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Elizabeth Banks Based Her "Skincare" Character on an L.A. Facialist She Once Shared with Johnny Depp
07/17/2024 11:52 AM
The actress plays a fictional celebrity aesthetician named Hope Goldman in 'Skincare'
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Elizabeth Banks; Johnny DeppElizabeth Banks took some real-life inspiration from an aesthetician she shared with Johnny Depp for her role in the thriller Skincare.
The actress stars as a fictional celebrity aesthetician named Hope Goldman, whose reputation comes under fire when a rival facialist opens a boutique across from her store.
A synopsis teases that Hope "starts to suspect that someone is trying to sabotage her reputation and business and ... she embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of who is trying to destroy her life."
Related: Elizabeth Banks Explains Why She Won't Get Injectables: 'I Make My Living with My Face' (Exclusive)
Skincare is described as a fictional story inspired by a true story: former aesthetician-to-the-stars Dawn DaLuise, was acquitted of involvement in a murder-for-hire plot after being arrested in 2014. (DaLuise has indicated that she is considering legal action against the film.)
Banks, 50, told Entertainment Weekly she had no idea Skincare was loosely inspired by DaLuise's saga.
"I didn't know it at all. I had never heard about it. I was just all in on Hope Goldman and this character and the sort of milieu of LA," she told the outlet.
IFC Films
Elizabeth Banks in "Skincare"The Hunger Games alum added of her basis for the role: "She was very much this Hope Goldman character in my mind, in that she had her own little place on 3rd Street in L.A., and she was recommended to me by an agent — Johnny Depp's agent — who said, 'Well, Johnny went to Matty,' and listed other clients who had gone to Matty."
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"So," continued Banks, "when I read the script, that's what I was thinking. I was like, 'I'm going to base it on Matty.' "
Directed by Austin Peters, Skincare also stars Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Nathan Fillion.
Skincare is in theaters Aug. 16.
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