Brittany Murphy’s filmography is a testament to her talent and versatility as an actress. From her breakout role in “Clueless” to her powerful performances in “8 Mile” and “Girl, Interrupted,” Murphy’s career spanned over a decade and showcased her ability to captivate audiences with her charm and authenticity. Although her life was tragically cut short, Murphy’s cinematic legacy continues to live on.
In this post, we’ll take a retrospective look at the filmography of Brittany Murphy, examining some of her most memorable and noteworthy roles. Join us as we celebrate the life and work of this beloved actress and explore the cinematic gems that have made her an enduring icon of Hollywood.
The Early Days of Brittany Murphy
Being in the entertainment industry was in Brittany’s bones. She’d dreamt of becoming an actress and a Broadway star for years. She idolized Diana Ross and Barbara Streisand and Clara Bow. Later when she got a dog, she would name it Clara.
When she was old enough, she started taking dance lessons in Edison, New Jersey. And when she was nine years old, she starred in her first musical Really Rosie.
She was young and her move to Los Angeles was still a few years away, but she had a plan. The night of the play, a local news network interviewed her, and she laid out her big aspirations:
“I’m going to get an agent and do commercials and work in New York. Then I’m going to move to Los Angeles, be in movies in Hollywood and then come back and do Broadway. Then I’ll probably have a huge musical career. I am going to change the world.”
And what did she do? She went to New York and hired a manager and started to do commercials. The very commercials she said she would.
She moved to LA with a chaperone in 1991 but after doing a lot of auditions that went nowhere, she called her mom and asked her to move out to LA with her.
Her mom sold all the furniture and left her job to join Brittany in California. And then, one week later, Brittany would land her first TV Series, “Drexell’s Class.”
“Drexell’s Class “was a sitcom about an ex-corporate raider who teach elementary school as part of his suspension after he’s caught dodging taxes. Not the most interesting show, no. But who cares?
Brittany would play the youngest of his two daughters. It was her first experience on a sitcom, and she was already a natural. Drexell’s Class didn’t last very long. The show was marred by subpar writing and low viewer ratings. Not even 2pac and Digital Underground could save it.
But that didn’t deter Brittany. She would do an episode of “Kids Incorporated,” a show used as a vehicle to showcase the singing and dancing talents of kids. The episodes had loose plots that were written around musical interfaces.
Brittany never made it to being part of the recurring cast. She was only in one episode. Season Eight, Episode Three. She played Celeste, a girl who cancel her birthday party after her father gets laid off from his job.
In 1993, the same year she would book her second TV show, her first movie appearance would happen. In a drama called “Family Prayers,” she plays a girl who the main character rejects during a game of spin the bottle. The role wasn’t a speaking part, but it was hard not to be drawn to her in the scene. Her big brown eyes, so magnetic and full of life, were impossible not to be fall into.
The show she would be part of that year was a spinoff of The Torkelsons TV series “Almost Home.” Unfortunately, this show was also short-lived but for Brittany, it was only the beginning.
Between 1993 and 1995, she would have guest spots on a range of different shows from “Party of Five,” to “Sister, Sister”. Around this time, she was also in a music group called “Blessed with Soul.”
There are no official recordings of their music but there is surviving footage of one of their performances from 1993.
This didn’t last much longer either. And to any other young actor, they may have thrown in the towel. But Brittany never did.
Majority of the films Brittany did during this period, throughout the ‘90s, were small budget independent films that, after premiering at film festivals, didn’t always see the light of day, until years later.
Mainstream Career of Brittany Murphy
“Clueless” would be her first mainstream studio film. The 1995 classic is often credited for being Brittany’s big break into the industry, but it still took a while thereafter for her career to pick up steam.
When it was over, she did more TV guest spots including one on the “Clueless series,” a few thrillers and a TV movie called “Double Jeopardy” She played a character named Julia who is murdered by a policeman twice her age after bearing his child.
It was your standard Lifetime Original crime movie but naturally, Brittany gave it something extra.
She did this with every movie or show she was in. She could give the flattest characters the fullest life and make it all look so easy. She got her first leading role as Reba in the dark comedy “Zack and Reba” opposite Sean Patrick Flannery.
Fun fact: This movie also featured Debbie Reynolds who recalled the production in her memoir Unsinkable. She said Brittany was a dear, but she didn’t get to work with her that much and that Flannery was difficult to work with because he was a wannabe James Dean who refused to do rehearsal. And that is why Murphy MacManus was the better twin guys.
Brittany in Late 90s
Toward the end of the ‘90s is when Brittany’s career got really interesting. She took on dark comedies like “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” she played the second lead in the Oprah produced remake of the 1962 film David and Lisa opposite Lukas Haas.
She showed her dramatic chops with the historical drama “The Devil’s Arithmetic”, and she did her first Broadway show opposite Allison Janney for “A View from the Bridge.”
At the tail end of the decade, she would become best known for portrayal as Daisy in the James Mangold film “Girl, Interrupted.”
