Search a film or person :
FacebookConnectionRegistration
Fairuza Balk is a Actor American born on 21 may 1974 at Point Reyes (USA)

Fairuza Balk

Fairuza Balk
If you like this person, let us know!
Birth name Fairuza Alejandra Feldthouse
Nationality USA
Birth 21 may 1974 (49 years) at Point Reyes (USA)

Fairuza Balk (born May 21, 1974) is an American film actress. She made her theatrical film debut as Dorothy Gale in Disney's 1985 film Return to Oz. Balk also made appearances in Valmont, The Craft, The Island of Dr. Moreau, American History X, The Waterboy, Almost Famous, and Personal Velocity: Three Portraits.

Biography

Née à Point Reyes, en Californie, Fairuza Balk est élevée dans le culte de la musique par une mère danseuse et un père folk-singer. La légende veut que son prénom lui ait été donné par son père qui, en voyant ses yeux, s'est écrié « Fairuza », « turquoise » en farsi.

Très vite lancée dans le grand bain avec le rôle de Dorothy dans une suite au Magicien d'Oz, la petite Fairuza Balk connaît quelques années fastes alors qu'elle n'est qu'une enfant. Un break à la fin des années 1990 lui permet de revenir dans des rôles plus exigeants, la plupart du temps en jeune fille paumée dans Presque célèbre ou American History X.

Lancée dans le monde impitoyable des « enfants-stars », elle reste à Londres jusqu'en 1988, puis part pour Paris pour jouer dans Valmont de Miloš Forman. À la suite du film, elle fait une pause de quelques années et retourne étudier à Vancouver. À son retour, les rôles sont plus rares, mais son physique fragile et son regard félin lui permettent de débusquer quelques compositions marquantes dans Dangereuse Alliance, Dernières heures à Denver (1996) ou L'île du Docteur Moreau (1997).

Moins demandée par Hollywood qu'à ses débuts, Fairuza se concentre alors sur des rôles où elle peut exploiter tout son potentiel. Elle est ainsi particulièrement remarquée dans des compositions de jeune fille fragile chez Cameron Crowe dans Presque célèbre (2001) ou en petite amie de nazi à la dérive dans American History X (1999).

Elle tient un rôle récurrent pendant deux saisons des Soprano puis tourne dans différentes séries et films (Masters of Horror, Orpheus, Ray Donnovan). Depuis 2019, elle tient le rôle de Lizzie Thomas dans la série Paradis City.

Best films

The Waterboy (1998)
(Actress)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
(Actress)
The Craft (1996)
(Actress)
American History X (1998)
(Actress)

Usually with

Rand Ravich
Rand Ravich
(2 films)
Avi Lerner
Avi Lerner
(4 films)
Boaz Davidson
Boaz Davidson
(4 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Fairuza Balk (32 films)

