×

Have you Heard?

Maui Film Festival announces its first Shining Star for 2018

AMBER HEARD, Maui Film Festival Shining Star

WAILEA — With almost 50 roles in some of the most groundbreaking films of the last decade, and a face representing one of the world’s top beauty-product lines, Amber Heard will receive the 2018 Maui Film Festival Shining Star Award.

Festival founder and Director Barry Rivers announced the award this morning for the actress who will co-star in the epic-adventure “Aquaman,” opening this holiday season. The award will be presented at the Celestial Cinema at the Wailea Gold and Emerald Golf Course. Heard is the first honoree to be named for this year’s 19th annual festival, returning to Wailea and the Maui Arts & Cultural Center June 13 to 17.

“We are thrilled to add Amber Heard to this year’s collection of highlights as the recipient of the Maui Film Festival’s Shining Star award for her ever-evolving, revelatory and ascending film career,” said Rivers.

The award “honors a film artist who dares to dream big dreams and delivers brilliantly charismatic and revelatory performances every time that opportunity knocks.” Previous Shining Stars include Adam Driver, Zac Efron, Andrew Garfield, Jake Gyllenhaal, Freida Pinto, Emma Roberts and Olivia Wilde, some of whom were honored shortly before the big breaks in their careers that would put them on the Hollywood A-list.

Besides starring as Mera in “Aquaman,” Heard is in production on Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell,” opposite Elisabeth Moss; and is top billed in the independent film, “Gully,” opposite Charlie Plummer.

In the film festival world, she played opposite Eddie Redmayne in Tom Hooper’s “The Danish Girl,” that won rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival before its release in 2016. In 2015, she was in two Tribecca Film Festival premieres — “The Adderall Diaries,” opposite James Franco, and “When I Live My Life Over Again,” opposite Christopher Walken.

A Texas native who successfully modeled before turning to acting, she is quoted on the Internet Movie Data Base saying, “I’ve worked really hard to bring something more to ‘pretty girl’ roles over the years. I consider it a challenge. . . . I don’t take parts because they’re for the sexy girl. I take the sexy girl parts and try to give them something else and make them a character.”

Leading men she has acted with include Channing Tatum in “Magic Mike XXL”; Kevin Costner in McG’s “Three Days to Kill”; Danny Trejo and Mel Gibson in Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete Kills”; and Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman in Robert Luketic’s “Paranoia.” She played opposite Johnny Depp, to whom she was married from 2015 to 2017, in Bruce Robinson’s “The Rum Diary.”

Her other film credits include John Carpenter’s “The Ward,” “And Soon The Darkness,” “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane,” “Zombieland,” “The Stepfather,” “Pineapple Express,” “North Country,” “Syrup,” “Drive Angry 3D,” “The Joneses,” “Never Back Down,” “Alpha Dog” and “Friday Night Lights.”

She was recently named as L’Oreal’s newest global celebrity spokesperson.

“I would love to see women be able to be powerful, complex, smart, opinionated and taken seriously, even if they are beautiful,” she is quoted on IMDB. “Even more, I would love to see women held to different standards, other than the superficial ones that we’re held to.”

Additional Maui Film Festival honorees and announcements of film selections are expected in coming weeks. For more information, visit www.mauifilmfestival.com.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper?
     
Support Local Journalism on Maui

Only $99/year

Subscribe Today