The movie Jennifer Jason Leigh hated making: “I didn’t want to mention it by name”

Posted On February 12, 2026February 12, 2026

When Jennifer Jason Leigh was just 19, she landed her first major movie role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the classic teen movie which saw her play 15-year-old Stacy, who becomes pregnant following a rendezvous with a concert ticket scalper.

It was a mature role despite her character’s age, but she mastered the role perfectly, subsequently earning acclaim, and from then on, opportunities kept coming for the young actor, and she appeared in a range of comedies and thrillers throughout the rest of the 1980s, eventually catching the attention of director Ron Howard.

He soon directed her in Backdraft alongside Kurt Russell and William Baldwin, an epic action thriller which even inspired a fire-themed attraction at Universal Studios. That’s the kind of film Backdraft was, one laden with special effects and lots of flames; it wasn’t exactly a low-key affair.

While Leigh knew it was worth dipping her toes into such a big opportunity (which would come with a large cheque, no doubt), she soon came to realise that this wasn’t the kind of movie she was interested in making a career out of.

It might be the sort of thing that appeals to some actors, but not her, who prefers to work on movies that have a bit more grit to them, as reflected in her choice to star in the likes of Kristian Levring’s Dogme 95 film The King is Alive, Todd Solondz’s innovative approach to gender and race, Palindromes, Charlie Kaufman’s postmodernist masterpiece Synecdoche, New York, Jane Campion’s erotic In the Cut, and Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist western The Hateful Eight. 

Backdraft was certainly an interesting experience for Leigh, but she prefers to forget that she ever starred in it. “I didn’t want to mention it by name,” she said in an interview with David Schwartz, who asked about her supposed unhappiness with Howard’s film. When questioned if she avoids big-budget productions these days, she gave the film as the perfect example, stating, “Well, if you watch Backdraft, you’ll know why I avoid them”.

She said, “Not because of the movie or Ron Howard, who I like a lot. It’s just that I’m terrible in them. I can’t connect to them at all. And I tried everything. All the research in the world could not save me in that. A lot of people were saying to me, ‘You should do a woman like this. You’ve never done anything like this’. Now we know why!” 

Clearly, a role that requires plenty of action and excitement is much harder for Leigh to get on board when compared to ones that get a bit deeper, at least psychologically. So, ever since Backdraft, the actor has dedicated herself to much more interesting projects, which have challenged her and allowed her to really dig into the minds of her characters. There’s only so much of that you can do in a movie about explosions. 

Howard has continued to make many big Hollywood movies, preferring to exist within the arena of big-budget filmmaking where profit triumphs narrative. That’s not to say that he doesn’t care about cinema, but something like Backdraft is never going to hit the same intricate highs as a movie made by someone like Solondz or Campion.