Display filmography as list

Actress

Beyond Clueless, 1h29
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Documentary
Themes Films about films, Documentary films about business, Documentary films about the film industry, Documentary films about films
Actors Fairuza Balk
Roles Narrator
Rating62% 3.102593.102593.102593.102593.10259
Une étude approfondie, à travers plus de 200 classiques modernes, qui se penche sur le phénomène du teen-movie. Le film se concentre sur la période allant de 1995 à 2004 et revisite des comédies telles que Clueless, Dangereuse Séduction ou encore Lolita Malgré moi.
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's “Island of Dr. Moreau”, 1h37
Origin USA
Genres Documentary
Themes Films about films, Documentary films about business, Documentary films about the film industry, Documentary films about films
Actors Fairuza Balk, Richard Stanley, Robert Shaye, Michael Gingold, Edward R. Pressman, Marco Hofschneider
Roles Self
Rating74% 3.7400353.7400353.7400353.7400353.740035
In Lost Soul Gregory looks at the filming of The Island of Dr. Moreau, specifically the period during which director Richard Stanley spent on the project. Stanley was brought on to the project early but was fired only a few days after principal photography began and was replaced by John Frankenheimer. The documentary looks into Stanley's vision for the film, as he had spent years working on the movie's script and had intended for Bruce Willis to star as Edward, a role that was later given to Val Kilmer- a move that Stanley viewed as a mistake. Lost Soul features interviews with several people involved with the movie's production and focuses on various aspects of the film, including numerous changes to the script and reports that Kilmer was difficult to deal with on set.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, 2h1
Directed by Werner Herzog
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Crime
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about drugs
Actors Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer, Tom Bower, Brad Dourif
Roles Heidi
Rating65% 3.2971353.2971353.2971353.2971353.297135
August 2005, New Orleans, Louisiana. Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is a New Orleans Police Sergeant. While cleaning out a locker after Hurricane Katrina, he notices that a prisoner may not have been transferred. When he finds the prisoner about to drown, he mocks him before eventually jumping in the water to save him. He is promoted to lieutenant and given a medal for his work, but has suffered a serious back injury because of the rescue. As a result, he is prescribed Vicodin which he will most likely need to take for the rest of his life to manage the pain.
Grindstone Road, 1h33
Origin Canada
Genres Thriller, Horror
Actors Fairuza Balk, Greg Bryk, Walter Learning, Zachary Bennett, Matt Gordon
Roles Hannah
Rating45% 2.2655052.2655052.2655052.2655052.265505
Coupables de l’accident qui plongea leur fils dans un coma irréversible, Graham et Hannah ne supportent plus leur terrible fardeau. Avant de sombrer dans la folie, ils décident de s’isoler à la campagne. Ils ignorent que la vieille demeure qu’ils occupent renferme aussi ses secrets et que leurs nouveaux voisins ont des moeurs bien étranges…
Humboldt County, 1h37
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about drugs
Actors Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Frances Conroy, Madison Davenport, Brad Dourif, Chris Messina
Roles Bogart
Rating61% 3.0965053.0965053.0965053.0965053.096505
Peter Hadley (Jeremy Strong) is an overachieving medical student at UCLA. He is given failing grades on his final exam by his professor, who also happens to be his father (Peter Bogdanovich). Unable to graduate, he becomes bitter and disillusioned. He then meets up with the actress who played the part of his patient in his final exam, the free-spirited part time jazz singer Bogart (Fairuza Balk). The two of them go back to her apartment after a night at a jazz club and have casual sex. Afterwards she gets up to go for a drive and asks Peter if he'd like to come, to which he agrees. The two of them drive north through the night and Peter eventually dozes off. When he wakes up, he finds that Bogart has driven all the way to Humboldt County. It is here that he meets her family. Jack (Brad Dourif) and Rosie (Frances Conroy) took her in when her family abandoned her, and they became her surrogate parents. He also meets Max (Chris Messina), Jack and Rosie's son and Charity (Madison Davenport), Max's daughter.
Wild Tigers I Have Known, 1h38
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Romance
Themes L'adolescence, Films about children, Films about sexuality, LGBT-related films, La sexualité des mineurs, Teen LGBT-related films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film
Actors Fairuza Balk, Kim Dickens, Tom Gilroy, Hailey Anne Nelson
Roles Logan's Mom
Rating59% 2.999142.999142.999142.999142.99914
Wild Tiger I Have Known est une forme de journal intime du jeune Logan, un garçon de treize ans, entre séquences réalistes, auto-commentaires en voix-off et épisodes oniriques. Logan est amoureux de Rodeo, un garçon plus âgé que lui mais Rodeo ne répond pas à ses avances.
What Is It?, 1h12
Directed by Crispin Glover
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Fantasy
Actors Crispin Glover, Fairuza Balk
Roles Screaming Snail / Insect / Monkey Girl (voice)
Rating53% 2.659082.659082.659082.659082.65908
Don't Come Knocking, 1h52
Directed by Wim Wenders
Origin German
Genres Drama, Musical, Western
Themes Transport films, Road movies
Actors Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann, Sarah Polley, Fairuza Balk
Roles Amber
Rating65% 3.2975253.2975253.2975253.2975253.297525
Shepard stars as Howard Spence, an aging, hard-living Western movie star, who, disgusted with his life, flees by horse from the set of his latest western filming in the desert outside Moab, Utah. He hits the road looking for refuge in his past, traveling to his hometown of Elko, Nevada and, eventually, to Butte, Montana, looking for a woman (Jessica Lange) he left behind twenty years before when he was filming a movie there. Also converging on Butte is a young woman named Sky (Sarah Polley), returning her late mother's ashes to her hometown and conducting a search of her own.
Personal Velocity, 1h26
Directed by Rebecca Miller, Lady Day-Lewis
Origin USA
Genres Drama
Actors Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, Wallace Shawn, Lou Taylor Pucci, Patti D'Arbanville
Roles Paula
Rating64% 3.2462853.2462853.2462853.2462853.246285
