Actress Alicia Silverstone peaked in 1995 with the high school comedy Clueless. It came crashing down two years later in Batman and Robin. Just about everyone associated with the franchise-ending Batfilm suffered some kind of career setback.

But while Chris O’Donnell has finally gotten himself a steady gig on TV and Arnold Scharzenegger retreated to politics, Silverstone’s career has yet to bounce back.

What the hell happened?

Alicia Silverstone – The Wonder Years – 1992

Silverstone started working as a model at age six. She went on to do TV commercials. Silverstone recounted how she got into acting:

At family get-togethers, me and all the other little girls would make up dances and routines for our parents. And relatives would tell my dad, “You’ve got to get her started in the business.” Finally, he started me modeling. I hated it more that anything, but I thought it was an outlet for acting. Then I got my first commercial, for Domino’s Pizza, and I went insane. I was so happy!

Her first acting gig was as a guest star on the TV show, The Wonder Years.

She played Fred Savage’s dream girl which was type casting in 1992.

Alicia Silverstone – The Crush – 1993

Silverstone’s film career began with 1993’s suspense flick The Crush.

The Crush was part of a trend in movies that became popular after 1987’s Fatal Attraction. The general theme is that a normal guy (in this case, Cary Elwes) meets a seemingly normal person who turns out to be a homocidal lunatic/stalker. Borrowing from the 1992 movie, Poison Ivy, The Crush made the stalker jail bait.

The original choice to play the teenage stalker was Reese Witherspoon. But she was in Africa filming A Far Off Place. With their first choice unavailable, the casting directors started going through modeling portfolios which is how they came across Silverstone. While filming, Silverstone became an “emancipated minor” at the age of 15. This was done so that she could avoid the restrictions of child labor laws which would have restricted how many hours she could work on the movie. According to Silverstone, it was no big deal:

My parents were a bit concerned. They were afraid I would hold it under their nose and say, ‘You can’t tell me what to do, I’m emancipated.’ But nothing really changed.

In the original cut of The Crush, Silverstone’s character was named Darian. But the name had to be changed for video and TV versions of the movie. Screenwriter Alan Shapiro had based the screenplay on his own personal experiences. The girl who inspired the script was actually named Darian and sued. So the character’s name was changed to Adrian going forward.

Silverstone wasn’t happy with her first movie performance. Just a couple years later, she wished she could do it all over again:

I think about her more now than I did then. I wish I could go back and do the movie again, because it isn’t often that a young girl can be really aggressive and take over the whole movie. I wish I’d had more experience at that time. Now I feel I’m more molded.

Critics didn’t crush on The Crush. In fact, they hated it. It opened in third place at the box office and ended up grossing around $13 million dollars. But it has become a hit on home video.

While The Crush wasn’t a big hit, it brought Silverstone lots of attention. TV producer Aaron Spelling pursued Silverstone to replace Shannen Doherty on Beverly Hills 90210. But Silverstone wasn’t interested:

He already knew I wasn’t going to do it. He said, ‘I really want you to be in my show.’ I think it would have been really detrimental because I want to do films. Also, I just don’t think that there’s a lot of acting going on in that show.

Katherine Heigl – My Father the Hero – 1994

Silverstone lost out on the lead in My Father, The Hero to Katherine Heigl, but she later said she was glad she wasn’t cast:

On My Father, The Hero, I didn’t get it because I was a little bit heavy compared with the girl who did get it, but that was a blessing because the girl runs around in a bathing suit throughout the whole thing. It was the worst movie I’ve ever seen. And the girl was really bad.

Silverstone also appeared in two made-for TV movies; Torch Song and Scattered Dreams. On the subject of Raquel Welch, Silverstone’s Torch Song co-star, Silverstone said:

Everybody warned me. ‘She’s going to be a tyrant because you’re young and beautiful and she’s just going to go crazy,’ She was nice to me, but it must be just horrible, you know. I mean, when the movie aired, people said it should have been about my character. So I sympathize with her.

Alicia Silverstone – MTV Movie Award for The Crush – 1994

A year after its release, audiences were still discovering Silverstone from The Crush on video. In 1994, Silverstone won 2 MTV Movie Awards for her performance as a psycho teen (Best Villain and Best Breakthrough Performance). She was actually nominated for Most Desirable Female, but lost to Janet Jackson. Perhaps it was because Silverstone was underage or perhaps audiences were put off by the fact she was playing a stalker.

Alicia Silverstone – Aerosmith videos – 1993-1994

Silverstone’s appearance in The Crush caught the eye of music video director Marty Callner. He was looking for a girl to star in a music video for Aerosmith. According to Silverstone:

He liked what he saw in the movie. And what he saw was a good actress, not a pretty girl. It’s about what you have inside.

Silverstone made her music video debut in the video for the first single off the band’s Get a Grip album, Cryin’.

That’s Stephen Dorff as Silverstone’s boyfriend and future Lost castaway Josh Holloway who steals her purse. The video became one of the movie requested on MTV that year and won three MTV Video Music Awards including Best Video.

After the success of Cryin’, Silverstone returned for the second video, Amazing. Silverstone wasn’t surprised:

Aerosmith made a hell of a lot of money off that video. Their sales tripled or something. They would have been crazy not to ask me back.