She had also started doing voice work on the award-winning animated TV series “King of the Hill” as Luanne and, fifteen other characters.
Most of the films she did post Clueless were still supporting roles. She never really got to play the lead that often. Brittany would later say that, as a brunette, she struggled to get acting jobs. And yet even when forced to the sides of the screen, she couldn’t help but catch your eye.
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Brittany Murphy’s Work in Early 2000s
Brittany wouldn’t land a leading role in a studio film until the year 2000 when she starred in the subversive horror “Cherry Falls.” There wasn’t a whole lot said about this movie upon its release. It had a few positive reviews but it still kind of went quietly into that good night, falling under the shadow of more popular horror films like Final Destination.
Part of this was because it was given a TV release in the U.S. as opposed to a theatrical release and had little promotion. As time has passed, people have been able to appreciate it. It’s a story about a small town that’s disrupted by a serial killer who’s only murdering virgins. So, everybody starts getting laid if they weren’t already. It’s clever and Brittany is absolutely stellar in it.
In 2001, she would act in “Sidewalks of New York”, the Edward Burns directed comedy.
Burns, who had only known Murphy from her work on Clueless, admitted that he didn’t really consider casting her initially.
“I knew Brittany from ‘Clueless.’ Quite honestly, I couldn’t see [casting her] at first. Then I saw ‘Girl, Interrupted’ and a clip reel of some scenes. Clearly this is an actress who can do anything. She’s one of those talents that is a real chameleon. She was able to be vulnerable without playing the victim–I don’t know how you do that, but she does.”
“Summer Catch” and “Don’t Say a Word,” both of which are subpar movies, were made more memorable by her small appearances in them.
The most riveting part of the inane thriller “Don’t Say a Word” is when her character, Elizabeth Burrows, is supposed to deliver the line: “I’ll never tell.”
In the script, there was no specification on how to deliver the line exactly. And Brittany, who was always approaching scenes in different ways and never did the same thing twice, improvised singing the line instead.
She was something of a creative genius like that, something that no one around her seemed to appreciate. Film critics often dismissed her, casting directors thought she was just ditzy and amongst the actors in her cohort, she always seemed to be taken less seriously. Even though she proved time and time again that she had the range.
Gary Fleder, the director of “Don’t Say a Word,” had this to say:
“I would compare her to Edward Norton, they’re both incredibly smart, highly gifted actors who are very instinctual. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her repeat herself on-screen. And like Edward Norton, she can play a lead with ease, but also do great character work. You can’t predict who’s going to be a star, no one can, but she exudes so much humanity, I see her right up there.”
It wouldn’t be until 2002 when “8 Mile,” the semi-autobiographical film about Eminem, premiered that people started to take notice. Brittany was made to audition three times before she actually got the part.
And when she did, she underwent six weeks of intense rehearsals. But she loved it every minute of it.
Alex, her character in 8 Mile, is a total deviation from anything she had done previously. The movie would boost her career in a big way. Brittany said herself that it was a lot to get used to people knowing her first and last name in the way that they suddenly did.
she wasn’t fully prepared for the kind of limelight she was in. Constantly scrutinized. And if people weren’t paying attention to her work before 8 Mile, after the movie, it was worse in a way. While it gave her more leading roles, it also made her subject to tabloid rumors.
Unconcerned with the career she was aiming for or the career she had, people asked her questions about who she was dating. Did she date Eminem? And when she co-starred opposite Ashton Kutcher in the romantic comedy ”Just Married,” was she dating him?
In 2003, Brittany was interviewed by her “Riding in Cars with Boys” co-star Drew Barrymore for Interview Magazine. Drew posed the question: “What is your idea of perfect happiness?” To which she replied:
“The thing that I’m learning right now is self-preservation. Over the past year I’ve discovered if you keep on giving and giving, you end up losing yourself. I think that learning to give and receive is the trick…I think the key to happiness is allowing ourselves to not feel bad or guilty for feeling it, and letting it be contagious. And to not be dependent on other people to create your own happiness.”
Her role in “Uptown Girls” is one of the best roles of her career. She acts opposite Dakota Fanning as Molly, the daughter of a dead rock star who has never learned to grow up. When she loses all her inheritance, she has to start facing real life which includes getting a job as a nanny to the uptight, too old for her age.
The movie was far from a commercial success or a critical success and to anyone during that time, this would look like just another flop. But over the years, it has become a staple of slumber party theatre.
She proceeded to act in “Sin City,” “Love and Other Disasters” and the indisputable masterpiece “Happy Feet” in which she finally got to sing.
To be fair, she did sing occasionally in other films like “Riding in Cars with Boys” and “Little Black Book”.
She had been looking for a project where she could do some powerful acting and some powerful singing for a long time. Happy Feet was perfect. And…There had been a Janis Joplin biopic in the works.
She auditioned with this rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee” that blew everyone away. And she won the part. But unfortunately, the production fell through.
Criticism and Rumors About Brittany Murphy
Quite suddenly, after years of directors and co-stars deeming her a joy to work with and a brilliant collaborator, she was branded as being “difficult.”
