Summer Glau Wiki

Rewatching these few more intense Summer scenes reminded me BTW that she does act in the same touching, proficient manner as she used to, so its again not her fault that she was a bit unnoticable. The problem is that her scenes were too brief and disjointed which diminish their strength while other characters like the father overpowered her scenes with their longer,better organized scenes . Not the best way to utilize Summer to say the least.

They really misused her when the group discussed how to kill the alien possessed undead mammoth . It was the only time ever that Summer's acting seem forced to me. The rest of her acting in the movie would have felt natural out of a Syfy movie, but this scene was painful to watch.

She clearly couldn't do much. I felt this during the whole movie. The role is written for her to play, and she must play what is written. She can't start to dance when in the script there isn't dancing for example. If that particular scene was that badly written and there is no way to play it right then sadly even her acting will be forced. Even when she gets a bad role she manages to breath life into it usually but Jack seemed so average and badly written IMO that even she couldn't do it. Of course she is still cute and it may still be worth a watch if you love her just to see her in something different I guess. But thats only because of her personal cuteness and beauty( more you won't see).

There was nothing she could do, and that is why it was so particularly painful to watch. She should get well written parts and never be in roles that are meant for ham (and syfy original movies order ham by the ton).

TBH I don't even know how she got involved in it. She had plenty of better roles that time.

This confuses me too. It does not even make sense.

Podcast review of Mammoth at "Tuning in to SciFi TV" (click on the link to open the player):

http://tuningintoscifitv.com/?powerpress_pinw=2157-podcast

A few trivias i picked up while listening to the podcast :
* Jack first line was something about "captain" : Firefly allusion
* Jack's father was mocked several times on the movie because he regularly forget things and he said something like "oh, i forgot Jack's ballet class" : Ballerina allusion

Was she offered other parts that she turned down to take this role?

I believe that it must have been an incredible shock to Summer to go from the warm, nurturing, and supportive environments of Angel, Firefly, and Serenity to this piece of schlock. I still enjoy this film, primarily for Summer but also as a good example of B-grade SciFi. I imagine that she must have felt rudderless at times during the shoot. The experience on that set probably reinforced what people had told her in the previous projects. She has said that she had been told that she would never again have it as good. Chalk one up to experience (she learned a valuable lesson).

Part of her genius though is that she seems to very much the sort of person that makes her own luck. I know that sounds like saying there is no fate but what we make but more to the point, she works hard, she has values that are important to her, she is courageous, and she has an incredible ability to portray characters (all completely different and unique I might add). She is one gutsy gal.

She is one of those rare talents, like Catherine Hepburn, or the brilliant French actor Jacques Tati (at least once before you die, you must see Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot) who are often the most interesting thing about the work they are in. We watch them because they are so interesting to watch. Maybe I am going a bit too far in my assessment but we already know what people like Friedman and Whedon think about her. Their assessment is not that she has limited range nor that she only plays the same character. Instead, they chose her to portray essential, important, and very difficult characters that were absolutely indispensable for telling their stories.

Lastly, in considering the range of characters that she could play, let's be honest. She is five foot six, probably 90 pounds soaking wet, and built like a bird. She is not going to be suited to some roles but I don't see her general physical build as a limitation. Consider Sean Penn who is a small, lean, and compact actor with a very expressive face. He can wear a character like a tailored suit. He becomes the character. He tells a story in a believable and absorbing way. He is not cursed with a handsome face and no ability; instead, he has a gift for portraying a character and drawing us into his world. In my opinion, Summer is equally gifted and hopefully we will see her in more roles that allow her to stretch and grow.

I hope she does some live theatre at some point.

I don't know if she turned down something specifically for Mammoth, but I think she was a much higher profile actress at the time, even now that she shouldn't have been in a B-movie sci-fi like that.

We never know enough about what kind of roles were offered to her and what roles she turned down but I'm convinced that she turned down quite a lot because her selection of roles more or less show a pattern which is corresponding with her moral code. I don't think she was offered exclusively that kind of roles which are corresponding with her code so I think she passed on the rest.



Indeed! I hate this kind of image about Summer that she was made famous and beloved by Firefly or Joss Whedon or Friedman or whatever show or mentor figure they are coming up with. Summer earned every bit of fame and love herself! Her fame, our love for her, every trait which we love in her are Summers own alone. She earned everything with her hard work, her talent and with her fantastic personality alone. Whedon and Friedman could have cast everybody in their shows, they could have made star of everybody.

Would we love that person if she wouldn't be that talented, that sweet and kind and that beautiful as Summer? No, we wouldn't , and its highly questionable too how many people would still be talking about those shows if its not for Summer. So yes, I do think Summer forged her luck alone, against the industry's misconceptions, its opposition of Summers values, without much outside help she earned a place in Hollywood and in our hearts despite everything.

So despite what she and everybody claims she is an incredibly strong woman who was capable of extraordinary things relying on her inner power and talent alone, she didn't get anything for free unlike pretty much every one of her A-lister peers( like Miss Wooden Statue )!



I agree! Imagine, what would happen if we'd get to watch her in an environment when sheer talent is what only matters and she'd have a chance to show the full extend of her capabilities! I just hope I could watch it at least on a recording

This is exactly what i underlined in this post : http://summerglauwiki.com/forum/4-3-12335-16-1329519819.
Why Summer's career didn't take off after Serenity is still a mystery to me and we can just speculate about her choice of roles or the reluctance from Hollywood execs to see Summer's potential that Whedon and millions of fans saw at the time.
Or is it linked to the fact that Serenity did not do so well at the box-office; Universal Picture said at the time that a $80 millions revenue was necessary to make a sequel; most browncoats thought that this number would be reached within the USA only but reality proved otherwise.

Edit : Also if you see at 3:20 of the interview i linked to, Summer does not respond to a precise question on her personal growing fame but instead talk about the movie. Indeed Summer could work the "make it know" aspect of her job; this is what publicity agencies are for and Summer has one but honestly, i couldn't mention a single move from them.

Maybe that. Or that Serenity is only popular among sci-fi fans? TBH Summer shouldn't have started her career in a sci-fi. It seems like simply as a dead end for actors. I think thats one half of her problems.



Thats the other half. I love Summer and I think she is a brilliant person but she is terrible at advertising herself. Dismissing her accomplishments publicly? Hesitating to take high profile jobs served on a silver platter to her just because she doesn't feel ready(happened twice)? Having an incompetent agency? Disappearing for months so even we don't know what she is doing while loosing insane amount of notoriety in the process?

She is not good at it and thats a problem because advertising herself is essential IMO if she wants do do something more high profile.