Personal Velocity is a tale of three women who have reached a turning point in their lives. Delia is a spirited, working-class woman from a small town in New York state who leaves her abusive husband and sets out on a journey to reclaim the power she has lost. Greta is a sharp, spunky editor who is rotten with ambition. To spite the hated unfaithful ways of her father, she has settled into a complacent relationship and is struggling (not too hard) with issues of fidelity to her kind but unexciting husband. Finally Paula, who ran away from home and got pregnant, is now in a relationship she doesn't want. She's a troubled young woman who takes off on a journey with a hitchhiker after a strange, fateful encounter on a New York street.
Deuces Wild, 1h38
Directed by Scott Kalvert
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime, Romance
Themes Gangster films
Actors Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Norman Reedus, Max Perlich, Balthazar Getty
Roles Annie
Rating56% 2.801522.801522.801522.801522.80152
Leon (Stephen Dorff) and Bobby (Brad Renfro) are brothers and members of the Deuces, a Brooklyn street gang. Ever since the death of their other brother Alphonse "Allie Boy" from a drug overdose at the hands of Marco (Norman Reedus), they keep drugs off their block. This puts them in opposition to the Vipers, another local gang headed by Marco who want to sell drugs in the neighborhood. On the eve of Marco's return from a three-year stint in prison, a gang war seems imminent. Marco plans revenge against Leon, whom he believes ratted him out to the police.
Almost Famous, 2h2
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Musical
Themes Films about writers, Films about journalists, Films about music and musicians, Films about sexuality, Transport films, Musical films, Road movies, Films about virginity
Actors Patrick Fugit, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Roles Sapphire
Rating78% 3.94823.94823.94823.94823.9482
In 1973, William Miller is a 15-year-old boy aspiring to be a rock journalist. His mother, Elaine, wants him to become a lawyer. Shunned by his classmates, he writes for underground papers in San Diego, sharing the love of rock music instilled in him through a gift of albums left behind on the day his sister Anita left home.
American History X, 1h59
Directed by Tony Kaye
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Crime
Themes Films about families, Prison films, Films about racism, Films about sexuality, Rape in fiction, Skinheads, Gangster films
Actors Edward Norton, Fairuza Balk, Edward Furlong, Stacy Keach, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks
Roles Stacey
Rating83% 4.178514.178514.178514.178514.17851
Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong), a high school student and budding neo-Nazi in Venice Beach, California, receives an assignment from Mr. Murray (Elliott Gould), his history teacher, to write a paper on "any book which relates to the struggle for human rights". Knowing Murray is Jewish, Danny writes his paper on Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Murray attempts to get Danny expelled for doing this, but Principal Dr. Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks) — who is black — refuses, instead informing Danny that he will study history and current events under Sweeney, and that the class will be called "American History X". Danny's first assignment is to prepare a paper on his brother Derek (Edward Norton), a former neo-Nazi leader who has just been released from prison after serving three years for voluntary manslaughter. Danny is warned that failing to submit the paper the next morning will result in his expulsion. The rest of the film alternates between a series of vignettes from Danny and Derek's shared past (distinguished by being shown in black and white), and present day events (shown in color).
The Waterboy, 1h30
Directed by Frank Coraci
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy
Themes Sports films, American football films
Actors Kathy Bates, Fairuza Balk, Henry Winkler, Jerry Reed (Hubbard), Lawrence Gilliard, Jr., Blake Clark
Roles Vicki Vallencourt
Rating60% 3.0498153.0498153.0498153.0498153.049815
Bobby Boucher is a socially inept water boy with a stutter and hidden anger issues due to constant teasing and excessive sheltering by his mother, Helen (Kathy Bates). He became the water boy for the (fictional) University of Louisiana Cougars after being told his father died of dehydration in the Sahara while serving in the Peace Corps. However, the players always torment him and the team's head coach, Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed), eventually fires him for "disrupting" the team's practices (in actuality, the coach had fired Bobby because he's too weak for his team to bully). Bobby then approaches Coach Klein (Henry Winkler) of the South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs and asks to work as the team's water boy. Coach Klein has been coach of SCLSU for years without success. It is revealed later in the movie that he and Beaulieu were assistant coaches at the University of Louisiana, but Beaulieu bullied Klein into letting him take sole credit for a playbook (that Klein actually came up with on his own) to earn the head coach job and then immediately fired Klein. The experience drove Klein to a mental breakdown and rendered him unable to come up with new plays. Furthermore, unlike the Cougars, the Mud Dogs are a struggling team both on and off the field. They have lost 40 consecutive games, their cheerleaders have become alcohol dependent, and players are forced to share equipment. Bobby insists he be the waterboy after seeing a keg of heavily polluted water that coach Klein had been offering his players. Klein, despite being impressed with a sample of Bobby's water, tells him he cannot hire anybody due to the team's financial issues, but Bobby agrees to work for free.
The Maker
The Maker (1997)
, 1h38
Directed by Tim Hunter
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime
Actors Matthew Modine, Mary-Louise Parker, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Fairuza Balk, Robert Gossett, Michael Madsen
Roles Bella Sotto
Rating55% 2.752592.752592.752592.752592.75259
Josh (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a high school boy who lives with his adoptive parents and is involved in little crimes with his friends, including young lesbian Bella (Fairuza Balk). His elder brother Walter (Matthew Modine) suddenly comes back home after leaving home ten years prior when he was 18 and not being heard of all those years. Walter starts to involve Josh in various new criminal activities, including robbery.
American Perfekt, 1h36
Directed by Paul Chart
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime
Themes Transport films, Films about automobiles, Road movies
Actors Fairuza Balk, Robert Forster, Amanda Plummer, Paul Sorvino, David Thewlis, Geoffrey Lewis
Roles Alice
Rating59% 2.9516752.9516752.9516752.9516752.951675
Jake Nyman decides to take a professional vacation where all decisions will be made by the flip of a coin. He meets up with disenchanted Sandra Thomas, who becomes excited by the potential of having the coin make all the decisions. See, Flipism. Things seem okay, until Sandra vanishes and Alice becomes involved in Jake's life.