In a slew of romantic and screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, Katharine Hepburn defied convention by playing women who were independent, forthright and unruly. She had the audacity to behave that way off-screen, too. Myth and nostalgia would have you believe she was unique, but she has spawned many kindred spirits working today. Less the manic pixie such as Zooey Deschanel or Kirsten Dunst, or feisty beauties such as Penelope Cruz or Jennifer Lawrence, or even scatty navel-gazers such as Greta Gerwig or Lena Dunham. Here are 10 Hollywood actors who have channelled Hepburn’s chutzpah, and whose shtick wouldn’t exist without her.
Tilda Swinton
Who does Hepburn haughty better than Tilda Swinton? From We Need to Talk About Kevin to Snowpiercer to Only Lovers Left Alive to Grand Budapest, Swinton regularly excels at self-assured socialites with almost otherwordly poise. As her comically imperious turn in Burn After Reading demonstrates, she feeds on a screwball frenzy when she has the chance. “Comedy = lifeblood” said Swinton on Reddit recently. Could her reteaming with the Coens in their forthcoming 1950s Hollywood-set film about a gossip columnist be another motormouth like Hepburn’s hack in Woman of the Year?
Cate Blanchett
Her lips and eyes are more pronounced and seductive, her hair blond, her face not nearly as flat or angular, but Blanchett shares Hepburn’s signature cheekbones and her prowess as a changeling, particularly when it comes to playing male. Wasn’t Blanchett the best of the six Bob Dylans in Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There? The Australian star was Martin Scorsese’s second choice to play Hepburn in his Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, but she was a better fit than Nicole Kidman. Cate’s Kate was the perfect lecturing patrician, but her performance extended beyond mimicry to reimagine the actor. Blanchett was also remarkable as the Wasp princess in Blue Jasmine: Tracy Lord after many too many Stolly martinis.
Tina Fey
What comeback would feminist and queen of the riposte Hepburn have had to Jerry Lewis’s “women aren’t funny” comment? Perhaps something like Fey’s “We don’t fucking care if you like it” (sans obscenity). And was there not a hint of Hepburn’s famous quote, “Enemies are so stimulating”, in Fey’s Mean Girls? True, self-deprecation wasn’t in Hepburn’s repertoire, and with her dislike of children she would have been allergic to a film like Baby Mama, but both Fey and Hepburn specialise in professional women, battle patriarchy with wit (Fey was the first female head writer in Saturday Night Live’s history) and demonstrate an aptitude for sparring. Fey, the author of the Hepburnian-titled memoir Bossypants, conquered Hepburn’s accent in 30 Rock even when mimicking Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday.
Meryl Streep
Streep is a box-office powerhouse, while Hepburn was called poison in her time, but the two have more in common than numerous best actress Oscar nominations (Streep has the most, with Hepburn in second place). Hepburn wouldn’t like the comparison; she considered the star of films including The Deer Hunter and Postcards from the Edge too reliant on technique. Streep was kinder in return, calling Hepburn “the template upon which many smart 20th-century women modelled themselves”. Streep frequently inhabits formidable professionals and, in comic mode, gleefully gets physical. Recently, in It’s Complicated, she dangled men a la Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story. Also, both women were overlooked in favour of more “beautiful” stars – Dino De Laurentiis reportedly thought Streep too ugly for King Kong, David O Selznick considered Hepburn too unsexy for Gone with the Wind – and neither outspoken star took it demurely. However, not being the most conventionally pretty or sexy star around probably freed both actors.
Frances McDormand
Katharine Hepburn was many things, but above all she was a voice: a nasal, metallic, Bryn Mawr, mid-Atlantic accent that she is said to have affected. McDormand, meanwhile, is most memorable for her folksy Minnesota drawl in Fargo. She possesses a distinctive voice, unmistakably her own, and one that is force to reckon with – reprimanding wayward youngsters over the phone in Almost Famous, or bossing everyone about as Olive Kitteridge. Like Hepburn, McDormand loves to lecture (she often chooses stern but humorous schoolmistress roles) and prefers to lose herself in non-conformist characters. See her chase after John Malkovich in Burn After Reading in all her determined and unhinged glory.
Barbra Streisand
“Not the usual glamour girl” said William Wyler of Streisand when he cast her as the fast-talking wannabe star in 1968’s Funny Girl. But it was her turn as a plucky free spirit four years later, in Peter Bogdanovich’s unabashed tribute to Bringing Up Baby, What’s Up, Doc?, that confirmed her as a descendant of Hepburn. There Streisand is, an oblivious harbinger of chaos, hunting a professor who tries and fails to rebuff her in the same way Cary Grant did (although Ryan O’Neal never quite musters Grant’s charisma). Melodrama took Streisand away from way-out comedy, but thankfully she returned to boisterous antics as Roz Focker riding Robert De Niro’s uptight patriarch (“Unleash the beast inside you, Jack!”) in Meet the Fockers.
Anna Kendrick
Kendrick confesses to loving screwballs and often plays characters with all the zeal and gab of a Hepburn heroine – none more so than her second film role, a competitive, voluble high-school debater in Rocket Science. Then there was the tough-talking corporate dame Natalie, looking to introduce video conferencing and cut staff in Up in the Air. Jason Reitman’s film has shades of the Spencer Tracy/Hepburn office war in Desk Set (1957), but the roles are reversed: Kendrick plays Tracy’s efficiency expert and George Clooney’s Ryan is Hepburn, fighting with acerbic one-liners to save his role from a computer. In the end, Natalie doesn’t prove Ryan’s match. Here’s hoping in the future Kendrick finds more adventurous comic roles (ie maybe not Pitch Perfect 3), where she keeps the upper hand.
Rebecca Hall
Hepburn is one of Hall’s heroes, and it appears the British actor took her cues from her as the no-nonsense, combative Vicky in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She sparred testily with Javier Bardem, with her imposing, Hepburnesque jawline and sharp but sober delivery – even if in her romantic comedies Hepburn would not have settled for less than the centre of the love triangle, occupied here by Bardem’s smouldering Don Juan. Sadly, Hall doesn’t indulge in much comedy, although the forthcoming Tumbledown by husband/wife duo Sean Mewshaw and Desi Van Til looks promising – some of Hepburn’s best scripts came from married scribes Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.
Diane Keaton
In Annie Hall, Keaton whacks a tennis ball with the same gusto as Hepburn does a golf ball in Bringing Up Baby. Both characters showcase their erratic driving, whisking suitors away for a crazy car ride. Admittedly, Keaton plays awkward and ditzy – and self-effacing off-screen – in a way that Hepburn never would have considered, but Keaton shares Hepburn’s tall gangliness, offbeat sex appeal and penchant for loopy clowning around (see the lobster scene). Not to mention Hepburn’s intelligence, work ethic, androgynous fashion sense and general ambivalence about marriage.
Jason Schwartzman
Whether working with Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, David O Russell or Alex Ross Perry, Schwartzman makes a beeline for eccentric charmers. He is at home with conversational comedy as well as the athletic variety. But, above all, who is Rushmore’s Max Fischer if not Bringing Up Baby’s Susan Vance? Just like her, he’s earnest and stubborn; a cocksure, quipping smartarse; a force of energy steamrolling the action, hellbent on a madcap pursuit of the object of his affection. He is a schemer – Susan would have cheered Max on as he appeared at Olivia Williams’s window after pretending to be hit by a car. He is not intimidated by other suitors and, naturally, won’t take no for an answer.
