Carl Lynn is an AwardsLine contributor. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
Ah, to be victorious—at losing. Susan Lucci was famous for it. So was Angela Lansbury. But the dubious crown of distinction now graces Bill Maher, host and executive producer of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, the reigning champ with 29 Primetime Emmy nominations and 0 wins. Both Real Time (15 total Emmy noms, 0 wins) and its predecessor, ABC’s Politically Incorrect (8 variety series noms, 0 wins), have garnered noms every single year they’ve been on the air, going back to 1995.
But they’re in good losing company. In what’s become an odd phenomenon in the variety series category, Real Time annually goes neck and neck with Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and the newer fake newsguy, The Colbert Report (which also has received consecutive nominations since 2006)—only to see The Daily Show sweep the Emmys for a solid decade.
“Perhaps the hidden agenda of the TV Academy is to make sure that no one challenges Bill for this record,” jokes Scott Carter, executive producer of Real Time. “We (at Real Time) love Jon Stewart too. But eventually Susan Lucci won.”
But John Leverence, senior vp of awards for the TV Academy, says the Emmy voting process does not allow for hidden agendas. He explains that the first round, which produces nominations from the entrants, is voted on by the approximately 15,000 active members, and the second round—which declares a winner—is voted on by members who volunteer to serve on panels. “These volunteers are rigorously vetted for any conflict of interest before the panels are established,” Leverence says. “Panelists cannot serve more than two consecutive years on any given panel. So if there’s a question about, ‘Do you essentially have the same people voting year after year, and hence you get the same results year after year?’, the answer is no. There’s a very significant churning of people who are volunteering for and allowed to serve on those panels, especially over the course of 10 years of Daily Show wins. It is, simply, a democratic process in which the nomination that receives the most votes will be the winner.”
But could there be some other factor at play? Demographics, for example? Again, Leverence disputes this, citing that, in the general program categories such as variety series, panel volunteers/voters come from all 15,000 Academy members (unlike individual achievement categories, which are voted on by peer groups). Leverence acknowledges that the majority of the TV Academy members are on the West Coast, with one out of every seven or eight voters residing in the New York area. This blows the theory that perhaps the New York-based Daily Show would have a special resonance. (Of course, if that were the case, the quintessential New Yorker David Letterman would be sweeping it.)
Could age be a factor? Would the volunteer voters naturally skew older because they have the time to volunteer—unlike, say, staffers? Leverence contends that were that the case, you’d likely see The Tonight Show sweeping it, based on its demographics.
“The Board of Governors has mulled over putting caps on the number of wins that any given program can get,” Leverence explains. “But they come to the same conclusion every time it gets brought up, that it would diminish the field in such a way that you would almost have to put an asterisk next to the name of the winner, noting they weren’t up against (the reigning champs) this year. It would diminish the intent and significance of the awards. You’ve got to allow all of the players to come out and play on any given day.”
Thomas J. McLean is an AwardsLine contributor. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
For sound editors and mixers, the broadening of TV’s audio palette into feature-film territory requires a lot of work and more than a handful of tricks to get shows to sound as good as they look on tight budgets and even tighter schedules.
“I spend quite a bit of time trying to find the right people who can do feature-quality work but not take feature time,” says Tim Kimmel, supervising sound editor on HBO’s epic fantasy series Game of Thrones.
With 10 hour-long episodes to complete in about five months and a tight schedule on the production pipeline, work often continues until the last minute. “By the time we finish mixing the show, we’re still waiting on final visual effects, so we will end up going back into episodes that were basically completed,” Kimmel explains.
AMC’s The Walking Dead is the first TV series that supervising sound editor Jerry Ross has worked on in a three-decade feature-film career. He came up with a library of high-quality sound effects that the picture editors could cut into scenes as they work.
Ross says it helps to have sounds in a show early because everyone grows accustomed to them. “The sounds that everyone gets used to tend to be the ones people like to keep in the show,” explains Ross. “The alternative would be to start from scratch and build all of these new sounds in there, and then everyone would go, ‘What happened to the thing I was used to?’”
Detailed environment sounds have come to the forefront. On History’s Vikings, sound designer Jane Tattersall is tasked with using sound to help make the footage shot on location in Ireland appear authentically Scandinavian.
“There is nothing in Ireland other than the actual dialogue they’re recording that is all that useful for us, because they have a different landscape, fatter hills, and it’s more rural and softer,” says Tattersall. “We did get some location sound from Norway—it’s much wetter and harsher, and the birds are different.” The Walking Dead has similar issues for a completely different reason: No cars, planes or other technological background noises exist in the post-zombie apocalypse. “We have to clean them out and exorcise any kind of civilized sounds,” Ross says.
Of course, there also are zombie sounds to create—all of which are done in post. Ross says they incorporate zombie sounds from a handful of “zombie specialists” who come in and record vocals customized for particular zombies. To that, Ross and his crew add effects to enhance the groaning and flesh-ripping sounds.
The sounds of zombies eating flesh on The Walking Dead are partly thanks so this handsome fellow, Dave.
The latter effect has a special ingredient in the form of Ross’ business partner Skip Lievsay’s dog, Dave. “When zombies are feeding, we’ll sometimes include recordings of Dave the dog, who, when you wrestle with him, makes some wonderful, gnarly kind of gross sounds,” says Ross. “We’ll take them and slow them down and add Bengal tigers eating and other kinds of animal sounds on top of the zombie sounds we create with our zombie talent.”
Creatures and fictional languages provide stimulating challenges for Kimmel. He uses a similar technique in using actors to evolve established effects and inject emotion into the sounds created for dragons and other creatures seen in Game of Thrones. “With a human element, you can try to direct and find some different emotions for these creatures,” says Kimmel.
Battles also are a challenge to put together quickly. “You need peaks and valleys, as we call it, to make specific sounds stick out and to try to find that fine detail,” Kimmel adds.
Additional dialogue recording is an unavoidable fact of life for shows shooting on location, but it’s kept to a minimum and done as efficiently as possible.
On Vikings, dialogue editor David McCallum says accents and dialects create logistical challenges. He works closely with ADR supervisor Dale Sheldrake, who travels to the international cast members and records lines for up to four episodes at a time. “We need to cross-reference pronunciations and make sure we are on top of how the actors are speaking,” McCallum says.
The final hurdles are some of the most difficult. Each viewer has a different audio setup, from surround sound to small built-in TV speakers. Moreover, the audio specs used by each network and cable or satellite system are different.
“Meeting those numbers and still trying to have the dynamics of feature-film sound, there are little corners that have to be cut,” says Kimmel. “We lose a little bit of the dynamics, so we try to cheat it as much as we can.”
Ray Richmond is an AwardsLine contributor. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
It was last spring that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences voted to consolidate the four Emmy longform (made-for-TV movie and miniseries) acting categories into two, obliging leads to compete against supporting players. The reason, explained the TV Academy’s longtime senior vp of awards John Leverence, was that there had been such a notable decrease in the longform submissions that it no longer justified having their performers remain on even footing with those contending in drama and comedy series.
But then, just as the consolidation was poised to take effect April 17, the TV Academy suddenly reversed and abruptly reinstated all four categories for longform players. It seemed that the intervening 13 months had found a movie/mini revival, just when it looked like the genre had fallen out of favor. “The patient was on the operating table and about to be euthanized,” Leverence explains, “and then he suddenly rallied.” The unexpected surge in longform production and quality had generated such projects as Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias, FX’s American Horror Story, Showtime’s The Big C (repackaged as a miniseries in its final season), USA Network’s Political Animals, Sundance Channel’s Top of the Lake, and films including the HBO movie Behind the Candelabra that premiered May 26.
And so what was expected to be the biggest change to Emmy rules this year turned out to be no change at all. Instead, the most significant modification involves interactive programming, which ramps up from two awards in 2012 to five this year—including the addition of an outstanding interactive program honoring a show that inspires audience participation. The TV Academy is also merging the two children’s programming categories (entertainment and nonfiction) into one and adds an area award in nonfiction honoring informational series or special.
Andy Patrick is an AwardsLine contributor. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
Considering that upstart docureality series like Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo are dominating ratings and pop culture, reality-competition series have largely been overshadowed. NBC’s buzzy singing contest The Voice last year injected some fresh blood into the Emmy reality-competition field, which had mostly been filled by the same shows for the past decade. In fact, CBS’ The Amazing Race has snagged the Emmy every year but one since the category’s inception in 2003. However, The Voice is coming in strong in ratings and challenging Amazing Race’s hold on the title.
So while you contemplate whether the reality-competition category is primed for a shakeup this year, here’s our assessment of the competitors.
CBS’ The Amazing Race is the reigning reality-competition Emmy champ.