Silverstone felt like the progression of the videos allowed her to create a fully realized character:

When I see myself in the “Cryin'” video, and people are going, “Oh, my God,” thinking I’m sexy, it cracks me up because in real life I’m so clumsy. Actually, my character in that video in the essence of what every woman wants to be, in the sense that she takes charge. She knows what she wants, and she’s going to get it somehow. At the same time, there’s something really soft about her, which came out in the next video, “Amazing,” where I got to be cute. I decided that if she’s going to just be a tough girl, you can’t love her. You can only want her physically. But I wanted to make her a real, whole human being.

And the final installment in the underage trilogy, Crazy

This one co-stars Aerosmith frontman’s, Steven Tyler’s daughter, Liv who was transitioning from modeling to acting at the time. Silverstone and Tyler are… um… I’m not sure. Are they actually supposed to be teenage, lesbian con artists? We see them shop lift and enter into an amateur striptease. Yes, this is an Aerosmith video in which the lead singer’s daughter works a stripper pole while imitating some of her dad’s signature stage moves. Maybe Creepy would have been a better title. But the song and the video were both hits.

Following her time as a teenage video vixen, Silverstone made a prediction that turned out to be prophetic. When asked about being viewed as a sex symbol, she responded:

It’s frustrating that people might see me in that way. Soon I’ll get a big movie that will show different things. The bad girls are great for publicity because people really go for that­—which is sad, but true!

At the time, Silverstone was concerned that her stint as a video babe might make it hard for people to take her seriously as an actress:

I’d like to correct the idea that the videos came first. That’s absurd. I’m not a video star turned actress. I’m a serious actress who spent a few days making videos. I’ve done a lot more than videos, you know.

Silverstone – Cool and Crazy – 1994

Silverstone was also doing the kind of acting that includes dialogue in the TV movie, Cool and Crazy. Jared Leto and Silverstone played high school sweethearts who get married in the 1950’s. The honeymoon doesn’t last long. Silverstone’s character gets pregnant at the age of 19. Before long they are both having affairs which ultimately leads to violence.

The movie was part of Showtime’s Rebel Highway series. Showtime aired 10 weeks of movies that paid tribute to the drive-in B-movies of the 50’s. Cool and Crazy was the first live-action feature directed by legendary animator Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi had been developing the movie since the late 60’s. But according to him, the studios were scared to produce it:

They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense.

Alicia Silverstone – Le Nouveau Monde – 1995

Silverstone had a massive, career-altering year in 1995. She appeared in several movies all at once. Early in the year, she appeared as an American teen living in France in the 1950’s in the French drama, Le Nouveau Monde (The New World). James Gandolfini co-starred. The movie was released direct-to-video in the US.

Silverstone wasn’t impressed with the movie, but she made it so she could visit France:

I play the pretty blonde girl, which is boring, but I wanted to go to France because Moize [her close friend and hair dresser] hadn’t seen his family in eight years.

But Silverstone wasn’t overly fond of the locals:

I hate Parisians, they are so evil, I want to go back there with a gun and shoot every one of them. Their city is so beautiful but the Parisians are so mean and have such attitudes.

Alicia Silverstone – Hideaway – 1995

Next, Silverstone played Jeff Goldblum’s daughter in the horror movie, Hideaway.

Goldblum starred as a family man who is pronounced dead after a car accident. He is revived two hours later by a specialist played by Alfred Molina. As a side effect of his near death experience, Goldblum discovers that he is somehow bonded to a serial killer played by Jeremy Sisto. Naturally, it’s up to Goldblum to save Silverstone from the killer.

Dennis Quaid’s production company produced Hideaway. But Quaid was so disappointed in the final movie that he had his name removed from the credits. Author Dean Koontz who wrote the novel the movie was based on felt the same way. He pleaded with the studio to have his name removed, but Koontz was not as lucky.

Most critics panned Hideaway. But Roger Ebert turned out to be an unlikely supporter of the thriller. He gave the movie three stars and ended his review with the following assessment:

Look, I’m not saying this is a great movie, or even a distinguished one. I’m saying: You want horror, you want psychic abandon, you want Rae Dawn Chong reading Jeff Goldblum’s Tarot cards and not liking what she sees, you see this movie, you get your money’s worth. “Hideaway” is for people who like movies as much as they like films.

Hideaway opened in third place at the box office behind The Brady Bunch Movie which had been in theaters for three weeks. It failed to recoup its $15 million dollar production costs. But that didn’t matter. Silverstone was on to bigger and better things.

Alicia Silverstone – Clueless – 1995

Silverstone’s time as “the Aerosmith chick” lead to her being cast as Cher in Amy Heckerling’s Clueless in 1995.

Clueless was a modern retelling of Jane Austin’s Emma as a fizzy teenage comedy. Silverstone starred as a spoiled teen who tries to do good deeds while remaining in style – albeit a very mid-90’s style. Along the way, she has romances with Jeremy Sisto and Paul Rudd. Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Donald Faison and Brekin Meyer played classmates. Dan Hedaya portrayed Silverstone’s father and Wallace Shawn played a teacher at her high school.

