Remember Faith Hill’s Big Screen Debut?
Faith Hill's movie debut was highlighted by a scene in which she didn't even appear on screen.
Hill took on her first-ever film acting role in Frank Oz's 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives, which starred Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Glenn Close and Bette Midler. The movie's plot hinges on a group of seemingly perfect wives in an idyllic town called Stepford, who are actually remote-controlled robots who have been designed and programmed to serve their husbands' needs. The film was a remake of the 1975 classic of the same name, which was based on the novel by Ira Levin.
Hill portrays Sarah Sunderson, and while she has several featured scenes, perhaps the most memorable and, uh ... climactic moment of her performance is during a scene in which Kidman's character and two friends decide to visit Sarah unexpectedly. They let themselves into her house, and while headed up the stairs, they overhear her having very noisy sex with her husband, with Hill vocalizing the parts offscreen in a comically exaggerated way.
As Sarah starts downstairs, the trio hide, and they happen upon a remote control labeled "Sarah." When they press the buttons at random, first the character's breasts suddenly enlarge, and then she starts walking backward up the stairs before finally falling down in her tracks, giving them one of their early clues that something isn't quite right with the wives in Stepford.
That scene proved pivotal in establishing Hill's comfort level with her much-more-experienced co-stars, when she ran through it during an early table reading of the script.
"It's very vocal," she says. "I remember I'm sitting here, and I had forgotten that I had to do that. So as everyone's reading their part, I realize, 'Oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to sit here next to Glenn and Nicole and everybody, and do this! How am I gonna do this?' But I did it. I thought, 'What do I have to lose? I'm here, I've gotten the part, I'm just gonna have to go for it.'"
That can-do spirit won over her fellow actors.
"I'm sitting next to Glenn, and it's three paragraphs long, this scene. And afterward she looked at me, and she had this look on her face like, 'Okay, you're in,'" Hill recalls, bursting out laughing.
Though The Stepford Wives wasn't well-reviewed, it certainly created a memorable movie moment for Hill's big debut.
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