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 Main page > Askmen.com - Heather Graham

Heather Graham All-Star Ranking: Blue-eyed and angelic, with delicate doll-like features and long wavy mermaid blonde hair, actress Heather Graham has often played the bad girl who steals the audience's heart, her innocent looks in juxtaposition with her onscreen antics helping to make her an unpredictable and especially compelling presence. After debuting with a strong performance as a drunken dream girl in 1988's silly "License to Drive" (a vehicle for the Coreys--Feldman and Haim), Graham was hired by director Gus Van Sant for his gripping "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989).

Her performance as a young and doomed addict won praise and notice for this veteran of small TV parts (e.g., two 1987 episodes of the ABC sitcom "Growing Pains") as well as a Best Actress nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. The following year saw Graham take on the recurring role of Annie, an ex-nun who becomes the love interest of Kyle MacLachlan's Agent Cooper, in David Lynch's always strange series "Twin Peaks" (ABC). In 1991, she took on a more conventional role as a college student with parental difficulties in the unimpressive 1950s set musical drama "Shout". She returned to television that year with a starring role alongside Josh Hamilton and Anne Heche, as the young version of Jessica Lange's character in "O Pioneers!" for CBS. After reprising her role of Annie in the incoherent "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" (1992) the actress appeared in "Diggstown" (also 1992) and "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993), both roles playing up Graham's fresh-faced innocence. She went on to bide her time in features like the poorly received "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and the little-seen independent drama "Desert Winds" (both 1994).

2001 proved to be a solid year for Graham, who starred in the indie romantic comedy "Sidewalks of New York" opposite Ed Burns. Also in 2001, perhaps unwisely, Graham jumped on the teen gross-out train with the gigantic flop "Say It Isn't So." While the movie was produced by the legendary Farrelly brothers, it lacked any kind of a comic spark and was one of a few disasters signalling the end of the repulsive comedy genre.  Graham's reputation, however, remained intact after this small misstep, and she was cast as Whitechapel prostitute Mary Kelly in the Hughes brothers' film adaptation of the Jack the Ripper comic book "From Hell" (2001) opposite Johnny Deep. The actress equated herself well, although saddled with a faux British accent and improbably ravishing for a destitute whore in 1880s London. She next starred in the thriller "Killing Me Softly" (2002) opposite Joseph Fiennes and co-starred in the Indian-themed romantic comedy "The Guru" (2003), with up-and-coming actor Jimi Mistry, where she was cast again as a porn star--although this role was much lighter in tone.