Signatures: Sissy Spacek

Adam of Club Silencio here with a look at my favorite actresses and their distinguishing claims to fame.

Sissy Spacek is the rarest of Hollywood starlets. Nowadays she contently weaves her wonder into tiny, thankless roles, and so rarely glams up the red carpet or graces the tabloid page. She makes it almost easy to forget her certifiable A-list rank, even as we watch her dazzle and disappear in films like the upcoming Four Christmases. But never turn your back on her; Sissy's always been one for the third act stunner.

Consider it a lesson learned: It's always the quiet ones...


Sissy has mastered the ability to go from meek to madwoman in the blink of a telekinetic eye. How easy we forget that she torched her entire graduating class and took out a sizable portion of the Midwest population. Blame it on her strict religious upbringing or a boyfriend with homicidal tendencies, but Sissy's never one to be underestimated. That pleasant homegrown beauty and peaceful naivete can so readily warm our hearts like a smooth country ballad, but one should always be prepared for Sissy to steal an identity, or something far worse.


Fair enough, her characters often have good reason for turning on a dime -- things like public humiliation or familial loss. But if you think Sissy's always justified in this momentary madness, try saying it to Marisa Tomei's face...


Sissy says of her startling, unhinged moment with Tomei, "She was a really good sport about it, but I felt awful. I mean, she had a bag of ice on her face, to keep the swelling down between takes. And that was our first scene together."

Upon playing Ruth Fowler, her Oscar-nominated role from In the Bedroom, Sissy says she initially found little in common with the emotionally reserved character. But rest assured Sissy quickly found her creative spark as only she could, "I'll be in the middle of throwing a fit and I'll think, 'I've got to remember this, I can use this. This is going in my toolbox.'"