THE AMAZING RACE
The show has taken home the statuette nine out of 10 years, so there’s no question whatsoever about whether it will be nominated again. (If anything, the question is, where will producers put their 10th Emmy?) And although The Voice is generating ever more buzz, CBS’ globetrotting thrill ride still earned its fair share of attention in its 22nd cycle, thanks to a controversial trip to Vietnam. Maybe this will even be the year that four-time also-ran Phil Keoghan gets the (golden) girl.
AMERICAN IDOL
Is it time to change the Fox sing-off’s title to Fallen Idol? After nine consecutive noms, the reality juggernaut got locked out of the category in 2012 by rival The Voice. And with a big ratings slide and the unappealing Mariah Carey-Nicki Minaj feud casting a shadow over the competition, this year Emmy voters might smell blood in the water and snub Idol again.
THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE
Though NBC’s original Apprentice won nominations in 2004 and 2005, its parade-of-has-beens spinoff has never received a nom. Given the right-leaning politics of boss man Donald Trump—not to mention the show’s continued exploitation of addled Gary Busey—there’s not so much as a combed-over hair of a chance of that changing.
ABC’s Dancing With the Stars has never won a reality-competition Emmy.
DANCING WITH THE STARS
Nominated every year since 2006, ABC’s ballroom smackdown has yet to quickstep away with the Emmy. And its last season was the uninspired 16th edition, meaning its cha-cha-chances of emerging victorious this time around are slim to none, though an eighth consecutive nomination is within reach. (A better bet: a second win for affable host Tom Bergeron, who last year became the first host to win over Survivor’s Jeff Probst. Probst, who has four previous trophies, wasn’t even nominated.)
THE GLEE PROJECT
Unlike so many reality-competition series that don’t really launch the next top anything, the sophomore season of Oxygen’s televised talent search produced a viable star for the Glee mothership in the form of winner Blake Jenner. The triple-threat teenage dream beat a diverse, talented crop of competitors—the suspenseful finale found him taking on a Muslim beauty and a spunky gal in a wheelchair—to eventually land the role of football star and glee-clubber Ryder Lynn. So who knows? If The Glee Project’s root-for-the-underdog spirit (and successful track record) catch voters’ attention, maybe a surprise Emmy nom could materialize.
PROJECT RUNWAY
Lifetime’s haute couture face-off has been racking up noms since its days on Bravo. And yet its 11th cycle felt so last season, thanks to a twist in which individual challenges were replaced by team competitions. The twist was a misfire, so now the question is whether the show’s streak of eight straight nominations might finally come unstitched.
RuPAUL’S DRAG RACE
How fun would it be to see Logo’s campfest in the running? No T, no shade, but its best chance of being recognized is a nod for its wiggy host(ess). Unfortunately, that chance is as slim as RuPaul is.
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE
While it’s a far more legitimate talent contest than Dancing With the Stars, Fox’s sublime dance-off gets a fraction of its ABC counterpart’s viewership (and even less of its buzz). So it’ll be lucky if enough voters board Mary Murphy’s hot tamale train to win it a third nomination.
SURVIVOR
Once considered a real contender to bring The Amazing Race’s winning streak to an end, CBS’ long-running adventure series hasn’t been nominated since—yikes—2006. In 2012, even Jeff Probst—the victorious host the four previous years—failed to score a nom. After an unremarkable fans-vs.-favorites season, a nomination for the show seems highly unlikely.
Bravo’s Top Chef is the only series ever to beat The Amazing Race in the category. It only happened once.
TOP CHEF
Aside from The Amazing Race, only Bravo’s cook-off has ever tasted victory in this category—and that was three years ago. Unfortunately, there was more excitement in its 10th season in its web offshoot, Last Chance Kitchen, than on air, so a seventh nomination is probably all that it’s going to be served by Emmy.
THE VOICE
Arguably the contender with the best chance of stealing away the reality-competition Emmy from The Amazing Race, NBC’s singing contest has going for it strong numbers, enough buzz to drown out a hive, a nomination last year, and do we really need to mention the swivel chairs? Also to its credit, the show once derided as an American Idol knockoff managed to swap out judges Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green for Shakira and Usher without missing a beat.
THE X FACTOR
Considering the Great Britney Spears Experiment was a total failure, Simon Cowell’s post-American Idol endeavor doesn’t stand a chance of breaking into the top category. Maybe the third season will be the charm.
Pete Hammond is Deadline’s awards columnist. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
There is probably no group of Emmy categories that has been more battered and bruised over the years than those of movies and miniseries.
In addition to being combined into a single category in 2011, movies and miniseries almost lost their separate supporting categories earlier this year, but the TV Academy jettisoned the rule change before it ever went into effect. And some anti-movie/mini TV Academy execs have even proposed eliminating movie/minis from the Primetime Emmy telecast, creating a separate show that could be sold to HBO or another cable channel with a vested interest in the format.
Nevertheless, the movie/mini category has seen both ratings and production increase in the last two years, which is fortunate for one simple reason: Movies and minis give the Emmy show true star power. Past winners include prestigious performers like Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Jessica Lange and, last year, Kevin Costner and Julianne Moore. Plus, the contenders change every year, as opposed to regular programming categories like comedy and drama, which often honor the same shows and performers year after year. So now that movies and minis are back in full force, who are the likely frontrunners to triumph this year?
Toby Jones stars as Alfred Hitchcock in HBO’s The Girl
Leading the parade again will likely be HBO, particularly with its Cannes Film Festival competition player, Behind the Candelabra, the story of superstar entertainer Liberace and his efforts to hide a relationship with his young lover Scott Thorson. Oscar winners Michael Douglas, sensational as Liberace, and Matt Damon, as Thorson, deliver brave and daring performances. Throw in Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter Richard LaGravenese and producer Jerry Weintraub, and you have the recipe for awards success. With the supporting categories restored, there also could be a place for Dan Aykroyd, Rob Lowe or Debbie Reynolds, who has a strong two-scene cameo as the great entertainer’s Polish mother. The prestige of the Cannes element might help HBO pull off a sweep.
Other HBO movies competing in the category don’t quite have the same cachet, despite equal star power. Phil Spector, which stars Al Pacino as the beleaguered music legend accused of murder, just didn’t draw strong reviews or ratings and is wildly uneven. Pacino will likely nail a nomination because he’s Pacino. Helen Mirren, who plays his defense attorney, also looks likely, with Jeffrey Tambor (who steals the film) a possibility in supporting. The Girl—which presents Alfred Hitchcock as a bit of a pervert in his pursuit of Tippi Hedren (played by Sienna Miller) during the filming of the 1963 classic The Birds and 1964’s Marnie—might have a shot thanks to some fine acting, particularly from Toby Jones as Hitch. However, fans of the legendary director might have a hard time accepting the movie as anything other than a hit job on a man unable to defend himself. Further down on HBO’s list is the heartwarming Hilary Swank-Brenda Blethyn drama, Mary and Martha, which could score noms for one or both of them.
Elisabeth Moss, right, stars in Sundance Channel’s Top of the Lake.
Among the miniseries contenders, Parade’s End, cowritten by Tom Stoppard, will likely earn a lead actor nom for Benedict Cumberbatch, who is very hot right now. But that one is a bit of a long shot. The most likely mini to gain Emmy traction this year is Sundance Channel’s Top of the Lake, a murder mystery that represents a reunion of star Holly Hunter and writer-director Jane Campion, who both won Oscars for The Piano. Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, way overdue for a win much like other actors in that series, could have a shot in this one, too. Like Candelabra, the miniseries used the prestige of Cannes as a showcase for the project because Campion (like Soderbergh) was a former Palme d’Or winner.
In terms of other minis, History is mounting a giant campaign for The Bible, a 10-hour epic from producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. While critics weren’t exactly doing cartwheels, the numbers don’t lie, which could help this miniseries’ chances. However, this one is a decidedly longer shot than last year’s History behemoth, Hatfields & McCoys, which ended up winning five statuettes including best actor for Kevin Costner and a supporting statuette for Tom Berenger.
Nikki Hahn as Jenny Reynolds and Lily Rabe as Sister Mary Eunice in FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum.
Then, of course, there is FX’s series, American Horror Story, which stirred up controversy last year when it entered as a miniseries, even though it had a pilot and was a regular series on the cable network. Exec producer Ryan Murphy successfully argued that because it was designed as an evolving series, in which the cast plays different roles each season, it really wasn’t fair to include it with the likes of Mad Men or Homeland. There was less competition in the movie/mini area, and American Horror Story picked up 17 nominations in its inaugural season (something it would not have done in drama). It’s a feat the next installment, American Horror Story: Asylum, hopes to repeat this year with last year’s supporting victor Jessica Lange moving up to compete as a lead this time.
