At the tender age of four, Hazel Hemmens' childhood ambitions weren't so much about what she was going to be as who she was going to be: her aunt, Christine Hemmens, an A-list film star who had no children of her own and considered Hazel probably the closest she was ever going to get. For Hazel, this meant the opportunity to get fancied up and attend the premiere for every notable G-rated movie with a premiere in the Los Angeles area; for Christine, it meant being idolized by the young girl, who had an endless amount of questions about how movies were made and the energy to ask every single one of them. Over time, what started as mere curiosity turned into a desire to be in movies herself - a desire which her parents quickly tried to put an end to. They were spending good money putting her through one of the best private schools on the west coast, and while goofing around with Aunt Christine was fine for weekends and vacations, making the most of her education and maximizing her options for her future was important, even if it was a little early to be plotting her path to Stanford. Hazel persisted, they resisted, and after having to hear it from both sides for a little too long, Christine presented a compromise: what if they let her try it, just once? She'd pull some strings, find something small that wouldn't take much of anyone's time. If Hazel hated it, that'd be the end of it, back to attending premieres and smiling pretty on the red carpet.
Surprise of the century: she didn't hate it, just as her aunt (and, more subconsciously, her parents), knew she wouldn't. She wanted more. Christine was able to get her in with Disney, where she was able to score a supporting role in a live action film, Remember the Titans, then the lead in Lilo & Stitch, which expanded into two sequels and a television series. By the time she reached high school, she was away from school as much as she was present, and though thanks to a team of tutors and her parents' insistence that she would not become one of those teenagers who never finished high school she not only kept her grades acceptable, but managed to stay on the honor roll, they all knew that Stanford wasn't going to happen. What did lie in the path after graduation was a steady line of work, sticking close to Disney and the good girl image that she had made her start with. Even as she tired of playing variations on the same sunny good girl theme and began to take on projects that could offer her something new, she made a point to keep her nose clean, staying pleasant and gracious at all times - at least in the public eye. It was completely unreasonable, she would argue, to shelter her forever; she was going to go out and have fun like every other young starlet, and as long as she did her part by keeping anything unsavory thoroughly under wraps, who was it going to hurt? Though an undercurrent of rumors rippled through the tabloids that she wasn't nearly as sweet as she acted - she treated her assistants terribly, she pitched fits behind the scenes on the job, she was both verbally and physically violent toward her boyfriends and had a fuse that burnt out at the drop of a hat - but there was never any evidence to any of these claims, and hearing something from a friend of a friend of a neighbor was hardly credible enough proof to make anything stick. If working alongside the likes of George Clooney wasn't enough of a reward for her "good" behavior and hard work, the Golden Globe nomination she received for her role in The Descendants was, even if its validity was a hot source of debate among critics. Deserving or not, more doors were opening for her, and her Disney days became more of a distant memory with every audition.
The only thing that consistently managed to elude her professionally was a role in a successful franchise, practically a must for a girl her age in Hollywood. She had auditioned for everything from Twilight to X-Men to (more than slightly misguidedly) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo without success, and continued to jump at the possibility of any film connected to a popular young adult novel or comic book. So when she was approached by production staff to gauge her interest in reading for Mary Jane Watson in the second installment of the already wildly successful The Amazing Spider-Man films, it was all she could do not to openly beg then and there. Of course she was interested. She would do anything.
Anything, as it turned out, included sleeping with the director - first in an effort to cement the deal, then just because she felt like it. Neither party wanted to be found out, and sneaking around only made the whole relationship that much more exciting and intense. When filming for Spider-Man 2 started and it was mutually suggested by their agents that she and her costar drum up a few rumors about the nature of their relationship, the timing couldn't have been much better. It was the perfect cover, a extra boost to her celebrity, and usually even a good time to boot. Everything was coming up Hazel.
That is, of course, until a few months after filming when the tabloids caught wind of and exposed her affair with the director, effectively blowing up everything she'd been working for. Her reputation had, of course, taken a heavy hit; would it not have been bad enough to be caught messing around with a man who was 1. significantly older, 2. in a relationship, or 3. holding major influence on her career, she'd pulled a hat trick and taken care of all three in one go, making her not just a homewrecking whore, but a homewrecking whore who was sleeping her way to the top - and who probably had some daddy issues as well, some would hypothesize. Her promance, already more than she had initially bargained for, lay in shambles, the actual relationship behind it dissolved to a point where mutual acquaintances of the former couple actively tried to keep them away from each other to avoid the inevitable bitchy back-and-forth. Be it because of the fighting, the affair, or just because she honestly did make a terrible Mary Jane, an announcement was made not too long after the tabloid break that producers had decided to "go in a different direction" with the film, and though they appreciated the time and effort Hazel had put in for them, her scenes weren't going to make it in this time. Unspoken but impossible to miss in implication was that she wouldn't be coming back for any third film, either. Frustrated with the turn of events, wary about how her career would recover from such a setback, and limited in terms of a support team, she was sure she had hit rock bottom.
Two weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant.
Her immediate impulse was to have it taken care of immediately. There were plenty of reasons to: her future projects, her utter lack of maternal instinct, her uncomfortableness around babies and the gross bodily fluid-based messes they were so known for causing, and her stomach, ass, and boobs, just to name a few. There was also the minor fact that she had no idea who the father was, and wasn't about to ask any of the candidates to take a paternity test. There were no good options. And how cruel was it that now, when she needed a drink more than ever, she couldn't have one? This stupid fetus was barely the size of a pea, according to the pregnancy websites she hastily browsed, and it was already managing to ruin her already pathetic life. How could she have a kid when all signs pointed to her still being one herself?