Clueless started out as a pitch for a TV show about he popular kids at a California high school. The show went into turnaround at Fox TV so Heckerling’s agent suggested that she rework the concept as a movie. Fox movies bought the project from Fox TV, but then they pit the movie on hold as well. There were concerns at the studio that teen movies were a relic of the 80’s.

Heckerling knew immediately that she wanted Silverstone in her movie:

Here’s how I found Alicia. I was minding my own business on my treadmill watching MTV when I saw ‘Cryin’ ‘ and just went cuckoo bananas. She’s funny and beautiful – anyone who shows even a glimmer of that mix becomes a major star. I’m thinking of people like Sally Field and Goldie Hawn.

Meanwhile, the casting director at Fox was trying to push Heckerling to cast the girl from The Crush:

I was watching an Aerosmith video of ‘Cryin’.’ That was the first video she was in. And I just fell in love with her. Then my friend Carrie Frazier said, ‘You have to see this girl in The Crush.’ And I was like, ‘No, I want the Aerosmith girl.’ Well, it was the same girl.

But Fox wasn’t as enthusiastic about casting Silverstone in the lead role. According to Heckerling:

Fox … wanted me to explore all the options…. I saw Alicia Witt, the redheaded [actress]. And who else? Tiffani Thiessen. The one that—she was in that show and she cut her hair and everybody was mad? Keri Russell, yes. Then they go, “You’ve got to see the girl in Flesh and Bone.” I never got to see her. I guess she was off on other things. That turned out to be Gwyneth Paltrow.

Alicia Silverstone – Clueless – 1995

There is a scene in the movie where Silverstone’s character mispronounces the word “Haitians” while giving a presentation. That wasn’t in the script. Silverstone really didn’t know how to say the word. Heckerling loved it and told the crew not to correct her pronunciation. Despite this, Silverstone insisted she was not like the character in the movie:

I’m not like Cher. I don’t care about clothes, I don’t dress up, I look like crap all the time. But the quality we do share is wanting to please everyone.

Clueless took everyone by surprise in the summer of 1995. Heckerling hadn’t really done much of note in the 13 years between Fast Times and Clueless. It seemed that high school movies were a good fit for the director. The reviews were mostly positive with Roger Ebert noting:

The movie is aimed at teenagers, but like all good comedies, it will appeal to anyone who has a sense of humor and an ear for the ironic.

Clueless opened in second place at the box office behind Apollo 13 which had been in theaters for four weeks. It held on remarkably well and ended up grossing over $50 million dollars during its theatrical run. The following year, Heckerling produced a TV show based on the movie. Although several cast members from the movie reprised their roles for the TV show, Silverstone was not one of them. She had become a movie star almost overnight.

Following Clueless, Silverstone signed a two-picture deal with Columbia Tri-Star worth $8 million dollars. As part of the deal, Silverstone got her own production company, First Kiss Pictures. At the age of 18, Silverstone became the youngest producer in Hollywood. I point this out to stress just how powerful Silverstone was in Hollywood in 1995, because the fall is near.

Alicia Silverstone – True Crime – 1995

But 1995 wasn’t over yet. Silverstone also starred in two movies which were released direct-to-video to take advantage of her rising star power. The first was True Crime in which she played a mystery novel enthusiast who starts investigating a serial killer who specializes in teenage girls. She is helped in her investigation by a police cadet played by Kevin Dillon.

Alicia Silverstone – The Babysitter – 1995

Next came The Babysitter in which Silverstone played a teenage girl that boys and men fantasize about. I wonder how she got into character? J.T. Walsh played the father of the child Silverstone cares for and Jeremy London played her ex-boyfriend who hasn’t gotten over her. Silverstone was initially reluctant to star in The Babysitter:

I kept turning it down because it was objectifying a woman. Yet, I knew that if it got in the hands of any other young girl, it could be this bimbo movie. They let me; literally, go through the script with a red pen crossing out all the sex and nudity. After it was shot and edited, the producers said, ‘Now will you add a nude scene?” And I went. ‘After all I told you, are you crazy?’ But it’s a really good movie, much better than The Crush.

If either of these movies was any good, they would have been released in theaters. But since they weren’t, they tried to cash in on Silverstone’s fame on video.

Alicia Silverstone – Batman and Robin – 1997

This is where the Batman curse factors in. After Tim Burton’s Batman Returns was deemed “too dark” by Warner Brothers, the studio hired Joel Schumacher to direct 1995’s Batman Forever. Batman Forever was a hit and Warner Brothers wanted a sequel from Schumacher as soon as possible.

Schumacher raced to meet Warner Brothers’ demands that Batman and Robin should be released in 1997 instead of the usual 3-year wait time. The script was packed with characters who could be made into toys. This included the addition of yet another sidekick for Batman, Batgirl.

Chris O’Donnell, who played Robin in both Schumacher films, compared the experiences, “It just felt like everything got a little soft the second time. On Batman Forever, I felt like I was making a movie. The second time, I felt like I was making a kid’s toy commercial.”

Before the movie’s release rumors swirled that Silvertsone didn’t fit into her Batgirl costume. The press had a field day calling the actress “Fatgirl”. Schumacher came to her defense:

It was horrible. I thought it was very cruel. She was a teenager who gained a few pounds — like all of us do at certain times. I would confront female journalists and I’d say, ‘With so many young people suffering from anorexia and bulimia, why are you crucifying this girl?’

