prominent than she, but as the 2000s rolled on, navigating the waters of studio/indie cinema became something of a dance. How has she been doing lately? Lets take a look back:
2007
This was a THEM-heavy year for Sarandon. Coming off of her lead role in the HBO film Bernard & Doris, Sarandon went back into theaters as the wicked witch to Amy Adamss fairytale princess in Enchanted and Seann William Scotts mom, dating his childhood gym teacher, in Mr. Woodcock. Both were big, commercial, wide releases. In the Valley of Elah was much, much smaller, and so was Sarandons role, as she played grieving wife to grieving husband Tommy Lee Jones.
Advantage: THEM
2008
At $120 million, the Wachowskis Speed Racer was Sarandons highest-budgeted film to date, but it ended up falling well short of expectations. The failure wasnt on her shoulders, as her role was rather small. Her personal movie that year was the mother-daughter tale Middle of Nowhere. It didnt make much of a splash with the public at all, but Sarandon got to act alongside her daughter, Eva Amurri, so the experience was likely well worth it.
Advantage: THEM
2009
If nothing else, 2009 will be the year Susan Sarandon gave us "YOU HAVE A TOMB IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR HOUSE," and I am being 100% honest when I say its one of my favorite line-readings of all time. Its tough to gauge where The Lovely Bones sits on the HER/THEM scale. On the one hand, it was a hugely commercial prospect based on a hugely commercial novel, with big studio backing and a giant marketing pitch. Then again, who wouldnt have wanted to work with Peter Jackson after The Lord of the Rings? (Remember, before The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson hadnt yet directed The Lovely Bones.)
The other two movies she made in 2009 were definitely art projects. In The Greatest, Sarandon played one of her most common role types: the grieving mom (she was a grieving grandma in The Lovely Bones, but well count it). In Solitary Man, Sarandon plays the gravitational center to womanizing Michael Douglass world and really gives that movie a boost.
Advantage: HER
2010
Michael Douglas again would be front and center in Sarandons next film, the decidedly commercial Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. By now, the big studios refusal to write a role worthy of Sarandons talents is getting noticeable and frustrating. Later that year, it was back to HBO for another actors showcase, this time Al Pacino in You Dont Know Jack.
Advantage: THEM
2012
After an uneventful 2011, Sarandon came roaring back with her best year in recent memory. After collecting a paycheck in the most decidedly paycheck-cashing manner possible (i.e. co-starring in an Adam Sandler movie, namely Thats My Boy), Sarandon got an unexpectedly rich role in the Duplass brothers Jeff Who Lives at Home. She followed that up with critical favorites Robot & Frank and Arbitrage. She also took a chance with the Wachowskis again, taking a small role in Cloud Atlas (though her voice-over in the trailer will endure forever).
Advantage: HER
2013
Shes starting things off with one for THEM, the drug-dealer thriller Snitch, though the trailer promises what could be a juicy antagonist role for her. Beyond that, The Big Wedding definitely looks like a big release, but the Errol Flynn biopic The Last of Robin Hood seems like its more geared toward the art house crowd (she plays the mother of a teenager Flynn was accused of having a sexual relationship with), and Ping Pong Summer should, if nothing else, give her a chance to indulge her semi-famous love for Americas preeminent basement sport.
Advantage: ???
More from Tribeca:
One for Me / One for Them: Rachel Weisz
One for Me / One for Them: Channing Tatum
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How is the Oscar-winning actress navigating the commercial/creative waters in Hollywood? We take a look. 
