Bella Heathcote Is Fifty Shades Darker's Leila

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Bella Heathcote Is Fifty Shades Darker's Leila

I know nothing about those books. Is this an interesting role for her?

[michael c]

I know nothing about these stories beyond that it's glossy vanilla S&M...

but I'm glad to see things working out so well for Heathcote. I liked her in DS but it was obvious she fell prey to some very overzealous editing. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I don't know if it's Great Britain, The Daily Mail, or both, but The Daily Mail certainly must have some sort of love affair with the Depp/DS film. First it was describing Chloe Moretz as "DS Favourite" - now comes this article:

Bella Heathcote to play Christian Grey's ex-lover Leila in Fifty Shades Of Grey sequel Fifty Shades Darker

that not only refers to Bella as someone "who broke into Hollywood with her role in Tim Burton's 2012 horror comedy Dark Shadows," but also says "She shot to stardom quickly when she was selected by Tim Burton to play Victoria Winters and Josette du Pres in his gothic comedy Dark Shadows alongside Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer."

[michael c]

"broke into Hollywood" maybe...

but "shot to stardom" is a considerable overstatement given both Heathcote's somewhat marginalized role and the film's overall US success. to this day I doubt most people could put a name to the face although her upcoming roster of films might change that.

still I'm glad she's doing well.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, being that the Daily Mail is located in Great Britain, it's possible that her reception there was much bigger than it was here, particularly considering that she's Australian. They are, after all, writing mainly for a British audience - and as we saw with the foreign box office figures on boxofficemojo.com, the Depp/DS film did really well with both British and Aussie audiences. But who knows?

[michael c]

apparently she was on a hugely popular Australian soap opera called 'Neighbors' and the cast are very big stars "down under".

[michael c]

and I've said this before but one of the film's odder developments (and there are a LOT of them) is that after her strong opening scenes the putative "heroine" largely gets pushed into the background.

I get that there was a studio dictate to limit the running time but the Vicki character seemed to get the heaviest hand in the editing room. 

[Gothick]

I happened to see a promotional squib about this movie while I was staying with family down in Fla. recently.  It was on the TODAY show.  I no longer watch TV at home but they do run it a lot.

Anyhow the movie was the project of one of the Wayans brothers (from IN LIVING COLOR) and is a spoof of FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY.  I actually remember the title being FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK, but I'm probably misremembering since I wasn't really paying attention.

I think Bella plays the heroine, who seems to have been sort of like a drippier version of the girl-child in the TWILIGHT books.  FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY was originally written as TWILIGHT fanfic, then the author got the idea to change the names and market it as original fiction. She or he became a very wealthy individual as a result.

G.