Alicia Silverstone – Batman and Robin – 1997

Casting for Batman and Robin was a big deal. Headlines were made when George Clooney replaced previous Batman Val Kilmer (who didn’t get along with Schumacher or much of anyone else). At one point, Bruce Willis was rumored to be cast as Mr. Freeze. But when Arnold Schwarzenneger was cast instead, Schumacher explained that it was because Arnold was the biggest star in Hollywood. Uma Thurman, who was hot off of Pulp Fiction, was cast as the villain Poison Ivy.

Alicia Silverstone – Batman and Robin – 1997

That kind of reasoning lead to Silverstone being cast as Batgirl. She was the only actress of her generation with any kind of star power. So naturally, Schumacher had her fitted for a nippled Batsuit.

Had Batman and Robin been a hit along the lines of Batman Forever, it probably would have pushed Silverstone’s star even higher. And really, there was no reason to think it would be anything but a smash hit. But Batman and Robin was notoriously awful even by the low standards of the Batman franchise at the time.

After Batman and Robin, George Clooney did public penance by apologizing for his turn as Batman. He also changed his career path by choosing edgier fare like Out of Sight. Schwarzenneger retreated to Terminator 3 before finally retiring from movies to pursue a career in politics.

Alas, the sidekicks took it hardest of all. O’Donnell and Silverstone, both rising stars at the time, would never fully get their careers back on track. Silverstone won a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress.

The third movie in the thriving superhero series had been titled Batman Forever. But apparently “forever” meant one more movie, because Batman and Robin killed the franchise in its tracks. Schumacher pushed to continue the series with another entry that would have included Clooney, O’Donnell and Silverstone. But the damage was done. Critics panned Batman and Robin and despite opening at first place, it ended up being the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise barely passing the $100 million dollar mark.

Alicia Silverstone – Excess Baggage – 1997

Later that summer, the first movie in Silverstone’s 3-picture deal debuted. Excess Baggage was an “edgy” romantic comedy. You can tell it’s edgy by the amount of eye make-up Silverstone wears.

Silverstone played a spoiled rich girl who faked her own kidnapping to get her daddy’s attention. However, her plan goes astray when she is accidentally kidnapped by a car thief played by Benecio del Toro. Christopher Walken co-starred as Silverstone’s attentive uncle.

Del Toro was hand-picked by Silverstone for the role after seeing him in The Usual Suspects. At the time, Del Torro was still a relative unknown. But Silverstone was convinced he was the right actor for the part. She just had to convince everyone else:

He had to be the guy. But we had to convince people to hire him. I went in and did the best acting job of my life convincing the studio that he looked just like Brad Pitt, that he was brilliant and that there was no other choice.

The LA Times reported that Silverstone clashed with director Marco Brambilla. They quoted an unnamed source from the set:

The fights were totally in their faces. It was in front of the entire cast and crew. They fought over dialogue, scenes, script and even wardrobe. The director would say, ‘I’m the director! What are you doing? You have to do this!’ She’d be like, ‘You don’t know anything! You should have read the script before you signed on to it!’ Then they would go to their trailers and call their agents. Nicholas Turturro had a stretch limo idling outside the set door for eight hours waiting for the moment he could wrap so he could flee.

Reportedly, Silverstone and De Toro bonded on the set. They took to improvising their scenes together much to the frustration of the director. When Brambilla would ask to have a scene played a certain way, the actors refused to cooperate. One of the film’s executive producers left the project during filming because the project was “out of control”.

Originally, Excess Baggage was scheduled for a late 1996 release, but it was pushed back due to bad test screenings. Scenes were reshot to try to create better chemistry between Silverstone and Del Toro. Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski were brought in to try to punch up the comedy. Several other screenwrietrs including Aaron Sorkin polished the script at various points.

The new release date was scheduled after Batman and Robin. Part of the thinking must have been that Silverstone would be an even bigger star after the superhero sequel. Instead, Excess Baggage got caught up in the Batman backlash. Critics savagely ripped it apart even though it’s really not that bad. It opened in sixth place at the box office and grossed less than $15 million dollars. Silverstone was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Actress. She “lost” to Demi Moore who “won” for GI Jane.

Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser – Blast From the Past – 1999

Silverstone took a little time to lick her wounds after the one-two punch of Batman and Robin and Excess Baggage.

Her next film was 1999’s Cold War-themed romantic comedy, Blast From the Past. The film starred Brendan Fraser as a boy who grew up in a nuclear fallout shelter after the Cuban Missle Crisis. Fraser’s character is a fish out of water in the go-go 90’s since he has been living in a fall-out shelter for over thirty years. Christopher Walken who had also appeared in Excess Baggage co-starred.

Blast From the Past recieved mixed reviews. Critics liked the concept, but many found the execution to be flat. Roger Ebert gave the movie one of the more enthusiastic reviews rating it three out of four stars. Ebert wrote, “The movie is funny and entertaining in all the usual ways, yes, but I was grateful that it tried for more: that it was actually about something, that it had an original premise, that it used satire and irony and had sly undercurrents.”

But audiences weren’t biting. Blast From the Past opened in fifth place at the box office behind She’s All That which had been in theaters for three weeks. It ended up grossing around $35 million dollars on a budget of around $40 million.