Lifetime has a host of potential contenders including the Steel Magnolias remake, whose fine ensemble cast features Queen Latifah and Alfre Woodard; Betty and Coretta, with Angela Bassett and Mary J. Blige; Emmy favorite Jean Smart in Call Me Crazy; and the June Carter Cash biopic Ring of Fire, which stars Jewel as Cash. The big question for Ring of Fire is whether Jewel can do at the Emmys what Reese Witherspoon did at the Oscars in playing the Man in Black’s wife.
Kenneth Branagh reprises his much honored Wallander from PBS, while Laura Linney is a contender for the final four-part installment of the canceled Showtime series The Big C: hereafter (she competed in the comedy series category previously).
One movie that’s unlikely to occupy a nomination slot in any movie/mini category (other than makeup and hairstyling) is the dreadful Lifetime biopic Liz & Dick, which was a ratings winner but a critically lambasted Lindsay Lohan comeback vehicle. If Lohan somehow pulls off a miracle and nabs a nomination, Emmy producers might have to send a live camera out to the Betty Ford Center. Of course, that’s just another reason for keeping the consistently interesting movie and miniseries Emmy categories around for a long time to come. After all, anything could happen for these longform contenders, even though the rest of the races are mostly predictable.
David Mermelstein is an AwardsLine contributor. This story appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
When word first leaked that square-jawed, macho Michael Douglas would star in a biopic of Liberace, the swanning pianist famous for garish costumes and flashy keyboard antics, many feared the worst. But HBO’s Behind the Candelabra—directed by Steven Soderbergh and based on a memoir by Liberace’s lover Scott Thorson (played by Matt Damon)—is anything but an exercise in misguided casting. Instead of camping it up, Douglas, who remains best known for his Oscar-winning turn as Wall Street lizard king Gordon Gekko, embraces his inner queen in an audacious and vulnerable performance.
How were you first approached for the role of Liberace—and what appealed to you about the part?
It’s wild. It goes all the way back to 2000, when I was doing Traffic with Steven. One day he says, “Ever thought about playing Liberace?” I thought he was messing with me. But a couple of times on the set I did an imitation, just for fun. Then seven years later, he called and said, “I’m going to be sending you something.” It was the book Behind the Candelabra by Scott Thorson. Jerry Weintraub had acquired it for Steven, Richard LaGravenese had written the screenplay, and Matt Damon wanted to play Scott. It was a great screenplay with a wonderful character for me to eat up the scenery. My whole career has been me playing contemporary characters, so I welcomed the chance to get behind a figure from a different era. It was like painting on a clown face rather than wiping my face raw for a part. It even required appliances and hairpieces and all that.
Did you actually play piano for the film?
I played, but you wouldn’t want to hear it. I told Steven that for any of the musical pieces I have to play, you’ve got to make sure Liberace filmed them. That way I could copy the actions I saw—you know, get your fingers in the right places. Lee (as Liberace was known to his intimates) had a very distinct style. You spend a lot of hours—a whole lot of hours—rehearsing. That probably took the most hours of anything I did for the picture. And it worked out well. I was really happy with it.
Were you ever worried about descending into caricature?
It was a constant struggle. I was always afraid about being over the top. But Lee was over the top. Sometimes I pulled back, and then it didn’t work. It needed that full commitment. But the tone of the picture allows you that breadth. No one was winking at the camera. We really played it pretty straight, for lack of a better word. But it was an issue we were always conscious of.
You are sometimes made to look ridiculous in the film. Did that ever prick your vanity?
One of the things I was happiest about was that pretty soon we lost Michael Douglas and Matt Damon and saw only Lee and Scott. That’s the beauty of playing a character instead of some extension of yourself.
Your sex scenes with Matt Damon are very intimate. Were they hard to shoot, and how did you prepare for them?
Ha! As Matt and I say, we read the same script, and we knew what we had to do. That’s the thrill of acting, the danger of it. Get your Chap-Stick out, and get ready to rumble. You go for it. We’re actors. That’s what we do. I’m not a boxer or fighter, but sometimes I’ve got those scenes to do. We’ve both had our fair share of love scenes to do, so it’s an extension of that. It was tastefully shot. Steven picked the angles well and didn’t linger.
Debbie Reynolds plays Lee’s mother in the film. What was it like working with her?
It was wonderful because she knew Lee really well. She had great stories to tell about him, and both Matt and I cherished the opportunity to hear them. She knew where all the bodies were buried. It was an enjoyable history lesson.
What was it like working with Steven Soderbergh?
Well, it’s an honor. First of all, he really likes actors, and you can’t say that about every director. Secondly, he’s exceedingly fast, the fastest director I’ve ever worked with. For those of us who like to work fast, that’s good. And he treats you like an adult. He’s a great listener. I just feel really honored to have worked with him a couple of times, and I know a lot of actors who feel that way. He actually shoots his own pictures, so he’s operating the camera as well as the lighting while directing. And he creates this secure, safe world for letting actors do their thing. You feel you can stretch with Steven, rather than withhold or become tighter.
Was there any talk on the set of this being Soderbergh’s last film?
It was talked about in a joking way from time to time. Whenever Matt and I were in a compromised position in the hot tub, we’d say, “This will be great for the final shot of your film career.” Sometimes we’d joke, “We’ll see how long this retirement lasts.” But I think he finished strong with Magic Mike, Contagion and now this. It’s brave filmmaking.
Matt Webb Mitovich editor at large of TVLine and an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the June 5 issue of AwardsLine.
Looking for a female TV character who’s as fierce in her work life as she is in her (messy) love life? It’s been handled. As Olivia Pope on ABC’s Scandal, Kerry Washington—building on a career that has included Oscar-winning films such as Ray and Django Unchained—stands in the eye of a pop-culture storm, fronting a show that drops jaws with astounding frequency, makes Twitter all atwitter and offers, at long last, a chance for a black woman to win a lead drama actress Emmy.
You have said that your decision was not so much to do TV, but to do a Shonda Rhimes show.
Even more so, my decision was to do this show. When I read the script, I was blown away. And knowing that this (was a Rhimes production) reinforced the idea that this could be a really amazing opportunity.
With your first full season behind you, how has the product met the promise?
I will just say that the level of excellence that the people around me produce on a daily basis continues to astound me. The writing that I’m able to hold in my hands, the level of acting I’m surrounded by, the cinematographers, the costume design—all of it feels like a magical product.
What is Rhimes doing that activates viewers so much?
One of the reasons we (on the cast) like to live-tweet the show is because when we are online with our “gladiators,” the viewers, we get to see from them exactly what we went through at our table reads—the gasps and screams and cries of shock and awe. People are responding to how unpredictable this show is. (Also,) Shonda is not writing the typical archetype of good guy/bad guy. That is part of why you never know whom to trust.
Some choose to view your success through the lens of being among the first African-American actresses to star in a hit TV drama. Do you lament there is still that distinction to be made in 2013? Or do you welcome the opportunity to flag it?
It’s a balance. I feel very proud that we live in a world where this show can be a success, so I think it’s worth noting that progress for all of us to claim and all of us to take responsibility for. We’ve created a place where a black woman can be at the front of the show, but a lot of our success is in how strong of an ensemble it is, and so many people can see themselves in it. We have a lead male who’s Latin. We have two black men. There’s a strong gay character. I look forward to the day when a show like Scandal is a success and it’s not newsworthy. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.
Do you think about the significance of possibly earning an Emmy for this role?
I’ve been on the award campaign train several times in my career, with the success of The Last King of Scotland and Ray and Django Unchained. Jamie Foxx and I joke about it, what happens to people when they’re “chasing Oscar.” So I try not to think about my work leaning toward that goal. But it’s interesting that television and the Emmys have been around this long, and (a black woman winning a lead drama actress Emmy) has never happened. I was just beginning to have a career when Halle Berry (won a best actress Oscar)—and not just (as the first) black woman, but a woman of color.
Over the past year, you’ve been seen significantly engaging in the real world’s political conversation.
It’s important for me to be clear that I don’t engage politically because I’m in the public eye. I actually made a promise to myself early on that I would not stop because I was in the public eye, because I feel like it’s my responsibility as an American to be engaged. If my participation encourages other people to participate, no matter what party, I’m glad, because that’s democracy.
Your college major combined theater with anthropology and sociology. How did that inform your skill set?
My mother’s a professor, so the idea of research is something that I grew up around. One of the things I love most about acting are those moments that don’t happen every day, when you truly do something raw and you forget who you are. That’s bliss. The other thing that I really love is the research—pulling articles, learning things, interviewing people, and then you study, study, study, from an anthropological perspective.
Is there an actor you looked up to as you embarked on your career?
