Shelley Duvall Returns to Movies After a 20-Year Hiatus with 'The Forest Hills'

Shelley DuVall is back as a scream queen in indie horror movie "The Forest Hills," after leaving Hollywood in 2002.

Shelley Duvall Returns to Movies After a 20-Year Hiatus with ‘The Forest Hills’

“The Shining” icon Shelley Duvall is back on the big screen.

After parting ways with Hollywood more than 20 years ago, Duvall is set to star in “The Forest Hills,” an upcoming thriller from writer/director Scott Goldberg (“Moirai: The Drifter”). “The Forest Hills” is centered on Rico, a disturbed man (Chiko Mendez) who is plagued with nightmare visions after enduring head trauma while camping in the Catskill Mountains, as Deadline reported. The cast also includes Edward Furlong and Dee Wallace.

Duvall will play Rico’s mother, who serves as his inner voice. The “Three Women” alum previously appeared in the 2002 comedy “Manna from Heaven” and announced her retirement that same year.

“We are huge fans of ‘The Shining’ and it’s honestly one of my favorite horror movies of all time, up there with John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ and George A. Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’ with the dark tones they delivered in their movies, along with perfect scores and elements that make them my personal favorites,” Goldberg said of Duvall’s casting. “Shelley contributed to ‘The Shining’ being an absolute masterpiece by giving her all, and performing in a way that really showcased the fear and horror of a mother in isolation.”

“The Forest Hills” is produced by Scott Hansen alongside Dreznick Goldberg Productions and Digital Thunderdome Studios, with Goldberg serving as co-producer.

Duvall exited public life decades ago, notoriously appearing in 2016 on “Dr. Phil,” where she said she was “very sick” and needed mental health support. In 2021, she gave a wide-ranging interview to The Hollywood Reporter, seeming lively and content with her life outside the limelight in Texas. Duvall has won a Peabody Award, the Cannes Film Festival’s prize for Best Actress, two Emmy nominations, and a BAFTA nomination for her work with Robert Altman in “Brewster McCloud,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Nashville,” “Three Women,” and “Popeye,” and more films like “Annie Hall,” “Roxanne,” and of course, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

Duvall landed a Razzie Award for Worst Actress in “The Shining” back in 1980, with Razzie co-founders John J.B. Wilson and Maureen Murphy rescinding the satirical honor more than 40 years later.

“Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized her, I would take that back,” Murphy said earlier this year. “We’re willing to say, ‘Yeah, maybe that shouldn’t have been nominated.’ Everybody makes mistakes. That’s being human.”

Kubrick’s daughter Vivian Kubrick helmed the documentary “Making ‘The Shining,'” which captured the emotional toll the film took on Duvall. Kubrick pushed Duvall to the limit across a half-year-long shoot at Elstree Studios in England.