Celebrity crush: Bryce Dallas Howard

Today's celebrity crush has mixed artsy films with blockbusters and even played a role in drama concerning another crush. (Start thinking of catfight jokes now.) Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Bryce Dallas Howard (images -- some very NSFW | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: She was born in Los Angeles, Calif., and raised in Greenwich, Conn., according to her Wikipedia profile and, well, the tiniest iota of pop culture knowledge. Bryce's father is Ron Howard, the child actor from The Andy Griffith Show turned top-flight film director. Her mother, Cheryl Alley Howard, is an actress and writer.
Best Known For: Bryce may be the first entry on this list who has not a single TV appearance to her credit, excepting a voice bit on an episode of a cartoon I don't watch. She headed straight into silver-screen roles, mixing artsy films such as Manderlay (of which more will be said later) and The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond with blockbuster films such as Spider-Man 3 and Twilight: Eclipse (of which more, again, will be said later).

She's also appeared in Terminator: Salvation (which also starred fellow celebrity crush Moon Bloodgood), Kenneth Branagh's film of Shakespeare's As You Like It, and two of M. Night Shyamalan's films, The Village and Lady in the Water. And she's a producer for the upcoming Gus Van Zant film Restless, starring 21-year-old Australian wunderkind Mia Wasikowska -- but Bryce does not appear in the film itself.

Humble Beginnings: Bryce and her younger siblings were barred from television in their childhood and steered toward reading, outside play and other hobbies, in her case basketball and writing, Wikipedia notes. They appeared as extras in some of their dad's films, but by and large, the Howards tried to give their children normal, non-Hollywood, childhoods.

But Bryce had the bug, appearing in Guys and Dolls as a high-school student and attending arts camps with her friend Natalie Portman (of whom little is known). She might have appeared in the 1989 Steve Martin dramedy Parenthood, a movie that incidentally inspired not one but two TV series, and she appeared in Apollo 13 and the live-action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of those three, only the last came out when she was an adult.

Bryce had an inside angle on those three movies, admittedly; her dad directed them. In 2004, she appeared in the drama Book of Love with Everwood star Gregory Smith, fellow celebrity crush Ari Graynor, actress Frances O'Connor and a pre-Mentalist Simon Baker. Her dad wasn't involved in that project, as far as I can tell, and she's been working steadily ever since, including some roles that are pretty damn far from the Mayberry of her dad's TV youth.

Obligatory Edgy Stuff: ... Which brings us to the film Manderlay and something called "full-frontal nudity." (Don't tell Sheriff Andy Taylor. And thank heavens Aunt Bee isn't with us anymore to hear of this.)

Manderlay also was at the center of an animal rights controversy that led actor John C. Reilly to quit the film during its production. (Bryce is now a vegan, though that stance apparently came a bit later, after Joaquin Phoenix showed her an animal-rights documentary for which he'd done narration.)

Also, she had a supporting role in an indie film titled Good Dick, about a relationship between a video store clerk and a woman prone to renting porn movies.

Natalie Portman, having gained
psychic powers after shaving her
head in V for Vendetta, is happy
to prophecy her childhood
friend's entry into some dude's
celebrity crush hall of fame.
(Shame about the watermark.)

In addition, her entry into the Twilight films came in the form of a re-casting -- fellow celebrity crush Rachelle Lefevre had another project that conflicted with production of Eclipse, and Bryce was hired to pick up the role of a vampire named Victoria. There has not, to Ye Olde Podcaster's knowledge, been any outright hostility between the two actresses over this, but here's where you may offer up the catfight joke he asked you to be pondering earlier.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Bryce seems determined, in her adulthood, to get roles that aren't based solely on her startling beauty or her family name. Among the things that most disappointed me about Spider-Man 3 -- besides the obvious -- was that the introduction of Bryce as Gwen Stacy in that chapter didn't lead anywhere, what with the film franchise ending at that installment and heading into reboot mode. Kinda a missed opportunity for Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and company, but again, that third movie had many other burdens to bear.

As Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man 3.

Film and TV-movie credits: The Help (Amazon | iTunes) * Live With It (Amazon | iTunes) * Hereafter (Amazon | iTunes) * Twilight: Eclipse (Amazon | iTunes) * Despair (2010 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * Terminator: Salvation (Amazon | iTunes) * The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (Amazon | iTunes) * Good Dick (Amazon | iTunes) * Spider-Man 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * As You Like It (2006) (Amazon | iTunes) * Lady in the Water (Amazon | iTunes) * Manderlay (Amazon | iTunes) * The Village (Amazon | iTunes) * Book of Love (Amazon | iTunes) * How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) (Amazon | iTunes)
Voice work: Family Guy, season 7: "We Love You Conrad" (Amazon | iTunes)
As Writer and Director (Not Actress): Orchids (2006 short) (Amazon | iTunes)
As Producer (Not Actress): Restless (2011) (Amazon | iTunes)