The eventual decision to stick out the pregnancy was as much of a surprise to most people as the press immediately digging into her when she started to show wasn't. Questions of who the child's father was and whether she really thought she would be able to handle motherhood were the norm, and Hazel quickly learned that it was best to grin and bear it, saving her vitriol for later at home, where she could roll her eyes and tell her growing stomach that fuck them, she'd be no worse a mom than any other person. She was taking her damn prenatal vitamins. She was the new spokesmodel for a pregnancy yoga gear brand, for Christ sake. No child of hers was going to come out some freak. And she wasn't: Charlotte Hemmens was born happy and healthy in January of 2014, amid much screaming and demands for the doctors to "get the goddamn thing out of me" from Hazel.
The first few weeks were, surprisingly, not so bad. Hazel's friends and family rallied around her, making sure she was eating and sleeping and not going completely insane trying to do everything on her own. Charlotte was a good baby - at least, good for a screaming, crying, shit machine, Hazel reasoned - and people actually seemed to hate Hazel less when she had her strapped into her baby bjorn with her. But, just as the story had gone with kabbalah, hot vinyasa, and green juicing, a few months of motherhood proved to be more than enough. Hazel was bored, she hadn't gone out with her friends in months, she hadn't sat down for an industry meeting in even longer, and her nipples hurt like hell. Any time not spent taking care of Charlotte was spent either cleaning up after her or trying to reverse some of the hell she had wreaked on her body.
Then it occurred to her: her mom liked babies, right? She was always stopping by to visit and coo over Charlotte and to tell Hazel that her swaddling would be much more effective if she'd done it this way, wasn't she? It wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time; she'd left her job when Hazel was born to concentrate on raising her and had never gone back, so surely she could make room in her schedule. Besides, Hazel hadn't taken the path her parents had wanted for her, and they'd never had any other kids to try to push in that direction instead. Maybe Charlotte could go to Stanford. What started as "a weekend at Grandma's" turned into "a week at Grandma's while Mommy sorts out some things" turned into "look Ma, I signed on for this film and we start in August and I'm not sure when we're gonna wrap, but I'll let you know, it should be quick" turned into all of Charlotte's favorite things slowly making the migration from Hazel's place to her parents', and Hazel stopping by just frequently enough to make sure she was still the same happy shit machine that she'd forever ruined her vagina trying to push out. This was perfect. Things were finally getting back to normal - or at least they were for her, which was what mattered.
As Hazel tries to restore herself to her former glory, she's been frustrated to find that many of her old connections are wary about taking on all of the baggage that comes along with her, and the rest are more concerned with trying to make sure she's on steady footing in her personal life before even starting to think about the best way to help revive her career. How's the baby? How are you? What can we do to help? No matter how innocent and well-meaning the intent may be, conversations about her life outside of what her next project is leave Hazel frustrated at best and flustered at worst. She's young, attractive, and fun, which in her opinion should more than make up for her having a rusty recent track record and the class and subtlety of an elephant driving a tank through a china shop while Kanye's Stronger blares in the background. She's ready to move the hell on, what's everyone else's problem? And while making her television debut rather than returning to films with a brilliant Oscar-grubby drama wasn't exactly what she had in mind for her big reintroduction, there are worse things than headlining a new show, and after a few seasons, she can only assume people will be chomping at the bit to get her back in their movies again. Hazel's few steadfast defenders in the industry all tend to agree on one thing: there's going to come a point in time when the young actress realizes her decisions and attitude are keeping her from reaching her full potential - maybe then she'll start taking responsibility for her actions and possibly even show a glimpse of the girl she once was; the one who was a lot easier to like.
For tonight, though, there's a party happening somewhere, and she's sure as hell going to be there. Who wants tequila shots?
film
|
2018 suspiria ....
2017 under the silver lake ....
2017 logan lucky ....
2016 american honey ....
2015 a bigger splash ....
2014 the amazing spider-man 2 ....
2013 syrup ....
2013 adult world ....
2012 celeste & jesse forever ....
2012 21 jump street ....
2012 on the road ....
2011 the descendants ....
2011 scream 4 ....
2010 scott pilgrim vs. the world ....
2010 secretariat ....
2010 it's kind of a funny story ....
2009 bandslam ....
2008 repo! the genetic opera ....
2008 wild child ....
2007 dan in real life ....
2007 in the land of women ....
2006 leroy & stitch ....
2006 hoot ....
2005 tv once upon a mattress ....
2003 stitch! the movie ....
2002 lilo & stitch ....
2002 panic room ....
2000 remember the titans ....
1999 special delivery ....
|
susie bannion
sarah
mellie logan
krystal
penelope lannier
mary jane watson
six
amy
riley
molly tracey
marylou / luanne henderson
alexandra king
kirby reed
envy adams
kate tweedy
noelle
sa5m
shilo wallace
poppy
cara
lucy hardwicke
lilo (voice)
beatrice
molly
lilo (voice)
lilo (voice)
sarah altman
cheryl yoast
little angel
|
.
television
|
2016 - "the girlfriend experience" (15 eps) ....
2011 - "young justice" (6 eps) ....
2003 - 2006 "lilo & stitch: the series" (67 eps) ....
|
christine reade
barbara gordon (voice)
lilo (voice)
|
parents
alexander perkins, 50
meredith perkins, 49
.
children
charlotte hemmens, 2
.
other family
christine hemmens (aunt), 48
.
religious affiliation
nonpracticing lutheran
.
languages
english
.
additional information
• more information to come here