Alicia Silverstone – Love’s Labour’s Lost – 2000

In 2000, Silverstone tackled Shakespeare in Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the Bard’s comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Branagh reimagined the play as a Hollywood musical set in the 1930s. His cast mixed Shakespearean veterans with Hollywood actors like Nathan Lane, Matthew Lillard and Natascha McElhone. Silverstone played the princess of France who ends up falling for a king who has sworn off romance. Branagh also appears as one of the king’s courtiers.

Love’s Labour Lost was the first of a three-picture deal between director Branagh and the indie distributor Miramax. The deal called for Branagh to direct three movies based on the works of Shakespeare. The plan was to follow up Love’s Labour Lost with adaptations of As You Like It and Macbeth.

Reviews were mixed to negative. Variety called Love’s Labour’s Lost “A luscious labor of love.” But most critics thought it was too slight even for a comedy. According to Roger Ebert, “It’s so escapist it escapes even from itself.” Entertainment Weekly complained about the mismatched cast claiming that “Each player ends up performing in a different play.”

Love’s Labour’s Lost never received a wide release. During it’s five-week run it played in a maximum of 14 theaters. Following the movie’s failure at the box office, Miramax decided to end its deal with Branagh. The director eventually secured money from HBO films to make As You Like It in 2006. When that movie suffered a similar fate, plans for Macbeth were shelved.

Braceface – 2001-2003

After the failure of Silverstone’s first big screen production, Excess Baggage, she wasn’t given another opportunity to produce a movie. But she did produce and star in the Canadian animated series, Braceface. Silverstone played a teenage girl with braces that get her in trouble because they are magnetic.

The show lasted for three seasons and has been aired in 24 countries making it arguably Silverstone’s biggest success since Clueless.

Alicia Silverstone – Global Heresy – 2002

In 2002, Silverstone starred in the rock comedy, Global Heresy which was also known as Rock My World.

Silverstone played a bassist who agrees to front a rock band whose leader has gone missing just before a big tour of Europe. The band decides to go into seclusion to work on their new sound. They rent a mansion from a couple played by Peter O’Toole and Joan Plowright. When the mansion’s staff does not show up to wait on the band, O’Toole and Plowright decide to pose as the butler and cook.

Global Heresy was filmed and released in Canada but went direct-to-video in the US.

Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverston – The Graduate – 2002

Later that year, Silverstone made her Broadway debut in the stage version of The Graduate. Jason Biggs and Kathleen Turner starred as Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson. Silverstone played Elaine. She said she was reluctant to accept the part at first:

I really wanted to go on Broadway but I was like – do I want to leave my dogs, my house and my friends for nine months? But then I thought, “Wait a second. If this wasn’t being offered to me and I heard there was an audition I’d be desperate to have the job.” When you’re offered things, it makes it so much easier to be indecisive.

Reviews for The Graduate were mixed. Variety wrote that Silverstone was “sweet — and that’s about it”. But despite lackluster reviews, the play was a huge hit.

Alicia Silverstone – Scorched – 2003

2003 seemed like a pretty good year for Silverstone to attempt a comeback. First, she starred opposite Woody Harrelson, John Cleese and Rachel Leigh Cook in the indie comedy, Scorched.

Silverstone and Harrelson played disgruntled bank employees who both decide to rob their place of employment on the same night. Neither is aware of the other’s plans. Harrelson is looking for revenge against a local millionaire played by Cleese. Cook played a clothing store employee who is also looking to settle a score with Cleese.

Scorched was filmed in 2001 but sat on a shelf for two years before being released. It opened to scathing reviews and closed after only one weekend in theaters. It played in twelve theaters for three days over which it grossed roughly eight thousand dollars. It earned back less than 1% of its production costs!

Alicia Silverstone – Miss Match – 2003

Also in 2003, Silverstone starred in the TV show, Miss Match. As the tagline says, she played a divorce attorney who moonlights as a matchmaker. Ryan O’Neal co-starred as her father who owned the law firm she worked at. Expectations were high for the show which was produced by hit-maker Darren Star. But it did not find an audience.

Miss Match was scheduled during the dreaded “Friday night death slot”. Traditionally, Friday nights have never been a good night for TV shows presumably because audiences are doing other things besides watching TV. You would have to think the target audience for a romantic comedy like Miss Match was probably not glued to the TV on Friday nights. Silverstone’s TV comeback was cancelled due to low ratings after only 12 episodes had aired. There were six more episodes which were produced but never saw the light of day.

Alicia Silverstone and Freddie Prinze Jr – Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed – 2004

Following the cancellation of her TV show, Silverstone tried to jump start her career with some supporting roles. In 2004, she played a reporter in the kiddie sequel, Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Linda Cardellini reprised their roles as the members of the Scooby gang. The plot for the sequel involved a masked villain who brings all of the previous monsters that the Scooby gang apprehended to life. Or something. Seth Green, Peter Boyle and Tim Blake Nelson all cashed paychecks, er, I mean made appearances.

During the filming of the sequel, Warner Brothers had already given Scooby Doo 3 a green light. But Scooby Doo 2 was a box office disappointment. It opened in first place at the box office, but it grossed a little more than half of what the first movie made. The planned third movie was cancelled.

