Alicia Silverstone ( ə-LEE-see-ə; born October 4, 1976) is an American actress. She made her film debut in the thriller The Crush (1993), earning the 1994 MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, and gained further prominence as a teen idol when she appeared in the music videos for Aerosmith's songs "Cryin'", "Amazing", and "Crazy". She went on to star as Cher Horowitz in the teen comedy film Clueless (1995), which earned her a multi-million-dollar deal with Columbia Pictures. In 1997, she portrayed Batgirl in the superhero film Batman & Robin.
Silverstone received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her role in the short-lived NBC series Miss Match (2003). She has continued to act in film, television and on stage. A vegan, Silverstone has endorsed PETA activities and published two cookbooks: The Kind Diet (2009) and The Kind Mama (2014).
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Early life
Silverstone was born on October 4, 1976, in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Deirdre "Didi" Silverstone (née Radford), a Scottish former Pan Am flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, an English real estate agent. Silverstone has two older siblings: a half-sister from her father's previous marriage, Kezi Silverstone, and a brother, David Silverstone. She grew up in Hillsborough, California. Her father was born to a Jewish family and her mother converted to Conservative Judaism before marriage. Silverstone had a bat mitzvah ceremony. She began modeling when she was eight, and was cast in television commercials, with the first being for Domino's Pizza at the age of fourteen. She attended Crocker Middle School, then San Mateo High School.
Career
1990s
Her first credited acting role was on The Wonder Years in 1992, in the episode "Road Test", as Kevin's high school "dream girl". Silverstone made her film debut when she obtained the leading role in the erotic thriller The Crush, playing a teenage girl who sets out to ruin an older man after he spurns her affections; she became legally emancipated at the age of 15 to work the hours required for the shooting schedule of the film. She won two awards at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards for the role—Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Villain. Silverstone made some television films in her early career, including Torch Song, Cool and the Crazy, and Scattered Dreams.
After seeing her in The Crush, Marty Callner decided Silverstone would be perfect for a role in a music video he was directing for Aerosmith, called "Cryin'." Silverstone is shown getting a navel piercing in the music video, which has largely been credited as introducing the navel piercing to mainstream culture. She was subsequently cast in two more Aerosmith videos, "Amazing" and "Crazy". These were hugely successful for both the band and Silverstone, making her a household name. After seeing Silverstone in the three videos, filmmaker Amy Heckerling decided to cast her in the coming-of-age comedy Clueless, in the role of Cher Horowitz, a sweet but spoiled girl living in Beverly Hills. Clueless became a hit and critical darling during the summer of 1995, and as a result, Silverstone signed a deal with Columbia-TriStar valued between $8 and $10 million. As part of the package, she got a three-year first-look deal for her own production company, First Kiss Productions. Silverstone also won Best Female Performance and Most Desirable Female at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards, plus awards from Blockbuster Entertainment Award, Kids' Choice Awards, National Board of Review and an American Comedy Award for her performance in the film.
Silverstone had three other film releases in 1995—Le Nouveau monde, Hideaway and The Babysitter. Le Nouveau monde, which is a French drama about Americans, saw her play the love interest of a French boy. In the film adaptation of the novel by Dean Koontz, Hideaway, she played a teenage girl whose father dies in a car accident and is revived two hours later. The film The Babysitter was a B erotic thriller directed by Guy Ferland based on the eponymous short story by Robert Coover in his 1969 collection Pricksongs and Descants.
In 1996, she starred in the direct-to-video thriller True Crime as a Catholic school student searching for a murderer of teenage girls. Her next role was Barbara Wilson/Batgirl in Batman & Robin (1997). Budgeted at $160 million, the film grossed a modest $238 million worldwide, and her turn as Batgirl received polarized reviews from critics, who also considered the film to be one of the worst films of all time. Silverstone won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress, but received a Blimp Award at the Kids' Choice Awards for the role.
2000s
For the next decade, Silverstone stepped aside from the spotlight and opted to focus on smaller-scale films and theater. In Love's Labour's Lost (2000), a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Kenneth Branagh, Silverstone played the Princess of France, a role which required her to sing and dance. While critical response was mixed, the film received a limited theatrical release. Film critic James Berardinelli felt that Silverstone, "while not completely at ease with all of her dialogue, is surprisingly credible" in her portrayal.
Silverstone executive produced and provided the voice of Sharon Spitz, the lead part, in the Canadian animated television series Braceface, from 2001 to 2003. During this period, she played the bassist of a rock band in the independent comedy Global Heresy (2002), opposite Peter O'Toole and Joan Plowright, and made her Broadway debut alongside Kathleen Turner and Jason Biggs in a stage version of The Graduate, which ran between 2002 and 2003 at the Plymouth Theatre. Silverstone also starred as one of several disgruntled bank employees trying to rob the same bank in the small-scale comedy Scorched (2003), co-starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Woody Harrelson and John Cleese.
Silverstone signed on to headline the 2003 NBC television series Miss Match, as Kate Fox, a Los Angeles matrimonial attorney who doubles as a high-end matchmaker. The show was canceled after only 11 episodes had aired, and Variety in its review for the show, wrote: "It's a shame that she's stuck with such wafer-thin material here, because Silverstone is undoubtedly a fun, perky presence on the small screen." Nevertheless, she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy.
In 2004, Silverstone played a news reporter turned villainess in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. Despite a negative critical response, the film grossed $181 million at the international box office.
In the comedy Beauty Shop (2005), a spinoff of the Barbershop film franchise, Silverstone appeared with Queen Latifah, playing a naive and bubbly stylist of an Atlanta-area salon. The film was her final wide release of the decade in North America, where it grossed $37.2 million.
