After dominating ’90s alt-rock and surviving personal tragedy, including the death of her husband Kurt Cobain, ambitious punk rocker Courtney Love famously pivoted to movies. The gamble paid off almost immediately, and her acclaimed performance in “The People Vs. Larry Flynt” earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Love revisited her brief but memorable film career in an interview for The Criterion Collection tied to the Criterion Channel’s “Starring Courtney Love” programming highlight. Her run included early punk-era appearances, major studio movies, comedy, and the “People Vs. Larry Flynt” breakout that briefly made Hollywood view her as a genuine movie star.
But there could have been much more. In the interview, Love said she was offered a huge sum to star in a Janis Joplin movie, along with several other lucrative Hollywood projects that she turned down.
“I kept passing on things that ended up getting Academy Awards or making a billion dollars or whatever,” Love said.
She didn’t identify those eventual Oscar winners and blockbusters, but did reveal one enormous offer that never made it to the screen. After “The People Vs. Larry Flynt,” then-Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing brought Love in and personally pitched her on playing Joplin.
“She was offering me fifteen million,” Love said. “Like, this was the era where actors were getting twenty.”
That was a staggering offer, particularly for an actress whose movie career was still relatively new. But Love did not want the role. She told Lansing she would rather make James Gray’s “The Yards,” which went on to star Charlize Theron, prompting an explosive response from the famously formidable studio executive.
“Sherry Lansing was an incredibly formidable beauty queen, you know, velvet glove with the iron fist,” Love recalled. “And I said, I don’t want to do it. I want to do ‘The Yards.’ And Sherry Lansing blew up.”
Love said her friend Drew Barrymore encouraged her to accept the job to establish a massive salary quote in Hollywood. Love, still coming out of the punk world, rejected that logic completely. “She’s like, ‘Do it for the quote,’” Love said. “I would never do anything for the quote at that point. I’d just come from punk, and like ‘You don’t do things for money.’”
Love ultimately did not appear in “The Yards,” which starred Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Theron and James Caan. But she still passed on the Joplin movie, choosing instead to make the much smaller “Beat,” in which she played Joan Vollmer opposite Kiefer Sutherland as William S. Burroughs.
For Love, Vollmer’s story—and her death after Burroughs shot her—was simply more compelling than a conventional music biopic. “Joan Vollmer Burroughs was murdered,” she explained. “And that to me was a better story. I just felt like, okay, that’s something I can get into.”
“Lots of things didn’t work in it, but it’s a really reflective, interesting piece that didn’t get any attention,” Love said of “The Beat.” “So I’m glad Criterion is showing it, because of everybody’s performances—they’re all great.”
Love also briefly considered directing after Courtney Hoffman encouraged her to apply to the AFI women’s directing program, even approaching Aaron Sorkin and Cameron Crowe for recommendations. But she ultimately decided she had no interest in returning to movies in any capacity.
“I don’t want to direct. I don’t want to write,” Love said. “The Courtney-can-direct thing? No, not gonna happen. Courtney can write a really good album. That’s what Courtney’s doing right now.”