The actors that I loved—not even looked up to because I didn’t think I was going to be an actor in any way—were the ones who did comedy and drama, people who worked on the stage and film and television. People like Julie Andrews, Rita Moreno, Diahann Carroll, Barbra Streisand, women who were never limited by just doing movies or just being actors. That’s a part of their longevity.
And if you could give Olivia Pope one piece of advice…
I wonder how things would be different if she had a really great shrink in her life. It’d probably be a lot less interesting!
Monica Corcoran Harel is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Feb. 13 issue of AwardsLine.
If all roads once led to Rome, then most fashion runways now merge into the red carpet. For the past decade or so, celebrity stylists have cherry-picked the fashion runways for the very best frocks for their A-list clients on awards nights. In essence, you would first see a gown on Kate Moss and then on Cate Blanchett.
The dress that Claire Danes wore to the 2013 SAG Awards was from Givenchy’s pre-fall collection. It debuted on the red carpet, instead of during Fashion Week.
But more recently, the trend is for actresses to show up to the Golden Globes or Oscars in ready-to-wear or one-of-a-kind couture gowns that haven’t yet debuted at fashion week or the European shows. In many instances, the red carpet is the new runway. Case in point: The one-shoulder black-and-white column gown that Claire Danes’ wore to the SAG Awards came from Givenchy’s pre-fall 2013 collection.
“In an effort to trump other celebs, it’s become about wearing something that hasn’t even been seen on the runway yet”, says Cameron Silver, a fashion expert known for his serrated wit and the author of the new style encyclopedia, Decades: A Century Of Fashion. “The system is so out of control”.
By system, Silver means the big, greasy machine in which actresses and designers make exclusivity deals. Though no star or stylist will speak on the record about such dalliances, it’s been suggested that anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 can come sewn into the hem of a red-carpet gown worn by a nominated actress. On a less cynical note, however, stylists can’t be blamed for calling first dibs on spectacular gowns that they preview. “The advantage to using dresses that haven’t been shown yet is that no one else has seen them”, says the powerful Hollywood stylist Elizabeth Stewart, whose clients include fashion risk-takers Blanchett and Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain. “There’s a better chance of a good dress not having been snapped up”.
Hailee Steinfeld wore a Prada dress to the 2011 SAG Awards and was quickly tapped by the fashion house to be the new face of its younger brand, Miu Miu.
Wearing the right dress can be the first business flirtation between an actress and designer, too. A bit like a wink across the room. In 2011, 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld was nominated for an Oscar for True Grit. Seizing a style moment, she wore a striking fuchsia-, tangerine-, and black-striped Prada dress with a flounced hem from the spring collection to the SAG Awards that year. The chic choice paid off. Within two months, Steinfeld became the new face of Miu Miu, Prada’s edgier little-sister label. Steinfeld was just spotted front row at the Chanel couture show in Paris, so stay tuned.
Jewelers, of course, must deliver never-before-seen sparklers too. Many stylists plunder the archives of a house like Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels for statement pieces with heritage and vintage caché. “Finding the new unseen look and style in a piece of jewelry is also in top demand”, says Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz, who outfitted Jodie Foster, Sally Field, and Helen Hunt with lush diamond bracelets and bold earrings at this year’s Globes. “When I come up with unusual rings or bracelets that have not been seen on the red carpet before, stylists grab them immediately”.
If anyone can be held semi-responsible for all this pushing and shoving, it’s Nicole Kidman. Back at the Academy Awards in 1997, she hit the red carpet in an exotic chartreuse haute couture gown by John Galliano for Dior. (A facsimile of the dress had been spotted just a month earlier at the Paris show and the designer worked to customize it for Kidman.) No doubt, every other actress on the carpet that night later learned to pronounce “haute couture” with just the right French flourish.
And just as wearing never-before-seen runway dresses has become de rigueur, über stylist-turned-designer Rachel Zoe has upended the buffet once again. She put longtime client Anne Hathaway in a snow-white Chanel couture gown from 2009 at this year’s Globes. What? A 3-year-old dress? “Just because a dress was seen on the runway a couple of years ago but didn’t have its moment doesn’t mean that it’s out of fashion”, says Silver. In fact, if anything, it shows that a resourceful stylist can gild a forgotten gown like anyone else would lacquer an old credenza. Zoe also put Hathaway in a black spring 2013 Giambattista Valli couture gown for the SAG Awards this year.
Love it or hate it, Lucy Liu made a statement at this year’s Golden Globe Awards.
Catherine Kallon, who founded the popular website Red Carpet Fashion Awards in 2007, has been visually comparing runway looks and their red-carpet translations for over five years. She sniffs at any criticism about petite Hollywood actresses being swallowed by dresses designed for statuesque woman with tiny ribcages. “For the most part, I think runway dresses translate better on the red carpet”, she says. “Just look at Lucy Liu in her Carolina Herrera gown at the Golden Globes for further proof. She owned the floral ball gown”.
Actually, she borrowed that gown and it was pre-fall 2013.
Cari Lynn is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Feb. 13 issue of AwardsLine.
After the elation (or heartbreak) of Hollywood’s most coveted awards ceremony, 1,500 guests will flock to the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the top level of the Hollywood & Highland complex to let it all hang out at the storied Governors Ball, the Academy’s official Oscar after-party.
More than 5,000 mini chocolate Oscars and 50 life-sized chocolate Oscars will decorate the room.
No real Oscar to flaunt? Grab a Patron and Ultimate Vodka cocktail, rimmed with 10-karat gold while you nibble on Wolfgang Puck’s signature smoked-salmon Oscars, coated in dill creme fraiche and topped with caviar. Still craving gold? Pluck one of 5,000 mini chocolate Oscars, wrapped in shimmering gold foil—or snag one of 50 statuette-sized chocolate Oscars (they’re made from Cacao Barry’s 64% semisweet). Pastry chef Sherry Yard will also have 30 pounds of edible gold dust on hand to sprinkle on truffles, bon bons, and macaroons.
Academy governor Jeffrey Kurland, an Oscar-nominated costume designer whose lengthy list of feature credits includes numerous Woody Allen films, Erin Brokovich, Inception, and Ocean’s Eleven, will return for his fourth year as chair of the Governors Ball, overseeing decor, menu, and entertainment, as well as designing the staff attire.
Returning for her 24th consecutive year, event producer Cheryl Cecchetto of Sequoia Productions will handle all the details, including what she calls “the piazza,” which is an Oscar embedded into the floor, and the installation of a 120-foot chandelier—surpassing the largest chandelier listed in the Guinness Book of World Records—that will sparkle with 18,000 LEDs of alternating jewel-toned hues, reflecting the evening’s chosen colors of aubergine, chartreuse, and champagne.
“Jeffrey said he wanted a chandelier,” explains Cecchetto, “and I came back and said, ‘Here’s the biggest chandelier in the world.’ ” The chandelier theme will also be reflected in the signature dessert of the night: The Vacheron Chandelier, a bejeweled and tiered meringue filled with cream and berries.
“This year’s look goes across traditional and nontraditional lines,” Cecchetto says. “It’s more about practicality and flow. We do not have assigned seating this year, instead we are using lounge furniture and cocktail tables.” The more than 400 pieces of furnishings will be provided by Lux Lounge EFR and will be covered in velvets and silk in the theme colors; also included are a new collection of Twist cocktail tables.
The food for the ball will be a mix of “comfort and innovations,” according to chef Matt Bencivenga.
Mark Held, co-owner of Mark’s Garden, who’s returning for his 20th consecutive year, has added an ingenious floral design to the cocktail tables, fashioning a centerpiece of orchids, green anthurium, and purple kale under the tables and wrapping around the pedestals—leaving the tabletop free for Wolfgang Puck’s delicacies.
Puck, who’s created the menu for 19 consecutive years, is almost as signature to the ball as Oscar himself. Along with chef Matt Bencivenga, Puck will feature what he calls “a mix of comfort and innovations,” with returning favorites, such as mini Kobe burgers with aged cheddar, assorted pizzas, and chicken pot pie with shaved black truffles, along with a sushi and shellfish station, hot and cold small plates, and, new this year, an expanded vegan menu, including kale salad with grilled artichoke, beluga lentils with baby vegetables, vegan pizza, and farro with apple, beet, and spiced walnut. “This is the greatest party in Hollywood,” Puck says, “and people know they can get great food.” Attention will also be paid to sourcing local organic and sustainable cuisine, including wild-caught fish; hormone and antibiotic-free dairy, poultry, and meat; cage-free eggs; and California-grown produce.
Sterling Vineyards of Napa Valley will be returning for their seventh year with a 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2009 Reserve Chardonnay, both chosen at a tasting by the Academy’s board of governors.
Instead of assigned seating, guests will relax with a mix of lounge furniture and cocktail tables.
