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Leelee Sobieski (born June 10, 1983) is an American actress. An attractive blonde teen player of TV and film who bears a passing resemblance to Helen Hunt, Leelee Sobieski achieved her big screen breakthrough in 1998 as Elijah Wood's young bride in the disaster-themed hit "Deep Impact" and as the daughter of an expatriate family in the Merchant-Ivory production "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries". The latter in particular offered the young actress a meaty role as she took her character from puberty through adolescence and the scenes she shared with her onscreen father (Kris Kristofferson), who offered guidance without judgment, were quite moving. Sobieski demonstrated a maturity beyond her years that ranked with other former child players like Hunt and Jodie Foster. Sobieski was born Liliane Rudabet Gloria Elsveta Sobieski in New York City, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Salomon), an American novelist and screenwriter who also works as Sobieski's manager, and Jean Sobieski, a French painter and artist who appeared in French and Italian spaghetti Westerns during his youth, as well as dated actress Jean Seberg. Sobieski's first name, "Liliane", was the name of her paternal grandmother. Sobieski has a younger brother, Robert, who attends Princeton University. Sobieski's late maternal grandfather, United States Navy captain Robert Salomon, was Jewish and Sobieski grew up in a "pan-religious" family; she has said that she is "proud of her Jewish roots". She has claimed that her "great, great, great, great uncle" was John III Sobieski, one of the elected kings of Poland who saved Europe by riding West with the Polish army in 1683 to lift the siege of Vienna from Ottoman Turks. Sobieski speaks fluent French, although she does not speak Polish. Her father currently lives in France. Sobieski has described her upbringing as "bohemian", having often attended Shakespeare in the Park and art galleries in SoHo during her childhood. During this time, she attended Trevor Day School and spent her summers in her paternal grandfather's ranch in the Camargue. Sobieski attended Brown University but dropped out after two and a half years. She is an ardent fan of Nina Simone and has a half Yorkshire Terrier, half Pomeranian dog named after her. Sobieski rose to fame in her mid-teens with her appearance in the movie Deep Impact (1998) and played a modern Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (released in 1999, although she was not even fifteen when her nymphet-like scenes were shot), which led to the forming of a firm friendship with the director. The title role in the TV movie Joan of Arc (1999) earned her an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination and a second nomination followed her portrayal of Tosia Altman in the TV movie Uprising (2001). Sobieski continued her fast and inexhaustible rise with a leading role opposite Chris Klein in the teen romantic drama, “Here on Earth” (2000), then played Tosia Altman, a young Jewish woman who sees her family deported to a Nazi death camp and joins the resistance movement inside the Warsaw ghetto in the NBC miniseries, “Uprising” (2001). Back in the feature world, she had a banner year in 2001, starring in the psychological thriller, “The Glass House,” the cross-country road thriller “Joy Ride” and the dark comedy “My First Mister,” playing a tattooed Goth girl who falls into an unlikely friendship with her rigid, middle-aged boss (Albert Brooks). In “Max” (2002), a fictional look at the life of Adolf Hitler as a failed artist before his rise to power, Sobieski was the tantalizing mistress of an art dealer (John Cusack) trying to convince the future Führer to channel his dark thoughts into his paintings. Sobieski's fluency in French landed her roles in the Merchant Ivory Film A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998), L'Idole (2002) and the miniseries Les Liaisons dangereuses (2003) with Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett, an adaptation of Laclos's classic novel of sexual intrigue. Other movies she has starred in include Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Never Been Kissed (1999), Here on Earth (2000), My First Mister (2001), The Glass House (2001), Uprising (2001), Joy Ride (2001), Max (2002), Hercules (NBC, 2005), and alongside Nicolas Cage in the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man directed by Neil LaBute. After appearing as the young Cécile Volanges in a miniseries version of the oft-adapted “Dangerous Liaisons” (Women’s Entertainment Television, 2004), she costarred in the NBC movie-of-the-week, “Hercules” (2004), playing the half-man, half-god’s main squeeze, Deianeira. Returning to features, she was part of an ensemble that included Nicolas Cage in “The Wicker Man” (2006), playing the curiously-named Sister Honey in a remake of the 1973 horror classic. She then signed on to star opposite John Rhys-Davies in “Dungeon Siege” (2006), an adaptation of the epic fantasy video game. In 2007, Sobieski, starred in the Canadian film Walk All Over Me, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 of that year. In 2008 she goes to roll Samantha Griffs in the Series TV show "Witchcraft". She appeared alongside Al Pacino in Jon Avnet's 88 Minutes. Because of her resemblance to actress Helen Hunt, the two were pitted against each other on the 59th episode of the satirical claymation television series, Celebrity Deathmatch. Nine Days released a song "Leelee" in tribute to Sobieski. In the song "Wonder (If She'll Get It)" by Superchick, Sobieski and one of her movies, Here on Earth, were mentioned. |
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