Her director on “Abandoned,” one of her last films, recalled the first day he met Brittany.
“I went into her trailer, and she just came up to me with those Brittany Murphy eyes and just gave me a big hug and said, ‘Thank you so much for having me’ before I could say, ‘Thank you for being a part of it.’ It was the sweetest thing. It hurts me to hear all this salacious stuff because my experience with Brittany. was really one of my best experiences with an actress.”
The D for “difficult” has been the scarlet letter used to shun and banish actresses from the industry since the dawn of Hollywood. For some actresses, it has merely stalled their careers and for others, it ends them completely.
It’s been speculated that this sudden change was because of the tabloid journalism that churned out story after story about her. The tabloids tore her apart if she gained weight. When she lost weight, they tore her apart for being too thin and then alleged that her weight loss was due to drug use.
They called her coke addict so often that Brittany had to finally address it in 2005, saying that she never touched cocaine and she didn’t know where the rumours were coming from. But it was too late.
The rumor was enough for studios to brand her as a liability. And the work dried up. Brittany was never caught with drugs, no one had ever seen her doing drugs.
There wasn’t even the slightest bit of evidence that she was using cocaine.
Her once adored personality, her fast way of talking and her natural giddiness, was condemned as being proof that she was a user. It would have been bad to attack her this way if she’d been using illegal drugs. It was a little worse because she wasn’t.
In 2016, it was reported that there were no traces of illegal drugs or alcohol in her system. And no history of abuse of drugs. They attacked her for every little thing, straight up lied about her affairs and, as a result, it was hard for her to get work. Because she was a “bad look.” It isn’t far-fetched to presume the tabloids and the people behind them played a hand in the setback of her career. And after her career was set back, they blamed her for it.
In 2008, Brittany was leaving a fashion show when photographers and reporters flocked to her.
According to The Cut magazine, Brittany refused an interview with one reporter by gently placing a hand on the girl’s arm and saying, “Not for that magazine. Your magazine hurt my life.”
Brittany quickly took it back and told the girl it wasn’t her magazine after all. While reporters saw this as her being all over the place, you can’t help but wonder it was one of the few times she tried to stand up for herself and she felt immediate regret.
She could probably see the articles that would be penned after this incident. That she was a bit*h, that she was difficult. So, she apologized. Right after this, she begged a photographer to retake a photo that she feared was ugly.
She knew if she looked wrong in the slightest, another story would be invented. But she was right. The tabloids did hurt her life and as a result, she worried about every little thing she did because it was all so scrutinized. Friends of Brittany have presumed that part of the reason she tried to self-medicate, to fix her illness on her own instead of going to a doctor, was that she was afraid of what would happen if anyone found out she was sick.
On the set of “The Ramen Girl,” Ackerman said she seemed in distress about how she would be perceived.
“She was very conscious of being liked and it was very hard for her to concentrate too long on any one thing. . .She had so many distractions that were in her own mind. I think a lot of it was fear.”
The Last Days of Brittany Murphy
Toward the end of her life, she was losing weight without intending to. She was sick. She was actually trying to gain weight and complained that she was too thin in one of her last interviews.
On her last movie “Something Wicked,” producer Scott Chambers, recalled:
“She addressed her weight with me on the first day we met. She apologized and said she’d been ill for about a week. After the first day she seemed to be a bit better. She was a trouper.”
Her career was promising and she was extraordinarily gifted but her talent was eclipsed by the rumor mill surrounding her.
Who was she dating? did she have an eating disorder? was she doing drugs?
And even after her passing, when most celebrities get a surge of posthumous celebration, her talent was eclipsed again. This time, by the circumstances surrounding her death.
In her life, the speculation of how she lived was more important than her work.
And in death, her tragedy became more important than her life. Her death has been used as a story for “Get Ready with Me” videos, her name becoming a digital campfire mystery, a conspiracy.
Brittany Murphy’s Death
On December 20th, 2009, Brittany told her mother that she couldn’t breathe, that she was dying and that she loved her. She was rushed to the hospital, but nothing could be done. She had been suffering with pneumonia and anemia without knowing.
Winona Ryder who had become a good friend of Brittany’s has only been able to speak publicly about her once in 2010 when she was interviewed about her career and spoke about Girl, Interrupted.
“I can’t watch the movie [Girl, Interrupted] now because of Brittany Murphy … I was very close to her before she died.”
The movies she did toward the end of her life aren’t the greatest but we unironically love watching them. We love seeing her at that time, seeing how her performances were because even though she was going through a lot, she still had that potential, and she still had that twinkle in her eye.
Sources:
Wikipedia contributors. “Brittany Murphy.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 September 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Murphy.
“Brittany Murphy | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos.” AllMovie, https://www.allmovie.com/artist/p227327.
“Brittany Murphy: The Star of 8 Mile and Her Lasting Legacy.” 10TenTalent, https://10tentalent.com.
“Brittany Murphy Biography.” Notable Biographies, https://www.notablebiographies.com.
