4 Movies Where the Actors Acted With Their Relatives and You Didn't Notice
Sometimes they were given roles of complete strangers to each other.
Cinema often turns out to be a family business – directors film their wives, star actors promote their children, romances start on the sets and families break up.
Today, we recall several examples of relatives or spouses appearing in joint films.
1. Melancholia, 2011
Justine is about to marry, but right at the wedding she makes a scandal and quarrels with her husband. The depressed woman is supported by her sister Claire. But a much greater danger is looming: the planet Melancholia is approaching Earth, and the whole world may come to an end.
Stellan Skarsgård is one of the favorite actors of Lars von Trier. His son Alexander also appeared in the director's experimental film D-Day.
And in Melancholia they acted together – the father got a small role as Justine's employer, and the son played the woman's fiancé.
2. Ricki and the Flash, 2015
Singer Ricki Rendazzo of the band The Flash was once a rock star, so much so that she left her family. But now her fame is a thing of the past. Her ex-husband tells the woman that her daughter Julie is divorced and on the verge of depression. Ricki decides to visit her family and realizes that she has become very distant from them.
Screenwriter Diablo Cody took part of the story from the life of her mother-in-law. Ricki was played by the brilliant Meryl Streep, who was about 65 years old at the time.
To add to the family atmosphere, Mamie Gummer was invited to play Julie – not only a talented actress, but also Streep's real-life daughter.
3. Donnie Darko, 2001
High school student Donnie Darko sometimes sleepwalks. One day, a man in a rabbit costume tells him that the end of the world is coming. Donnie wakes up somewhere on a golf course. And at home, he discovers that an airplane engine fell on his room that night.
Richard Kelly's paranoid mystical thriller made the young actor Jake Gyllenhaal famous – before that he was only known for his role in October Sky. And the role of his sister Elizabeth was played by the actor's own sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was also just starting out on her path to fame.
4. Sylvia, 2003
Sylvia Plath showed a talent for poetry as a child, but began to suffer from depression in college. She met the equally talented Ted Hughes, and the couple married and had children. But gradually Sylvia realizes that she remains in the shadow of her charming husband.
Gwyneth Paltrow was invited to play the talented poetess and her real mother Blythe Danner, also a famous actress, played Aurelia Plath.