New this year is Champagne Thiénot, a small, young brand with a production of only 300,000 bottles a year that is run by the brother and sister team of Garance and Stanislas Thiénot. Not only is this the first time the Academy has chosen a rare and little-known Champagne, but it is the first time Champagne Thiénot will be served in the U.S.—not bad to have your launch party at the Oscars. The Thiénot Rosé and a 2005 vintage will be served, with price points ranging from $40 to $150 a bottle.
Returning this year is Marc Friedland of Marc Friedland Couture Communications, reprising his role in designing one of the biggest focal points of the evening: The gold Oscar envelope, with the easy-open red ribbon primed for “And the Oscar goes to….” But in a new take, Friedland has also designed a digital collection of Academy-sanctioned invites for home Oscar parties. Free to download via Evite Postmark, the Oscar Collection by Mark Friedland will comprise 10 designs and will be available only for a limited time.
As Oscar night comes to an end, additional environmentally responsible initiatives will kick in, including a push to recycle and repurpose everything from plastics, metals, glass, and even the plywood used. Floral arrangements will either be donated to homes for the aging or composted leftover food will be donated to L.A. Specialty Chefs to End Hunger. “I’m Canadian, so green is a way of life,” says Cecchetto, who also smiles when asked about her record 24 years producing the ball. “It’s like my child,” she says, “although sooner or later I will have to retire.”
Can’t we just end all this suspense about winners or losers and call it one massive tie this year? The 2012 crop of Oscar nominees, and films in general, is so impressively dense with quality it seems a shame the Academy has to pick just one winner in each category. But that’s the name of the game we play this time of year, and with ballots going out just as I had to turn this piece in, it is still a fluid situation as to just what the final results will be. With so many movies spread across many categories that are genuine contenders, a split vote resulting in some surprising twists and turns is possible, even though the various guild awards give strong clues about industry sentiment. If the past is any indication, I am aware some readers might take these predictions as gospel and bet the farm on it in their Oscar pools, so I offer a disclaimer before we begin. I am not responsible for any monetary loss you might incur, nor do I expect 10% of any winnings. I am just trying to read the winds of Oscar after several months of analyzing every tea leaf. Here is where I have a hunch it stands, but please note I have made a few tweaks since the original version of these predictions were published in last week’s print edition of AwardsLine (I switched in production design and makeup/hairstyling). Results at BAFTA, WGA, and several other guild award shows have now been taken into account since then, but it is all still a crap shoot in one of the craziest Oscar years in memory.
Ben Affleck, right, and Bryan Cranston star in Argo.
BEST PICTURE
All season long, this has been about as wide open a race, and as competitive a field of contenders, as we have seen in many years. With nine nominees, the same number as last year, it has taken a while to figure out a surefire winner. But with key awards from the PGA, DGA, WGA, BAFTA and SAG, in addition to best picture honors at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Movie Awards, Argo has clearly emerged as the frontrunner, a remarkable turn of events considering its director, Ben Affleck, was snubbed by the Academy’s directing branch Jan. 10. Oh, what a difference a few weeks makes. The big question is, can the Warner Bros. juggernaut maintain momentum and win Oscar’s top prize, even without that directing nomination? If so, it would be only the second film to win without a directing nom, following Driving Miss Daisy’s feat at the 1990 ceremony.With the best picture category holding the strongest possibility for success among Argo’s seven nominations, could it actually win here and nowhere else? Not likely, but it’s possible, especially in a year in which I think the Academy will be spreading the wealth. Lincoln, with a leading 12 nominations (a good, if not always correct, indicator), Silver Linings Playbook,and Life of Pi are probably still in the mix here as well but…
The Winner:Argo
The Competition:Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
Director Ang Lee tackled both 3D and digital effects for the first time in his career with Life of Pi.
BEST DIRECTOR
With the quirky director’s branch going out of their way to snub DGA nominees Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper, and DGA winner Ben Affleck, we know for sure we can’t count on the usual spot-on correlation between the DGA winner and the eventual victor in this category. Affleck actually would have been my prediction to win here, but, alas, he’s not even nominated, which means voters might very well be splitting their vote for director and picture this year — certainly not unheard of in recent years but increasingly rare. As directors of the two films with the most nominations, Steven Spielberg for Lincoln and Ang Lee for Life of Pi,are the likely frontrunners, with Silver Linings Playbook’s David O. Russell coming up on the outside. If initial frontrunner Lincoln has been eclipsed in the Best Picture race, this is the place voters could come to kneel at the Spielberg-ian altar. Or not. Lee’s triumph in even managing to bring the “unfilmable” Pi to the screen just screams “directing”, and that could play very well here.
The Winner: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
The Competition: Michael Haneke, Amour; Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Steven Spielberg, Lincoln; David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
The president walks slowly down the hall, heading to the theater for the evening.
BEST ACTOR
This is Daniel Day-Lewis’ to lose at this point. Playing such a well-known biographical figure is, of course, a big plus. But Day-Lewis brought a lot to the table and remains the guy to beat in an impossibly fine field of contenders. Day-Lewis’ biggest drawback is that he has already won this prize twice, and a third would be unprecedented for lead actors in Oscar history. Also no actor has ever won an Oscar for playing a U.S. president, another potential first. The Academy might want to reward equally deserving newcomers to the category like Hugh Jackman or Bradley Cooper instead, but judging from the pile of precursor awards Day-Lewis has already won, it looks like you can bet a very large pile of $5 bills that he will make Oscar history with honest Abe.
The Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
The Competition: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook; Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables; Joaquin Phoenix, The Master; Denzel Washington, Flight
Emmanuelle Riva plays a stroke victim in Amour.
BEST ACTRESS
I got this one wrong last year when Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) beat Viola Davis (The Help), and this is another tough one. The race for lead actress is hotly competitive, with both Silver Linings Playbook’s Jennifer Lawrence and Zero Dark Thirty’sJessica Chastain claiming other early awards and also impressing with strong performances (Naomi Watts is magnificent in The Impossible, but that film got no other nominations, putting it at a disadvantage here against four other actress nominees from Best Picture contenders). Plus, never underestimate the so-called “babe factor” (thanks to the Academy’s dominant male membership) that this category often, but not always, favors. A win here for either one could be a chance to give either of their movies an important award, while shutting them out elsewhere. The real wild card in this race is 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, whose performance in the foreign language film Amour has been widely praised and admired, particularly by her fellow actors, who comprise the Academy’s largest voting block. As the oldest Best Actress nominee ever (she actually turns 86 on Oscar Sunday), she could trigger a sentimental factor and a feeling that the others will have another shot someday. SAG champ Lawrence probably has the edge and is where the smart money’s going, but a split in this very fluid category could provide one of the evening’s most interesting stories. So going way out on a limb…
The Winner: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
The Competition: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty; Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook; Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Robert De Niro as Pat Sr. in Silver Linings Playbook.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
In a category of five former Oscar winners (a first indeed), I could actually see five different, and logical, results. Christoph Waltz took the Golden Globe and BAFTA, Philip Seymour Hoffman was the Critics Choice, and Tommy Lee Jones won at SAG. Alan Arkin is playing an industry insider in the enormously popular Argo, and the Weinstein Co. has been effectively reminding everyone Robert De Niro hasn’t won an Oscar in 32 years or even been nominated in 21 years. He’s coming up on the outside as Silver Linings Playbook has become a sizable hit just passing $100 million over the weekend. Truly, toss a coin here. There’s no true frontrunner, and a logical route to victory is possible for each one of these veterans.
The Winner: Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
The Competition: Alan Arkin, Argo; Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master; Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln; Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Misérables.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Like the best actor race, this one has a clear frontrunner in Les Misérables’Fantine, Anne Hathaway. Having won just about every precursor award including SAG and BAFTA, it looks like this year Hathaway will make it to Oscar’s stage without hosting the show. A video parody of her moving performance singing the signature “I Dreamed a Dream” went viral but shouldn’t stand in her way. If any of the other contenders have a shot, it’s definitely Lincoln’sMary Todd, Sally Field. We know Oscar likes her — they really, really like her (she’s won twice) — but it appears to be Hathaway’s year in the winner’s circle.