Critics liked the sequel even less than they liked the original Scooby Doo. It also won a Razzie for Worst Sequel or Remake.

Alicia Silverstone – Beauty Shop – 2005

Silverstone continued trying to stage a comeback with 2005’s Beauty Shop.

Queen Latifah starred in the Barber Shop spin-off. She played a stylist who quits her job working for Kevin Bacon and sets up her own salon. Silverstone played one of the stylists who works for Latifah

Beauty Shop also co-starred the inspiration for this entire series, Mena Suvari. Andie MacDowell, Alfre Woodard and Della Reese also appeared. Reviews were mostly negative and the movie was not a hit at the box office.

At the time, Silverstone said she didn’t mind that her career had slowed down:

I had done something like nine films from age 15 to 18. And I think I had to stop and go, like, ‘I want to buy a house. I want to live a little bit.

Alicia Silverstone – Silence Becomes You – 2005

In the direct-to-video thriller, Silence Becomes You, Silverstone played one half of a pair of eccentric sisters who decide to jointly seduce a man they met in a bar. They lure him up to their secluded mansion where they enact a devious plan.

At one point, Thora Birch and Juliette Lewis were attached to play the sisters. When they dropped out due to scheduling conflict, Silverstone and Sienna Guillory stepped in.

Silverstone also produced a pilot for Fox for a show called Queen B. The pilot episode was directed by Danny DeVito. Silverstone played a former high school prom queen who struggles with the real world. Queen B was not picked up to a series.

10 years after Clueless made Silverstone a star, she couldn’t get a TV show picked up.

Alicia Silverstone – Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker – 2006

In 2006, Silverstone had a supporting role in the family adventure film, Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker.

The movie was an adaptation of a popular series of British spy novels for young adults. The books and the movie are about a 14-year old boy who is raised by his uncle (played by Ewan McGregor) and his housekeeper (played by Silvertsone). When his uncle dies, it is revealed that he was actually a spy working for MI-6 and that he was training his nephew to follow in his footsteps. The boy ends up working for MI-6 and fighting a villain played by Mickey Rourke. Billy Nighy and Andy Serkis had supporting roles.

The Alex Rider novels were immensely successful and it was expected that success would translate to the big screen. The plan was to launch a series of movies that would duplicate the Harry Potter franchise. At the time, Stormbreaker was the most expensive independent English movie ever released. Screenwriter and novelist Anthony Horowitz was commissioned to start writing an adaptation of his second novel before the first movie came out in theaters.

But Stormbreaker was met with indifference by critics and audiences. It was unfavorably compared to both James Bond and Harry Potter and said to lack originality. Stormbreaker was released on only 221 theaters in the US and failed to earn even $1 million dollars. Not surprisingly, it made most of its money overseas. But even there, it grossed roughly one-half of its $40 million dollar budget. Plans for sequels were scrapped.

Silverstone – Boston Marriage – 2006

Silvertone returned to the stage for the L.A. premiere of David Mamet’s play, Boston Marriage. Variety dubbed the play a mess that has at least one terrific performance. You are probably thinking that the theater critic has singled out Mary Steenburgen or Rebecca Pidgeon for praise. But no. According to the Variety critic, Silverstone “steals the show as the hapless Scottish maid Catherine. Her Scottish accent is good, her comic delivery is fresh, and she gets the maximum laugh value from each wobbly curtsey.”

Alicia Silverstone – Candles on Bay Street – 2006

Silverstone spent the rest of 2006 on TV. First up was the cheesetastic, Candles on Bay Street. In this three-hankie Hallmark Hall of Fame production, Silverstone played a single mom who returns to her hometown to open a candle-making store. She reconnects with her best friend from childhood who is now happily married. Her friend’s new wife worries about their relationship, but come on! Does Silverstone look like a home-wrecker to you? *spoiler alert* No, silly. This is a Hallmark movie. Of course she is dying and needs someone to look after her kid after she’s gone. D’uh.

Silverstone took another crack at launching a TV sitcom with the pilot for the TV show Pink Collar. The show was about four female co-workers at an insurance company. Silverstone was the lead. Her character was struggling to get back in the company’s good graces after an unexplained career setback from several years ago. Could it have been Excess Baggage? ABC aired the pilot, but didn’t pick up the show to series. That gave Silverstone two failed pilots in two years.

Alicia Silverstone – The Singles Table – 2007

Undeterred, Silverstone took another swing at sitcom stardom with The Singles Table. The pilot for the show about five singles who meet when they are seated together at a wedding reception was shot without Silverstone’s involvement. Originally, her character was played by Pascale Hutton. The pilot was picked up to series with an order of thirteen episodes. Fifteen days later, it was announced that Hutton was being replaced by Silverstone. Reshoots began to incorporate Silverstone into the show. But then the network, NBC, decided to cancel the show in order to cut costs. Only six of the thirteen episodes had been completed and Silverstone had only filmed scenes for two of them. There were plans to air the six produced episodes during the summer, but ultimately the show never saw the light of day.

Alicia Silverstone – Speed the Plow – 2007

Silverstone returned to the Geffen Playhouse in 2007 for a revival of Mamet’s play, Speed the Plow. Reviews for the Hollywood satire were significantly better than they were for Boston Marriage.

