Post by jag11 on Nov 13, 2008 7:27:27 GMT -5
On screen, Jennifer Sipes is Susie Evans, a longtime friend of the Bush family who helps Josh Brolin's George W. Bush keep his Texas roots.
Off screen, she's a gregarious young woman whose roaring laughter echoes over the phone lines from her Dallas home to her Colorado hometown.
"This year in particular has been really awesome for me," Sipes said. "In this business, it's unpredictable, so it's good."
Sipes, 24, has plenty to laugh about. The Monument native burst onto the blockbuster big screen with the recent release of Oliver Stone's biopic "W." And her latest effort, a 1920s period version of Tennessee Williams' screenplay "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," opened to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Things don't appear to be slowing down for Sipes any time soon. She recently shot a role in Terrence Malick's 2009 film "Tree of Life," is shooting a full-length film called "Code Enforcer" and will act in an episode of "The Young and the Restless" later this month.
"Some kids grew up playing basketball all day. She played with a video camera all day," her father, Kenneth Shakeshaft, said. "We ... knew early on she had a lot of talent for this. It was always what she wanted to do."
After graduating from Lewis-Palmer High School in 2003 and after a one-semester stint at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Sipes headed to New York. It was there, at the American Musical & Dramatic Academy, that she honed her skills.
"I was not the typical ‘Oh yes, I love Tennessee Williams' type," she said. "I got to start with a clean slate."
So how did she end up in front of Stone's camera just a few years later?
Sipes credits her parents, Kenneth and Mary Shakeshaft; her husband, Matthew Sipes; and her sisters, Laura Brand and Cindy Shakeshaft, for supporting her.
"Both of my parents instilled in ... us going for whatever you want in life," she said. "That was so important because it's just what I'm doing, and I'm so grateful."
Off screen, she's a gregarious young woman whose roaring laughter echoes over the phone lines from her Dallas home to her Colorado hometown.
"This year in particular has been really awesome for me," Sipes said. "In this business, it's unpredictable, so it's good."
Sipes, 24, has plenty to laugh about. The Monument native burst onto the blockbuster big screen with the recent release of Oliver Stone's biopic "W." And her latest effort, a 1920s period version of Tennessee Williams' screenplay "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," opened to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Things don't appear to be slowing down for Sipes any time soon. She recently shot a role in Terrence Malick's 2009 film "Tree of Life," is shooting a full-length film called "Code Enforcer" and will act in an episode of "The Young and the Restless" later this month.
"Some kids grew up playing basketball all day. She played with a video camera all day," her father, Kenneth Shakeshaft, said. "We ... knew early on she had a lot of talent for this. It was always what she wanted to do."
After graduating from Lewis-Palmer High School in 2003 and after a one-semester stint at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Sipes headed to New York. It was there, at the American Musical & Dramatic Academy, that she honed her skills.
"I was not the typical ‘Oh yes, I love Tennessee Williams' type," she said. "I got to start with a clean slate."
So how did she end up in front of Stone's camera just a few years later?
Sipes credits her parents, Kenneth and Mary Shakeshaft; her husband, Matthew Sipes; and her sisters, Laura Brand and Cindy Shakeshaft, for supporting her.
"Both of my parents instilled in ... us going for whatever you want in life," she said. "That was so important because it's just what I'm doing, and I'm so grateful."