14 DAY TRIAL // Courtney Stodden, now 21, rose to fame after marrying a man older than her father when she was only 16. This not only saw her pegged with the label “Teen Bride” but also opened up to her new opportunities to launch a career in showbiz.
Since then, Courtney has done anything from music to reality television, adult magazines, strange endorsements, a web series and countless media interviews. Despite the attention, she never really broke in on the scene, and for the past few months, her career hit a roadblock.
Reinvention, a la Marilyn Monroe
Well, Courtney was ok with people making fun of her so far for her music and her silly videos she posted online, as well as for her staged paparazzi photo-ops, but she’s putting her foot down: the time has come for her to be taken seriously.
She never made a secret of her plans of becoming an actress, so she’s been taking acting lessons.
A diehard Marilyn Monroe fan, to whom she often compares herself, she posted the video below to her official website, along with an explanation about how she looked at the advice Marilyn’s acting teacher Lee Strassberg gave to the late screen icon: ditch the bombshell, go raw, and you will get people to pay attention.
Courtney did just that and created the character of Tamra Munn, a young drug addict who’s been spending most of her life on the streets, being passed around from man to man.
You can see her in the video below, *but please be advised that discretion is recommended because it contains some graphic language that might offend.
Tamra is dirty and un-glamorous, the exact opposite of Courtney. Unfortunately, Courtney forgot to ditch the acrylic nails or the diamond ring when she did her best at character acting, but overall, it’s still her most convincing piece of work so far.
Taking risks
In the same post, Stodden says that she’s eager to get into acting, to learn more, to “stretch” herself as an artist and to take more risks.
“I've always admired actors who attempt to get ‘inside’ their roles and actually seem to transform into the characters they portray,” she writes. “Charlize Theron's performance in ‘Monster’ is a great example. Hillary Swank in ‘Boys Don't Cry.’ Meryl Streep in ‘Into the Woods.’ Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight.’ Eddie Redmayne in ‘Theory of Everything’.”
Without a doubt, Courtney Stodden is daring to dream big. So… how does she fare?