The Stunning Transformation Of Jennifer Connelly

Jennifer Connelly has long been a mainstay in Hollywood. Born on December 12, 1970, as noted by Hello!, Connelly has spent most of her life in front of a camera in one way or another. She started off her career in show business as a child model and quickly pivoted to acting, landing her big break in "Labyrinth." Connelly seemed to avoid the child star curse, although that doesn't mean she escaped completely unscathed. Connelly has maintained a successful career throughout her life, but it's a career that has had some major ups and downs. Connelly got through her hardships, though, and is now thriving. 

Connelly seems to have struck the ideal work-life balance, continuing to act as well as spend time with her family, which includes her husband, fellow actor Paul Bettany, and her three children. Clearly, Connelly has changed a lot since her early years in the acting industry. Here's a closer look at her stunning transformation. 

While Jennifer Connelly's career got off to an early and successful start, establishing her career so young also led to a lot of unhappiness. The actress views her childhood through a critical lens, telling the Independent that, while she got a lot of steady employment and worked hard, "there were good things about it and things that were difficult" in regards to being a child star. Connelly said that life as a kid actor was far from glamorous and that she found her career "a bit stagnating." Connelly referred to her younger self as "underdeveloped emotionally," adding, " I didn't become a teenager until my twenties."

While Connelly loves acting, she's had a love/hate relationship with her stardom, telling Vogue that her "life had been sort of hijacked by this career." Learning how to balance her career with having a life outside of work was something that would take Connelly years to figure out.

While she'd already been acting for a while when she landed her role in 1986's "Labyrinth," the movie would prove to be a turning point in Jennifer Connelly's career. It would also turn out to be one of her most memorable roles. Connelly was just 15 at the time and was in awe of getting to work with the legendary David Bowie. "I got to know him as much as one gets to know David Bowie," she told Rolling Stone.

The movie, which featured some seriously dark moments, was a box office bomb, but it would go on to become a cult classic. After Bowie's death in 2016, Connelly spoke to Entertainment Tonight about how much working on the film with Bowie meant to her. "He was lovely," she said. "He was just a nice, sweet guy — cracking jokes and friendly with the crew." She added that she was struck by Labyrinth's "beautifully designed" sets, saying, "It was like wonderland for me." 

Haven't seen the movie in a while? Here are things about "Labyrinth" that only adults notice.

Another big role for Jennifer Connelly came in 1991 when she starred opposite Frank Whaley in the romantic comedy "Career Opportunities." While the film wasn't exactly a critical box-office success (via Box Office Mojo) and only holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of 39% on the Tomatometer, Connelly was still able to captivate in the John Hughes flick — and in its infamous poster, which featured her wearing a low-cut tank top while leaning on the shoulders of her co-star. "That poster, it popped," co-producer Hunt Lowry said (via Yahoo! Entertainment). "It became a star unto itself. I remember seeing it at the time and saying, 'Wow, this is something.' It caught everyone's eye, I can tell you that."

Connelly was just 21 years old during the debut of the film, which centers on high school graduates from contrasting backgrounds who fall in love. Whaley added that he believed that audiences were only interested in watching the female lead. "I think the male critics and guys in general were a little bit annoyed that I was even in the film," he admitted.

While The Guardian noted that it was 2000's "Requiem for a Dream," in which Jennifer Connelly played a heroin addict, that helped her "claw her way towards respectability" and establish herself as a serious actress, Connelly said that she considers "Waking the Dead" (also released in 2000) as the true turning point in her career. Connelly revealed that she "really campaigned for" the part and auditioned for it twice. "Waking the Dead" was the first film she made after having a baby, and she "knew that everything was changing... at that time."

Filmmaker Keith Gordon was initially reluctant to cast her in the film. In an interview with "Senses of Cinema," he recalled thinking that Connelly was "this gorgeous woman with a great body" but "not a great actress." Connelly's agent pushed Gordon to look at some of her lesser-known performances, including 1996's "Far Harbor." Gordon was blown away by her performance.

"Waking the Dead" opened the door to meatier roles for Connelly. In 2002, her efforts to transform her career were rewarded with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in "A Beautiful Mind."

Jennifer Connelly is married to fellow actor Paul Bettany, and the pair have been together for quite some time. While many celebrity couples have their lives splayed across the tabloids, Connelly and Bettany do their best to keep their lives out of the public eye. The couple first met in 2000 on the set of "A Beautiful Mind." While they didn't immediately become a couple (both of them were in relationships with other people at the time), they did share a mutual attraction. Connelly told Entertainment Tonight that she was immediately struck by Bettany's talent, while her now-husband said he'd "never been this close to someone that beautiful before."

The couple met again "months and months" after "A Beautiful Mind" wrapped. Both were single by that time, and Bettany asked Connelly out. Connelly told Glamour that they "got together really quickly" and that she fell for him because she felt he was "someone singular and rare and beautiful."

The couple were married in 2003 and have two children together, Stellan and Agnes Lark, in addition to Connelly's son from a previous relationship, Kai.

Jennifer Connelly may act for a living, but that doesn't mean she's naturally extroverted. The actress was quite reclusive in her younger years. When she was in college, she kept to herself, although this wasn't entirely by choice. The actress admitted to Vogue that, while she "wanted so much to be part of a community," she "had no idea how to do it." She threw herself into her schoolwork instead of developing a social life.

This pattern continued for years, and it wasn't until she became a mother that Connelly really began to transform. "From the moment Kai was born, it was like everything was thrown open," said Connelly, adding that she learned "how to be part of a community" for the sake of her son. These days, her husband, Paul Bettany, whom she describes as "the most extroverted, social person," also helps her maintain a more active social life.

Far from the "mousy little thing" she once described herself as, Jennifer Connelly is now an outspoken and fierce feminist who isn't afraid to weigh in on issues that are important to her. It's no secret that gender inequality has long been a huge problem in Hollywood, and Connelly is one of the people who has taken a stance against it. In 2017, she was one of the actresses in the growing #MeToo movement who condemned Harvey Weinstein. She told Today, "I think that no woman should have to suffer those kinds of violations to get or maintain a job." She decried his actions as "a violation of human rights."

Connelly is also frustrated at how women are viewed in the industry, noting that the kinds of questions she gets asked by journalists are very different from the kinds of questions her husband, Paul Bettany, gets asked. "No one ever asks Paul if it's tough juggling work and family," she told Net-a-Porter's The Edit.

In 2020, Jennifer Connelly joined the cast of "Snowpiercer," an adaptation of the 2013 film based on a series of graphic novels with the same name. Per IndieWire, the dystopian sci-fi show focuses on the last survivors of the human race as they travel by train through an uninhabitable world. 

Connelly's casting in "Snowpiercer" was her first television role since starring in "The $treet" 20 years earlier (via IMDb). In "Snowpiercer," Connelly rose to the challenge of playing the same character, Melanie Cavill, for several years. "I developed a strong relationship with my character, a complex woman charged with ensuring good relations between the passengers on the train," she told L'Officiel in 2019.

While a science fiction production, "Snowpiercer" is also a stark examination of class inequality and capitalism. "I believe they allow us both to escape and to critique," Connelly told L'Officiel of dystopian stories. "It is entertainment: Everything is done to amuse, excite, surprise, but in the case of 'Snowpiercer,' the social structure of the train and the actions of the characters also pose pertinent questions about today's society."