The Winner: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
The Competition: Amy Adams, The Master; Sally Field, Lincoln; Helen Hunt, The Sessions; Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Ben Affleck, left, with Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
This is a very tough category with several worthy entries, all Best Picture nominees. Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning playwright Tony Kushner’s herculean efforts in finding the right tone and approach to Lincoln are well chronicled, and he has the solid endorsement of Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the book Team of Rivals from which he drew a lot of source material. He is a major contender, even if Argo takes Best Picture over his film. A late-breaking controversy sparked by a Connecticut congressman over some of the facts in the film hit just as ballots reached voters hands and that could be a factor here. On the other hand, Chris Terrio’s meticulous and tricky work on Argo is impressive, and voters might want to reward the film’s script, especially if they are voting it Best Picture. That is usually how it works, but this is a weird year. Argo has also had its own fair share of criticism from some quarters for tweaking some of the facts for dramatic purposes. Of course voters may realize they aren’t voting for Best Documentary. David O. Russell’s funny and moving adaptation of Silver Linings is another strong possibility and recently took this prize from BAFTA, so it’s a three-way battle. But with its Best Picture likelihood…
The Winner: Chris Terrio, Argo
The Competition: Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild; David Magee, Life of Pi; Tony Kushner, Lincoln; David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
The French-language Amour follows a husband who must care for his ailing wife.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
This is another category that seems widely split with no obvious frontrunner. But the three likeliest contenders would appear to be Django Unchained which won this award at Critics Choice, Golden Globes and BAFTA, Zero Dark Thirty which took it at WGA,and Amour,considering all three are also Best Picture nominees. That would indicate more widespread support among the entire Academy, which gets to vote in the finals. Both Quentin Tarantino’s Django and Mark Boal’s Zero Dark Thirty have been hit by controversy over their respective elements of treatment of slaves and use of torture, giving both of those former winners in this category more of an uphill climb to overcome negative publicity. That leaves an opening for the widely admired Amour, which could become the first to win both Best Foreign Language film and Original Screenplay since Claude Lelouch’s 1966 film A Man and a Woman, a movie that, like Amour,also happened to star the great Jean-Louis Trintignant. Django could well bring Tarantino his second writing Oscar, but…
The Winner: Michael Haneke, Amour
The Competition: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained; John Gatins, Flight; Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom; Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
THE OTHER CATEGORIES
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
A strong group of movies, but the other four nominees have the misfortune of being named in a year that also includes Amour, which despite being a French film is actually the Austrian entry because of the nationality of its director, Michael Haneke. Winner of the Palme d’Or and just about every precursor prize this year, as well as being only the fifth film in Oscar history in this category also to be up for Best Picture, it would appear to be unbeatable here. But if any category has offered surprises in recent years, it is this one since you can only vote only if you prove you have seen all five entries.
The Winner: Amour (Austria)
The Competition: Kon-Tiki (Norway), No (Chile), A Royal Affair (Denmark), War Witch (Canada)
Wreck-It Ralph in the videogame world of Sugar Rush.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Tim Burton, whose Frankenweenie was a critical hit but a box office disappointment, is overdue for Oscar recognition, and this one might be his most personal film yet. However, there are two other stop-motion entries in the category, including the acclaimed ParaNorman,which has been campaigned heavily, and the highly underrated and hilarious Aardman ’toon The Pirates, which by comparison has been well hidden by Sony. Two other Disney entries — Pixar’s Brave, which won the Golden Globe and BAFTA, and Disney Animation’s Wreck-It-Ralph,which triumphed at the PGA and Annies — could help split the studio vote with Frankenweenie,but I doubt it.
The Winner: Wreck-It-Ralph
The Competition:Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
A deserving group of nominees dealing with heavyweight topics are likely to lose to a fascinating and very human musical documentary about the resurrection of a singer long given up for dead who finally finds fame in the most unlikely of ways.
The Winner:Searching for Sugar Man
The Competition:5 Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
If there were a production more beautifully designed this year than Anna Karenina,I am not sure what it is, but reaction overall to the movie was mixed, meaning large-scale Best Picture nominees Les Misérables, Life of Pi,or Lincoln might sneak past it, but which one? For the sheer technical challenge of it all, I would say take another slice of Pi.
The Winner: Life Of Pi (Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock)
The Competition: Anna Karenina (production design: Sarah Greenwood, set decoration: Katie Spencer); The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (production design: Dan Hennah, set decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright); Les Misérables (production design: Eve Stewart, set decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson); Lincoln (production design: Rick Carter, set decoration: Jim Erickson)
Real candles lit this scene in Life of Pi.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Life of Pi is considered a masterful technical achievement, and one of its chief attributes is Claudio Miranda’s stunning cinematography, which blends the CGI world with the real and makes it all a cohesive whole.
The Winner:Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
The Competition: Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina; Robert Richardson, Django Unchained; Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln; Roger Deakins, Skyfall
RELATED: OSCARS: Cinematographers On Creating The Right Imagery
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Two of the nominees here really scream costume design and deliver on all fronts: Mirror Mirror from the late Eiko Ishioka and Snow White and the Huntsman from frequent winner Colleen Atwood. There are also two more high-profile Best Picture nominees in the mix — Lincoln and Les Misérables — but this category often marches to the beat of its own drum, and this year the stunning work from Jacqueline Durran for Anna Karenina will likely stand above the rest when voters sit down to assess these contenders.
The Winner: Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
The Competition: Les Misérables, Paco Delgado; Lincoln, Joanna Johnston; Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka; Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood
RELATED: OSCARS: Nommed Costume Designers Talk About Challenges
BEST FILM EDITING
This is sometimes a category where voters go their own way, such as last year when non-Best Picture nominee The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo shocked the frontrunners here and won its one and only Oscar in a bit of a surprise. This year, all five nominees are also up for Picture, so it should follow more closely to tradition. Because of its technical challenges, Life of Pi’s chances cannot be discounted, but this seems a place also to honor Argo for its tricky dance with tone and pace, although its editor William Goldenberg is competing with himself for Zero Dark Thirty. Still….
The Winner: Argo, William Goldenberg
The Competition:Life of Pi, Tim Squyres; Lincoln, Michael Kahn; Silver Linings Playbook, Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers; Zero Dark Thirty, Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg
RELATED: OSCARS: Nominated Film Editors Break Down Key Scenes
Sacha Baron Cohen plays innkeeper Thenardier in Les Misérables.
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
This one’s almost a toss-up. Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth might normally have an advantage just because of the very nature of the film — unless voters want to reward the changing looks of Jean Valjean and Fantine in Les Mis which won at BAFTA.
The Winner: Les Miserables, Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell
The Competition: Hitchcock,Howard Berger, Peter Montagna, and Martin Samuel; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, and Tami Lane
BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC SCORE
Of course Lincoln’s John Williams is a perennial nominee and winner already of five Oscars, while Skyfall’s11-time nominee and recent BAFTA winner Thomas Newman is still looking for his first. But I have a feeling it’s between the masterful mix of Middle Eastern strains and orchestral score that Alexandre Desplat pulled off in Argo versus first-time nominee Mychael Danna, who earned a nomination for his elegant and stirring score in Life of Pi,as well as an original song nom.
The Winner: Life of Pi,Mychael Danna
The Competition:Anna Karenina, Dario Marianelli; Argo, Alexandre Desplat; Lincoln, John Williams; Skyfall, Thomas Newman
BEST SONG
Oscar host Seth MacFarlane cowrote one of the nominated songs, the sprightly tune from Ted, and it has a shot because it is the type of upbeat melody that has won here in recent years. If a Muppet can win last year, why not a stuffed bear? The one and only original song in Les Mis, “Suddenly”, isn’t all that memorable compared to the rest of the score. We’re going with the frontrunner and Golden Globe winner, Skyfall,which should make Adele the latest pop star to successfully infiltrate this category. It also would be the first-ever James Bond song to actually win, appropriate in 007’s 50th year, don’t you think?
The Winner: “Skyfall” from Skyfall, Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
The Competition: “Before My Time” from Chasing Ice, music and lyrics by J. Ralph; “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from Ted, music by Walter Murphy, lyrics by Seth MacFarlane; “Pi’s Lullaby” from Life of Pi, music by Mychael Danna, lyrics by Bombay Jayashri; “Suddenly” from Les Misérables, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil
RELATED: OSCARS: Best Original Song Race Handicap
A boy loses his family in a violent shipwreck in Life of Pi.
BEST SOUND EDITING
The sound categories are rarely completely understood by the membership at large that gets to vote in all categories, but again, the technical achievement and challenges of Life of Pi probably prevail over a worthy field that could include another bow to James Bond, or a tip of the hat to Argo as part of its Best Picture booty, but probably won’t.
The Winner:Life of Pi, Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
The Competition: Argo, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn; Django Unchained, Wylie Stateman; Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers; Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N. J. Ottosson
RELATED: OSCARS: Sound Editing and Sound Mixing Nominees Often Overlap
BEST SOUND MIXING
Life of Pi might very well take the sound category, but here musicals often triumph, and what greater sound mixing achievement was there this year than blending nearly unprecedented live singing with other sound elements in Les Mis? Among other things, they had to bring an entire orchestra in during post to match the songs.