Her next film, the thriller Silence Becomes You, received a DVD release in 2005. Silverstone did a pilot episode in 2005 with Fox called Queen B, where she played a delusional former high school prom queen, but it was not picked up for production. In 2006, she starred in an ABC pilot called Pink Collar as a woman working in a law firm, but like Queen B, this pilot was not picked up to series.
2010s
Silverstone continued to focus on theater and independent productions throughout the 2010s, but acted considerably more than in the previous decade. In 2010, she reprised her role in the Broadway production of Time Stands Still, alongside Laura Linney. Daniel Sullivan directed the play, and described Silverstone as "a breath of fresh air" which had a general positive reception among critics. The New York Times felt that Silverstone "brings warmth, actorly intelligence, and delicate humor." She filmed a small segment in the independent comedy sequel Elektra Luxx (2010), but her part was not included in the final cut of the film.
Silverstone obtained the role of the teacher of a Manhattan private-school senior in the teen romance drama The Art of Getting By (2011), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The ensemble comedy Butter (2011) saw her play the adoptive mother of a 12-year-old African-American girl who enters a local butter sculpturing competition in a small Iowa town. The film screened on the film festival circuit and was distributed in a limited release. She reunited with Clueless director Amy Heckerling in the independent film Vamps (2012), playing one of two vampires who fall in love and face a choice that could jeopardize their immortality. She was offered the role after Heckerling came to see her in Time Stands Still. Despite a very limited release, Variety found the film to be "a refreshing change of pace [...] with an irresistible cast".
Silverstone guest-starred in Childrens Hospital (2011) and obtained a four-episode role in the first season of Suburgatory (2012), reuniting with her Clueless castmate Jeremy Sisto. In 2012, Silverstone returned to Broadway in the production of The Performers, a comedic performance set at the Adult Film Award in Las Vegas. The play premiered in November at the Longacre Theatre, but was canceled after 23 previews and seven regular performances due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In 2013, she filmed the television pilot HR, which was not picked up, and appeared in the Sundance comedy Ass Backwards, released for VOD and selected theaters. In 2014, Silverstone took on the role of a self-absorbed mother in the rural environment in the coming-of-age drama Angels in Stardust, and her Kind Life follow-up book, The Kind Mama, was published.
In 2015, Silverstone starred in the New York production of Of Good Stock, a play revolving around a group of siblings who gather at their family home for a summer weekend. Entertainment Weekly remarked that she was "magnetic even as an engaged narcissist, ditzy" sister; however, The New York Times felt that her role was "the most cartoonish of the characters and a thankless part for [Silverstone], who tips into comic shrillness here". She appeared in the romantic comedy Who Gets the Dog? (2016), opposite Ryan Kwanten portraying a divorcing couple fighting over custody of their beloved dog. The production went straight to DVD. Her next film appearance was in the independent biographical drama King Cobra (2016), as the mother of gay film actor Brent Corrigan.
2020s
In 2020, Silverstone appeared in the comedies Bad Therapy, Sister of the Groom and Valley Girl, and also narrated the eco-superhero fantasy novel Chendell: A Natural Warrior and the Audible podcast Eat S-t Kenny Daniels. She starred as Elizabeth Brewer in the Netflix series The Baby-Sitters Club. In 2021, she appeared in the Netflix series Masters of the Universe: Revelation.
In 2023, she appeared in crime drama thriller Reptile co-starring Benicio del Toro and Justin Timberlake. Her 2024 roles include the A24 film Y2K and Netherlands-produced comedy horror Krazy House. In 2024, Silverstone executive produced the British documentary film I Could Never Go Vegan.
Activism
Silverstone is an animal rights and environmental activist. She became a vegan in 1998 after attending an animal rights meeting, saying, "I realized that I was the problem ... I was an animal lover who was eating animals." She has stated she struggled with childhood vegetarianism: "At eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns—and so through the years I was always starting and stopping trying to be a vegetarian." She has been criticized due to her anti-vaccine stance, promotion of pseudoscientific diet and lifestyle choices, and her claims regarding the medical and spiritual benefits of veganism.
In 2004, Silverstone was voted "Sexiest Female Vegetarian" by PETA. In 2007, she appeared nude in a print advertisement and 30-second commercial for PETA championing vegetarianism; the TV spot was subsequently pulled from the Houston, Texas market by Comcast Cable. In 2016, she posed nude in one of the group's "I'd Rather Go Naked" anti-wool ads. She has set up a sanctuary for rescued pets in Los Angeles. In 2012, during the trial of Russian band Pussy Riot, she wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin asking that vegan meals be made available to all Russian prisoners.
Federal campaign contribution records list Silverstone contributing $500 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign. She supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, and endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for president in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In 2023, Silverstone endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 2024 Democratic primaries and announced that she had left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. In 2009, she appeared in "A Gaythering Storm", a Funny or Die spoof Internet video parodying anti-same-sex marriage commercial "Gathering Storm". In 2023, Silverstone appeared with her son in a PETA campaign encouraging schools to adopt alternatives to animal dissection.
Personal life
She married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician Christopher Jarecki, in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe on June 11, 2005. After meeting outside a theater in 1997, they dated for eight years prior to their marriage. They got engaged about a year before their marriage, and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother. The couple lived in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house that Silverstone bought in 1996, complete with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden and they shared a "menagerie of rescued dogs". On May 5, 2011, Silverstone gave birth to a son. Jarecki and Silverstone separated in February 2018, filed for divorce three months later, and it was finalized in November of that year.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
She was awarded a Heart of Green Award in 2009, which "recognizes individuals, organizations or companies who have helped green go mainstream." In 2010, she was awarded a Voice of Compassion Award by the Physician's Committee For Responsible Medicine for "shining a spotlight on the powerful health benefits of a vegan diet." In 2021, she was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Children's Program.
