Crawford had a handful of roles in the 1990s, including the 1995 film ‘Fair Game’ and 1998’s ‘54’
Credit: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Cindy Crawford reflected on her short-lived acting career at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit 2026, telling Moira Forbes that she can “shut that road”
- The supermodel had a handful of roles in the 1990s, including the 1995 film Fair Game and 1998’s 54
- Crawford’s daughter, Kaia Gerber, is just getting started in her own acting career
Cindy Crawford is reflecting on her short-lived acting career.
At the Forbes Power Women’s Summit 2026 on Thursday, Sept. 10, in New York City, the supermodel, 60, opened up to Moira Forbes about some of her career moves that didn’t pan out.
“I think even the things that you try and that maybe don’t succeed in the way that you hope they would, they’re still learning experiences,” said Crawford.
She continued that for her, one of these experiences was acting. Crawford had a handful of roles in the 1990s, including the 1995 film Fair Game and 1998’s 54.
“As a model and you’re on the cover of magazines, like all of a sudden you’re getting scripts sent to you and people maybe wanna act,” she shared. Crawford went on to recall one of her early audition experiences/
“And actually the first time I got an audition, they handed me a script and [said] ‘Can you read this?’ And I just started reading it and it was with [director] Mike Nichols, and he’s like, ‘Oh, well, you can read.’ Like, he didn’t say, ‘Can you act this?’ And I’m a very literal person. So I was like, ‘Oh, he meant, like, I should actually perform this. I wish he would’ve said that.’”
Credit: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty
The model said that when she eventually got a movie role, she was “criticized” and “raked over the coals.” She quickly realized that she was better suited for modeling, where she got to be herself rather than a character.
“I realized in doing that film, I’m very comfortable in front of the camera being Cindy Crawford,” she said. “As soon as you try to put words in my mouth that aren’t me, I couldn’t even believe it … for me professionally, it was like, ‘I can shut that road.’”
Crawford said that her decision to stop pursuing acting felt “so freeing.”
“It helped me double my efforts in the things that I do like and that I can feel comfortable and I feel like I’m good at,” she explained.
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Crawford may have put acting in the past, but her daughter Kaia Gerber‘s acting career is just getting started.
During a 2021 appearance on Ellen Pompeo’s podcast, Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo, the mom of two said she was “proud” of her daughter’s venture.
“I’m proud of her because I guess in that way she is more confident than I was at that age,” she shared.
Crawford continued, “There were certainly things like even in high school I sort of wanted to go out for, [like] the school play. None of my friends were and I didn’t know if I’d be good at it, so I didn’t do it.”
Gerber, 25, landed her first project in the highly anticipated 10th season of American Horror Story. She went on to appear in the 2023 film Bottoms and currently stars in Ryan Murphy’s new FX series The Shards.
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