Alicia Silverstone – PETA ad – 2007

Silverstone, who has refused to do nude scenes throughout her career, appeared in some sexy print ads and commercials promoting vegetarianism for PETA. The organization had named Silverstone “Sexiest Female Vegetarian” in 2004 and decided it was time to put that sex appeal to good use three years later.

The spots were too racy for Houston, Texas which had them pulled off the air.

On TV, Silverstone’s losing streak continued into 2008. She shot a pilot for a series based on Kate Long’s novel The Bad Mother’s Handbook. The series would have featured Silverstone as a single mother caring for her teenage daughter and her own mother. ABC did not pick up the show to series.

On the upside, she can be spotted sitting next to Jack Black during the Academy Awards scene in the comedy, Tropic Thunder.

Alicia Silverstone – Tropic Thunder cameo – 2008

Silverstone was slated for a multi-episode arc on the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother. She would have played a dermatologist who would have started dating Ted, the main character on the show. But when pop star Britney Speares was cast as the dermatologist’s assistant, Silverstone backed out. Reportedly, she was worried about being overshadowed by the famous singer. Silverstone was replaced with Scrubs star Sarah Chalke and the part was reduced to accomodate Chalke’s limited availability.

Alicia Silverstone – Time Stands Still – 2009

In 2009, Silverstone returned to the LA stage in the premiere of Donald Margulies’ play, Time Stands Still.

Alicia Silverstone -Time Stands Still – 2010

The following year, Silverstone reprised her role in the Broadway production which starred Laura Linney as a photo journalist who has returned from covering the war in Iraq with serious injuries. Eric Bogosian co-starred as Linney’s ex and Silverstone played his chipper new girlfriend. The New York Times praised Silverstone’s performance in their review of the Broadway production:

Ms. Silverstone, whose Broadway debut came in the dreary stage adaptation of The Graduate, gets a happy chance at redemption in a tricky role to which she brings warmth, actorly intelligence and delicate humor. She achieves the lovely feat of allowing us to laugh at Mandy’s shallowness even as we are charmed by her good-heartedness.

Alicia Silverstone – The Kind Diet – 2009

In 2009, Silverstone decided to cash in on her status as a sexy vegetarian with her vegan cookbook, The Kind Diet.

At the time of the book’s release, Silverstone claimed to have turned down offers for TV and movie roles to focus on her stage work:

Who knows what I was doing in Scooby-Doo 2. I just didn’t know my potential at the time. That’s all part of my past.

The Kind Diet was a New York Times Best Seller. Silverstone used the book to launch her own website, The Kind Life. There was more “kindness” to follow. But we’ll get to that soon.

Silverstone spent a lot of time in her early career insisting that she was not a music video girl. But in 2009, she decided to star in another music video.

In Rob Thomas’ video for Her Diamonds, Silverstone played a girl who does not flip off Stephen Dorff or make out with Liv Tyler. So adjust your expectations and interest levels accordingly. Instead, she starts off frozen in a block of ice and gradually thaws out. At the end of the video, she gazes into the warm sunlight.

According to Silverstone, she had been turning down TV and movie roles left and right. But she found time for a couple of video shorts for the Funny or Die website. First, she appeared in a satire of an anti-same-sex marriage promo. The original commercial The Gathering Storm, compared same-sex marriage to an act of God. And not the good kind.

Silverstone also satirized all of those indie movies she had been starring in with a fake trailer for My Mother’s Red Hat. The video co-starred Alanis Morissette.

Alicia Silverstone – The Art of Getting By – 2011

In 2011, Silverstone had a supporting role in the indie teen comedy, The Art of Getting By. Freddie Highmore starred as a talented art student who believes that since life is pointless, he doesn’t need to apply his talents in any meaningful way. He ends up falling for a classmate played by Emma Roberts, and suddenly things start to matter to him more. Silverstone played one of Highmore’s teachers.

The Art of Getting By premiered at Sundance and where it received mixed reviews. It never received a wide theatrical release.

Alicia Silverstone – Children’s Hospital – 2011

Later that year, Silverstone had a guest appearance on the Adult Swim medical comedy, Children’s Hospital. In the episode, it is revealed that series regular Rob Huebel is secretly married to Silverstone when she brings their baby into the ward for treatment.

Alicia Silverstone – Butter – 2012

Silverstone also co-starred with Children’s Hospital star Rob Corddry in the indie comedy, Butter.

Corddry and Silverstone played foster parents to a girl with a talent for butter sculpture. Ty Burrell played a local who has dominated the local butter-carving competition for 15 years in a row. When he is asked not to compete in order to give other sculptors a shot at the prize, his overly competitive wife played by Jennifer Garner takes his place in the contest. Olivia Wilde played a stripper who joins the contest because Burrell stiffed her for $600. Hugh Jackman also made an appearance.

Butter received mostly negative reviews with critics complaining that the satire missed the mark and the movie held middle America in contempt. It played in 90 theaters where it barely grossed $100,000 dollars.

Alicia Silverstone – Vamps – 2012

Later that year, Silverstone reuinted with her Clueless director, Amy Heckerling, for the comedy Vamps.

Silverstone co-starred opposite Krysten Ritter as socialite vampires. Sigourney Weaver and Clueless co-star Wallace Shawn also make appearances.