The Winner: Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, and Simon Hayes
The Competition: Argo, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, and Jose Antonio Garcia; Life of Pi, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill, and Drew Kunin; Lincoln, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, and Ronald Judkins; Skyfall, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell, and Stuart Wilson
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
This one’s a runaway. The biggest sure thing on the ballot. Even at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon when the name first came up, there was a big whoop and applause from the voter-heavy audience. And it ran over the competition at the VES awards and BAFTA, too.
The Winner: Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, and Donald R. Elliott
The Competition:The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, and R. Christopher White; Marvel’s The Avengers, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, and Dan Sudick; Prometheus, Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, and Martin Hill; Snow White and the Huntsman, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould, and Michael Dawson
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
As usual, this category has a strong list of heavyweight topics, but it’s likely between Mondays at Racine, a touching film about a beauty shop that opens its doors once a week to cancer patients, and Open Heart,about a group of Rwandan children being flown to the only free medical center in Africa for treatment of heart disease. In a year that features more than one contender dealing with the pain and problems of aging, Kings Point might also have a shot. This is a category where you can only vote in person at special screenings of all five (four of the five films are from HBO which dominates here).
The Winner: Open Heart
The Competition:Inocente, Kings Point, Mondays at Racine, Redemption
An estranged couple finds its way back together in the animated short Head Over Heels
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
This is a very rich category, and for the first time, DVD screeners of the contenders here and in live-action short (as well as feature docs) were sent to the entire membership, rather than allowing voting only at special screenings where all five noms are shown. With a Simpsons ’toon from Fox, as well as a Disney Animation Studios title in the mix, those studios with large numbers of Academy voters could have the advantage, especially if those studios’ Academy members stay loyal to their home team. That could put others here — such as the charming and remarkably accomplished British student stop-motion animated entry Head Over Heels, about a longtime married couple who have grown apart literally and figuratively — at a disadvantage. And Disney’s Paperman is equally wonderful giving it frontrunner status, as it also played theatrically earlier in the year. This is a really tough choice. However, Goliath doesn’t always beat David, so on a hunch….
The Winner:Head Over Heels
The Competition: Adam and Dog, Fresh Guacamole, Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, Paperman
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
A generally intriguing group of films, most with a strong international flavor, provide great showcases for some potentially major new directors. Particularly cinematic are Death of a Shadow, Asad, and Afghanistan’s remarkably fine and memorable entry, Buzkashi Boys.
The Winner: Buzkashi Boys
The Competition:Asad, Curfew, Death of a Shadow, Henry
Thomas J. McLean is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Feb. 13 issue of AwardsLine.
This year’s nominees show how visual effects have spread from summer blockbusters to genres as diverse as superheroes, different flavors of fantasy, more traditional sci-fi territory, and even the art-house film. For each nominee, there’s a moment that makes it worthy of an Oscar nomination. Here, the visual-effects supervisors on the nominated films break down the key challenges and talk about the sequence that clinched the nomination.
Andy Serkis’ mocap performance is recorded first, then his movements are used to inform Gollum’s movements.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The nominees: Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White
No. of visual-effects shots: 2,176
Tech breakthrough: The complexity and number of techniques used to create the digital creatures. “It’s a combination of lots of things to get a creature to that point,” says Letteri. “It’s muscles, it’s skin, it’s facial capture, it’s performance capture.” All those things had to come together to bring to convincing life six leading digital characters with dialogue.
Defining the aesthetic: “We were grounded in the Middle Earth we had established for The Lord of the Rings,” says Letteri. “For the landscapes and the environments, we wanted to extend that Tolkien-esque feeling, borrowing from what we had on the previous film, trying to keep the same look for Rivendell, for example, but kind of expanding it. Same thing with Gollum—we were trying to keep his same look, but bring him into a new dimension of what we could do 10 years on.”
Gollum’s completed scene.
Biggest challenge: The quantity of digital characters. “You’ve got dialogue, you’ve got personalities, you’ve got unique looks,” says Letteri. “You’ve got to have everything working: You’ve got to have the fur working, the eyes, the skin, the muscles, the performances—not only the capture but the animation side.”
The clincher: The confrontation between Martin Freeman’s Bilbo and Gollum, played via motion capture by Andy Serkis. “We all had a bit of nervousness going into creating (Gollum) because we had done him 10 years ago, and we spent so much time in the last 10 years really trying to delve into what makes a performance resonate with an audience,” says Letteri. “You’ve got here a nine-minute dialogue scene with a real character and a digital character, and it’s watchable in a way that keeps you engaged the whole way through.”
The blue stuffed creature allowed the actor’to appear as though he were actually petting the tiger.
Life of Pi
The nominees: Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, Donald R. Elliott
No. of visual-effects shots: 690
Tech breakthrough: Two of the major visual elements were done mostly with digital effects: The water and the tiger. “It was just pushing the bar for the realism of the tiger and the other animals involved, trying to blend water from a tank into CG water in stereo was a challenge,” says Westenhofer.
Defining the aesthetic: Westenhofer describes the look of the effects as “hyper-dreamlike reality.” “It’s a story being told by Pi, so there’s an element of his recollection and the human’s ability to exaggerate when they recollect,” he says. “That allows for a bit of stylization in the amount of color and detail.”
The completed sequence, in which the actor’s real-life hands pet the digital tiger.
Biggest challenge: It’s a toss-up between the water and the animals. “Fourteen percent of the animals were real and the rest were digital, and we often cut back to back between them, so it forced our hand to make the matches as perfect as possible,” says Westenhofer. “Everything from the moment they set sail to when he lands on the beach, it’s a boy on a boat in front of a blue screen.”
The clincher: A shot where Pi pulls the tiger’s head into his lap and pets it. “We shot him on the boat in a gimbal, and he pulls a blue sock into his lap and he pets the blue sock. And we replaced that with our digital tiger, fitting in the animation to what he did. In stereo, it had to be perfectly precise to line up with everything, and then we had to animate the hair to respond to his hand as it moves back and forth.”
Most of this scene was added digitally, after the actors finished their performances.
Marvel’s The Avengers
The nominees: Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, Dan Sudick
No. of visual-effects shots: About 2,200
Tech breakthrough: The Hulk. “We leveraged on previous digital characters we had done, but really had to rebuild and improve the way our characters move, making it incredibly accurate in terms of the way the skeleton under his skin drives his muscles, which then drives his skin,” says White.
Defining the aesthetic: Invisible was
The completed scene.
the watchword from director Joss Whedon, a point defined by the final
battle in New York City that was shot almost entirely elsewhere. “Even though very little of the movie is shot
in New York City—some is Cleveland, where we did simpler set extensions, and then a significant portion was shot on a green-screen stage in New Mexico—those are things where we didn’t want the audience to even know there are visual effects,” says White.
Biggest challenge: The Hulk. “There’s a deep ravine to cross there, where it doesn’t look good for quite a long time, and it takes an incredible amount of artistry by the artists working on the shots to make it what it ultimately became,” says White.
The clincher: The climactic battle in New York. White says ILM spent about eight weeks shooting some 2,000 virtual background spheres—extremely high-resolution photographs—from streets and rooftops that were projected onto geography of the city as the basis for the digital city. To this was added the digital aliens and plates of the actors shot, as well as the details required to sell the scene as a full-on battle. “As we put our shots together of, say, Captain America talking to Black Widow, we really wanted to push it toward this feeling of being in the center of a battle. So in every shot we added additional smoke and dust and little embers going through the scene, just trying to really capture that feel of being in the middle of a disaster.”
The VFX artists on Prometheus had to work on techniques to match the translucency of the alien prosthetics in the film.
The nominees: Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, Martin Hill
No. of visual-effects shots: 1,284
Tech breakthrough: The specific look director Ridley Scott wanted for the alien creatures required redeveloping some commonly used tools. “We had to do a lot of work to really develop our subsurface scatter lighting technique to get that deep translucency that matched the prosthetics we were using live on set,” says Stammers.
Defining the aesthetic: The look of the alien landscape of LV-223 defined the look of the whole film and was something Scott was quite passionate about. “What we ended up with is this montage of two landscapes that he really liked. And then beyond that, we added additional mountains and sky that was very full of fast-moving clouds, and so you get a sense of constantly fast-moving layers of clouds and bad weather, (then) we could paint the landscape with fast-moving patches of sunlight.”
Biggest challenge: Stammers says the production only had three days to shoot all the references needed at Wadi Rum, Jordan, requiring an incredibly detailed plan. “We planned it out based on our Google Earth map of the location to the point where, for every take that we needed to shoot, we had a helicopter plan of altitude and GPS start and end point, so that we could go to each of the specific points and film the elements we needed in order to map out the terrain and texture it.”
