Elisha Cuthbert: Did She Quit Hollywood?
Elisha Cuthbert has roles in Bandit, Dear Elizabeth, and Friday Afternoon in the Universe all within the last year.
Has scream queen and former sex symbol Elisha Cuthbert finally called it quits on Hollywood? It’s sure looking that way with the actress relatively out of the scene for years now.
What has the actress been up to and will she ever take any more acting roles in the future?
MARRIED TO NHL PLAYER DION PHANEUF
Elisha Cuthbert was married back in 2013 to Dion Phaneuf, who at the time, was playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL. He went on to have stints with a couple of other squads before finally retiring in 2019.
The couple have two children born in 2017 and 2022 respectively. This family life, more than anything , seems to be the reason we haven’t seen Elisha Cuthbert in any movie or series since 2023. She has said she’s focused on being with her family. Whether this is a short-term thing or permanent remains to be seen.
ELISHA CUTHBERT WAS STAYING BUSY BANDIT AND THE CELLAR
For years, Elisha Cuthbert carved out a nice career. As Jack Bauer’s daughter Kim in the hit series 24, Cuthbert consistently found herself needing a rescuing by her father, especially when she was attacked in real life by a mountain lion on set. She went from the action series to comedy when for three seasons she appeared on the series Happy Endings.
Fox removed Happy Endings unceremoniously in 2013 and it took seven years before the cast, which included Elisha Cuthbert, Eliza Coupe, Zachary Knighton, Casey Wilson, Adam Pally, and Damon Wayans Jr., to reunite under the pen and direction of series creator David Caspe for a wonderful 30-minute episode shot during the pandemic.
Elisha Cuthbert’s career was looking for some direction, and during the pandemic, the roles were a bit few and far between.
During this unprecedented “downtime,” she was still able to grab some parts, though they were slow to come together. She was part of the film Eat Wheaties! and one episode of the TV series Jann. Her horror movie, The Cellar, was slated to hit theaters much sooner than it eventually did. This horror film would be her first return to the genre in 15 years.
As things began to open up around the country, the same was seen in Hollywood. This was a welcome site for Elisha Cuthbert. Bandit with Mel Gibson was released on September 23rd, and her other project, Dear Elizabeth, came out earlier that summer. After that, Cuthbert looked to return to her comedic ways with the film Friday Afternoon in the Universe. But that movie is stuck in pre-production.
In it, she was slated to play an alcoholic playwright who realizes one of her plays has been stolen and is now being staged in San Francisco. With the help of some friends, she takes to the road to claim ownership of her play.
The episode (And the Pandemmy Goes To…) brought the cast back together via a Zoom call to not only catch fans up on the whereabouts of the cast’s characters but also to raise money for Color of Change and José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen.
In all, Elisha Cuthbert looked like she was making something of a comeback in Hollywood with some new projects. But as stated, that no longer seems to be the case.
ELISHA CUTHBERT WAS A CHILD MODEL BEFORE SHE GOT HER BREAK ON ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK
Elisha Cuthbert was four years old when she first stepped on a stage. She wasn’t invited, she just helped herself up to entertain with the Polish dancers who were already up there. “Even though I was only 4, I got a big thrill when the audience started applauding,” she told CinemasOnline.
Cuthbert was born in Vancouver, Canada. The thrill she received while being on the stage with the dancers held over. By the age of seven, she was modeling children’s clothing while also becoming a foot model.
Elisha Cuthbert’s first television appearance came in 1996 on the family horror series Are You Afraid of the Dark. She appeared in 27 episodes in a four-year span, which also saw her in the Canadian features Dancing on the Moon, Nico the Unicorn, Time at the Top, Who Gets the House?, and Believe. She also appeared in the 1999 movie Airspeed, which also starred Joe Mantegna as her father.
ELISHA CUTHBERT’S BREAKTHROUGH ROLE CAME ON THE HIT SERIES 24
It wasn’t long after Elisha Cuthbert moved to Los Angeles from Vancouver that she got her first big role. It came in the 2001 Kiefer Sutherland-led hit series 24. She appeared as Kim Bauer, daughter of federal agent Jack Bauer (Sutherland).
Of the series’ eight seasons, Cuthbert appeared in the first three, guest-starred in two episodes of the fifth season, then guest-starred in five episodes of season seven and two episodes in season eight. Cuthbert also lent her voice to the 2006 video game based on the series 24: The Game.
Elisha Cuthbert feels her time with Sutherland on 24 has taught her a lot about not only acting but the movie/television industry in general. “I’ve learned a lot from him,” she explains to CinemaOnline. “He’s really the whole show because his intensity just carries everything and everyone else on his back. He’s also given me a lot of great advice.”
Cuthbert says Sutherland taught her tricks to make scenes better with some of his great ideas and he has also shown her how to maintain the intensity while pacing out her scenes. “But the best advice he’s given me,” says the grateful Cuthbert, “is that a lot of actors are insecure and often do projects just to have work and collect a paycheck. He’s told me to be choosy and to be patient.”
SHE BREAKS INTO HOLLYWOOD FILM WITH ROLES IN OLD SCHOOL AND LOVE, ACTUALLY
Elisha Cuthbert’s first Hollywood movie came in a bit part in Old School. In it, she plays Darcie Goldberg, Mitch’s (Luke Wilson) one-night stand. Imagine Mitch’s surprise when he finds out the hard way that Darcie is actually a high school student.
Up next for Elisha Cuthbert was another small role in the popular Love, Actually. In it, she again played to her sex appeal as Carol-Anne, one of the four American ladies who take in Englishman Colin when he first arrives in America. It wasn’t a large part, but she handled it with as much sex appeal as she could.
These roles, combined with her success on 24, brought Cuthbert to one of her most recognizable roles.
HER MOST NOTABLE ROLE IN FILM WAS PLAYING A PORN STAR IN THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
Elisha Cuthbert starred in The Girl Next Door, a romantic comedy about a porn star. Cuthbert played Danielle, a former porn star trying to move away from her sordid past. She moves in next door to high schooler Matthew (Emile Hirsch) and immediately turns his life upside down. Matthew believes he has found the girl of his dreams, that is, until his friend informs him that the girl next door is a porn star.
Cuthbert took on the role because she saw it as a challenge. Not in terms of taking her clothes off, which she does, but to the happiness of her parents, she does not go full frontal in her role. Her actual challenge came with the process of filming and being the lead in a movie versus her time on a TV series.
As Cuthbert explains it, the difference is big when on a series because the director is looking to get everything on one or two takes while on a feature film, it usually is somewhere between 10-12 takes before the director is satisfied. Cuthbert says she learned to hold back and not give it her all on the first or second take.
ELISHA CUTHBERT WAS HOLLYWOOD’S SEX SYMBOL AND SCREAM QUEEN
As Elisha Cuthbert’s career progressed, she was labeled with two names – sex symbol and scream queen. The sex symbol aspect is easy to see based on the roles she grabbed early on. As for the scream queen part, that is a little more difficult to see.
When it comes to horror films, Cuthbert doesn’t have many in her resume. The same goes for television. Are You Afraid of the Dark is considered horror, to a degree, and the only other “horror” she has done has been the 2005 remake of House of Wax and the 2007 film Captivity. Somehow, this has pushed her into Scream Queen status, sitting at number 35 on ET’s Top 40 list.