Inspite of the vampire craze, Vamps got an extremely limited theatrical release before being dumped on video and on-demand. How limited? It played in one theater where it earned just over $3 grand.

Silverstone – Suburgatory – 2012

On TV, Silverstone had a four-episode run as a guest star on the sitcom, Suburgatory. The show starred Jeremy Sisto with whom Silverstone had worked on Hideaway and Clueless:

When I first watched Suburgatory, I was so excited for him and proud of him and thought, ‘Wow, he’s just a whole different guy. I mean, we did a movie called Hideaway. He played a psycho-killer and I was Jeff Goldblum’s daughter. And then we did Clueless and he was snotty and hip and thought he was all that. It was so fun to see him as a dad – a grown dad with so much love and warmth and charm.

Alicia Silverstone – the Performers – 2012

Silverstone returned to Broadway for The Performers. The production closed after only seven performances. It stalled out after receiving tepid reviews and opening during Hurricane Sandy.

Silverstone also made headlines for publishing a letter to Russian Leader Vladimir Putin following the arrest of the protest band, Pussy Riot. Silverstone wasn’t concerned about the arrest or any of the human rights issues that lead up to it. She wanted to make sure the prisoners had the option of vegan meals.

Later that year, the actress caused a stir with a video she posted on her website in which she chewed up food and then spit it into her young son’s mouth.

Alicia Silverstone feeding her son – 2012

Silverstone married rock star Christopher Jarecki in 2005. She gave birth to their son, Bear Blu, yes, his name is Bear Blu, in 2011. The following year, Silverstone posted the video with the controversial and icky feeding method. She included the following message with the video:

I just had a delicious breakfast of miso soup, collards and radish steamed and drizzled with flax oil, cast iron mochi with nori wrapped outside, and some grated daikon. Yum! I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup… from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite…and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating.

Gross? Yeah. But is it unhealthy as some people have claimed? There’s no medical consensus one way or another. Some doctors claim that the baby may be getting healthy enzymes. Others argue it spreads disease.

Alicia Silvrstone – Ass Backwards – 2013

In 2013, Silverstone appeared in the indie comedy, Ass Backwards. June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson starred as two dim-witted friends who continually lost to Silverstone as children in beauty pageants. Now adults, they decide to take another stab at winning a beauty pageant.

Ass Backwards premiered at Sundance where it was panned by critics.

Silverstone also starred opposite Peter Fonda in the pilot for a Lifetime TV show titled HR. Silverstone played the uptight Director of Human Resources for a large company whose outlook on life changes after a head injury.

Silverstone – Angels in Stardust – 2014

Silverstone played a self-absorbed mother in the direct-to-video move, Angels in Stardust. The movie was an adaptation of the novel Jesus in Cowboy Boots. It was adapted and directed by novelist, William Robert Carey. The title of the movie was changed from the novel so that it would be listed near the top of alphabetical video-on-demand listings.

Silverstone joined the cast five days prior to the start date. She was very upset when a prop person handed her a fur to use in a scene.

Reviews were mostly negative.

Alicia Silverstone – The Kind Mama – 2014

2014 also saw the release of Silverstone’s follow-up to her best selling vegan cookbook, The Kind Diet. In The Kind Mama, Silverstone provided controversial parenting advice. Silverstone’s guide to parenting is based purely on her own personal experiences which include no medical or developmental training whatsoever. Which is probably why she opposed vaccines:

While there has not been a conclusive study of the negative effects of such a rigorous one-size-fits-all, shoot-’em-up schedule, there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was ‘never the same… I personally have friends whose babies were drastically affected in this way.

Silverstone, who named her son Bear Blu and video taped herself spitting food into his mouth, holds him up as an example of her superior parenting style:

Because his body is a super-clean, healthy machine it can defend itself and flush out all the nasty stuff much more quickly than a baby whose diet isn’t as kind.

Silverstone confirmed that her son has not been vaccinated or received “one drop of medicine”. She also made the claim that tampons can make a woman infertile:

Unfortunately, feminine-care manufacturers aren’t required to tell you what’s in their products, which means that no one’s talking about the potential pesticide residues from non-organic cotton and the ‘fragrances’ containing hormone-upsetting, fertility-knocking phthalates that are snuggling up to your hoo-ha.

“Hoo-ha” of course being a medical term brought into the popular vernacular by Dr. Albert Pacino.

Silverstone plans to impart additional life advice in a third book which is to be titled The Kind Diet Cookbook.

So, what the hell happened?

Silverstone caught national attention based on her look in a series of popular videos and became a Hollywood powerhouse based on a single hit movie which was actually only a modest success at the box office. But her fast success resulted in a backlash. Just as quickly as audiences fell in love with Silverstone, they turned on her.

Behind the scenes, Silverstone had a reputation for being difficult. And let’s face facts, she’s a flake. So it’s no surprise that her movie career faltered once her popularity faded. Still, you have to hand it to her. When life handed her lemons, she made vegan lemonade.

Although she is no longer in the spotlight, Silverstone continues to work both on stage and screen. Her movies and TV appearances aren’t seen by many. But she has somehow created a cottage industry out her offbeat beliefs. Personally, I’m not about to take medical advice from the girl from the Arrowsmith videos. But apparently a lot of other people will. So, more power to her?

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