Oscar Talk

The Actresses' roundtable from The Hollywood Reporter.

Of the girls I’ve mentioned in the previous Oscar Roundtable post I’ve only missed three, not that they weren’t in my mind in the first place, so here they are:

Sally Field - Lincoln.

Helen Hunt – The Sessions.

Anne Hathaway – Lez Miseráble.

Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone.

Amy Adams – The Master.

Naomi Watts – The Impossible.

Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea.

It's always an interesting chat to listen to. These famous faces do have history of their own, they have a life without Oscars, and so it’s always interesting to hear about their situations in this weird, sometimes ridiculous world of film and acting and so on.

The Paparazzi issue. The beginning of this conversation started with a question about fear, what makes them afraid as actresses, that somehow ended up in the Paparazzi issue. Amy Adams, in particular, was utterly disturbed by this situation because just a couple of days earlier she almost went on a Hulk mood and beat a paparazzi because he was literally with his camera on her daughter’s face. Amy Adams’ baby is one of the most beautiful babies walking the earth, just so you know, and I feel bad for saying these because I looked at the pictures and I possibly become part of the problem. Then the conversation led to different statues of the business, from today’s world comparing it to other years, like Sally Field’s career and how different things were from a period where there wasn’t TMZ’s. I couldn’t possibly have a clue how nerve wrecking, the feeling of loathing of having men taking pictures of your baby. I would freak out too. Then there’s always that question of how fame changed their lives.

“You knew what you were getting into”, said a paparazzi to Anne Hathaway at some point, she’s talking about the whole media/paparazzi issue again. What I say, again, is that that must feel pretty outrageous, sickening to hear. But then Helen Hunt mentioned something about what one decides to focus, like when Hilary Clinton was running for president and they asked her about how she was staying healthy on the road when they would ask Obama about foreign policy. Helen Hunt (like me) mentions that she rather wants to listen about the process of these actresses:

“To be honest I want to know about the process of every one of these actresses, do you know what I mean? Yes, I freaked out about the paparazzi…but ultimately is where you put your attention…and if we spent too much time talking about awards and paparazzi, there’s this thing under here, I’m in a room with you, how do you do what you do…”, said Helen.

Then Rachel asked, “Going on with your Hillary Clinton thing, when you do actor roundtables, does age come up as an issue?”

Sally Field: “Would you ask them about nudity?”

Obviously, the conversation also went on to other roads, to the casting process, to the early rejection, to others unpleasant experiences in the job. But it was still a pretty frustrating conversation, because, except for Sally Field and Helen Hunt, no one really talked about their performances, about the films they made this year. Sally Field talked about how badly she fought for her role as Mary Todd Lincoln, Helen Hunt talked about the nudity she had to do in her film, talked about the woman she portraits in the film, Anne Hathaway did mention something, but not the performance in particular, but none of the others, Marion, Amy, Naomi and Rachel mentioned their film a single time. I wished they had, I really do.

Towards the end, they mentioned female roles they would like to play and Naomi and Marion in particular, would really like to do comedy. Is it possible that an actor may be caught up for drama? I mean, interpreting drama as the creative representation of the human emotions, in these terms, if Marion is that of a good actress she should work in a comedy, of course it had to be a good written comedy, but I believe not every actor is caught up for comedy and/or for drama, now figuratively speaking. I would name Keira Knightley for instance; she’s so dramatic, I don't think she would work very well in a comedy. I'm not sure if it's me being too used to see Keira's drama, like I'm too used of seeing Amy Poehler's comedy. I think there's definitely a tendency that comes from within the actor. But I really wouldn’t mind watching Marion doing a comedy.

Oh and Marion, the film you are mentioning: “I wanted to choke everybody in the desert. Then I realized that if I don't trust the director, if I don't like him, I'm going to be bad. I got my French version of the Razzie nomination [for worst performance] and I really wanted to have it! I didn't want to be mean, but I had my acceptance speech: "Without this director, none of this would have been possible!" It is too obvious. It’s in a freaking desert; I don’t think you’ve made that many films in the desert. Now I get why you seemed so pissed off since the first scene you have in the film, even if it worked for the character!

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