The clincher: Everything came together in the shot of the Prometheus landing on LV-223. “We spent somewhere in the region of 300 or 400 days just on the texture work alone, just to get the level of detail we needed to sell the scale of it,” says Stammers. “All the elements come together in that one shot that we see throughout the rest of the film as well.”
Macrophotography played a key role in Snow White and the Huntsman.
The nominees: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould, Michael Dawson
No. of visual-effects shots: About 1,400
Tech breakthrough: The extensive use of macrophotography in CG visual effects. “It’s very tricky to do macrophotography in a full CG shot, especially when you look at an animal or something close up like that, close up on the eye,” says Nicolas-Troyan. “That’s something that people don’t really realize when they see the movie, but if you pay attention you see there’s a lot of macro shots.”
Defining the aesthetic: Director Rupert Sanders set a distinct tone that required all the visual effects to be based in reality but juxtaposed with unusual situations or actions. “Everything is based on things that exist in the world,” says Nicolas-Troyan. “They might not be in the same place in the world, so we put them all together in this one spot, but they all do exist.”
Biggest challenge: Finding a way to make eight actors appear as dwarves on schedule and on budget. “We were always going to pick the right technique and the most efficient technique for the shot,” says Brennan. “That goes all the way from old-school in-camera tricks to using risers to vary the heights of people, working with prosthetics and costumes to make people appear a little bit different, all the way up to very complex effects like head and face replacements.”
The clincher: The pursuit through the Enchanted Forest, which encompassed all the techniques used in the movie. “Something like 70 percent or 80 percent of the animals that we created for the movie are in that scene, and they are everywhere,” says Nicolas-Troyan. “There’s birds, plants, and then within those scenes you have the dwarves, so we had to use pretty much all our techniques for the dwarves.”
Mike Fleming Jr. is film editor of Deadline. Anthony D’Alessandro is managing editor of AwardsLine. Paul Brownfield, Diane Haithman, and David Mermelstein are AwardsLine contributors.
Amour writer-director Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke |Amour
Oscar pedigree: He has two nominations this year for screenwriting and direction. Previously, 2009’s The White Ribbon received two noms for best foreign language film and cinematography.
Birds and death: “The pigeon. You can’t direct a pigeon. At most, you can entice it to move it a certain way by placing corn on the ground. But even then, it won’t obey your instructions. Of course I’m joking when I say that. The most difficult scene in the film is the one in which (Georges) suffocates (his wife). The scene is preceded by a 10-minute monologue. And Jean-Louis Trintignant had a broken wrist at that time, so we had to shoot around that. And Emmanuelle Riva was concerned about her safety physically. So it was difficult for everyone involved,” says the Amour director.
No shame: When directing Emmanuelle Riva’s nude shower scene in which she is assisted by a healthcare worker, Haneke explains: “As a director, it wasn’t difficult for me. It was far more uncomfortable for her. But it was clear from the beginning that it was necessary to shoot this scene—to capture the fragility of her situation. My job as a director was to make sure I didn’t betray her, that she wasn’t shown critically or depicted in an unpleasant light, but just to show what people in such situations have to go through.”—David Mermelstein
Director Ang Lee tackled both 3D and digital effects for the first time in his career with Life of Pi.
Ang Lee |Life of Pi
Oscar pedigree: In addition to best picture and directing nominations this year, Ang Lee won a 2005 best directing Oscar for Brokeback Mountain. He was nominated in the directing and best picture categories for 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,which won best foreign language film. His 1995 film Sense and Sensibility rallied seven Oscar noms, including best picture, and a win for Emma Thompson’s adapted screenplay of Jane Austen’s novel, but Lee was overlooked in the directing category. In addition, Lee’s 1993 films The Wedding Banquet and 1994’s Eat Drink Man Woman were the Taiwanese submissions during their respective years and nominated in the best foreign language film category.
Power of persuasion: “Tom Rothman at Fox pitched (it to) me as a family movie,” Lee recalls. “I asked, ‘Why do you want to spend this kind of money?’ Because I’ve been in this business long enough to know that’s probably not going to be true. Tom said, ‘It’s a family movie.’ I said, ‘What do you mean a family movie?’ He said, ‘What happened to you when you first read the book?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I introduced it to my wife and my family.”
Solving Pi:“I started to get hooked on, ‘How do you crack this thing? How do you examine illusion within illusion?’ We all know movies are based on illusions—the image, the emotional ride—but how do you do that while you’re examining the power of storytelling? Once I started to think about the solution, I got hooked. And I thought of 3D maybe adding another dimension. The whole thing could open up; what doesn’t make sense could make sense. And I thought of the older Pi telling stories, so I have the first person going through the story while the third person is examining it, but they’re the same person.”
Long days sinks ship: “The most challenging scene to direct and produce was the freighter sinking sequence. What was involved was the ocean, rain, lightning, and wind. We weren’t out at sea; we were in a wave tank that we created in Taiwan. We spent 78 days on that scene. It was a two-year preparation, so it was a big undertaking,” Lee told AwardsLine at the PGA Awards.
Harnessing visuals: “With new media (3D), nobody really can give you advice. People who have done it will tell you what it’s about. It will turn out most of that is not true. I took lessons, I took advice. But next year, people will look at this film and say, ‘Oh, he should have done something different.’ This is that new to us. It hasn’t been established in the audience’s mind. There are things like conversion points, you can make adjustments later, but how you frame it, how you separate the camera, the volume of depth, you have to decide on the set. You’re doing something you don’t know, how that depth works with the lens. You just don’t know, you’re guessing. That’s the scary thing.”—Paul Brownfield
Director David O. Russell, center, with stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence on the set of Silver Linings Playbook,
David O. Russell |Silver Linings Playbook
Oscar pedigree: He has two nominations this year for directing and best adapted screenplay. He was previously nominated for directing 2010’s The Fighter.
Pat Jr. comes home: “The first scene where Pat Jr. faces his dad was challenging because that establishes the entire tone of the picture. I directed it many different ways. Because Bradley (Cooper) had to create that character, we tried him more bipolar and less bipolar, with more Asperger traits and less, being more explosive with his father and more loving. We were finding that balance. We were also establishing the whole setup of the movie, because the mother is taking Pat Jr. out early, the father is a bookmaker, which is something I did in the adaptation. I chose to follow the 2008 season and locked into that, as it availed us of a lot of interesting information that I heard from Philadelphia Eagles fans, such as (wide receiver) DeSean Jackson. From that, we have Pat Jr. wearing his jersey. DeSean spiking the ball on the one-yard line is literally a metaphor for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, which symbolizes the Eagles’ struggle and symbolizes Pat Jr.’s struggle. I made Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) a bookmaker because the economy collapsed in 2008. In the book, one doesn’t really know exactly what he did. I imagined he was a DHL Express manager of a hub, and he retired and lost his pension, which happened to a lot of people. His obsession in the book with bookmaking is just an obsession, but in the movie, it’s an obsession that goes to the economic livelihood of the house. So in that opening scene, establishing the tone and characters was extremely important.”
Tiffany makes her grand entrance: “The scene where Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) comes in the house for the first time was also crucial in getting the emotional content to land hard. We collide the agendas. We invented the best friend, Randy, who is the nemesis who bets against Pat Sr. The nemesis’ role is important as he loves the wife and always thinks she’s beautiful. It also creates the world of the neighborhood. I loved that all the characters travel by foot. Nobody gets in the car unless Pat Jr. goes to therapy. They even walk to the dance.”—Anthony D’Alessandro
Director Steven Spielberg on the set of Lincoln.
Steven Spielberg |Lincoln
Oscar pedigree: Eight picture nominations, one win for 1993’s Schindler’s List. Seven directing nominations, two wins for Schindler and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg also has a 1986 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial award.
Intimate setting: “The difference between Lincoln and Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan is that the last two films take place outside,” Spielberg says. “Lincoln is within the intimacy of a set in actual, practical locations. So every room was like a library. It was quiet, there was not a lot of room to work. We didn’t want to tear down walls and suddenly have the actors see the entire crew and monitors just glaring at us from 20 yards away. So even the sets that Rick Carter built—he built a good deal of sets for this—did not have wild ceilings or wild walls. With Schindler’s List, I wanted actors to step out of character, step off the set, to return to reality as often as possible. It was different on Lincoln. It’s a beautiful literary piece.”
No drama in the Civil War: “The first screenplay draft I showed to Daniel Day-Lewis (in 2001-02) was also not a biopic. It was more like a Civil War drama. It was the story of the last three years of the Civil War, and it involved seven huge battles. Lincoln was prosecuting the war, first through Gen. McClellan and then Gen. Grant. But it was much more of a Saving Private Ryan, set between 1863 and 1865. And it quickly wore thin on me and became clear that it was not the story I wanted to tell. It took Tony (Kushner) and I a long time figuring out what part of Lincoln’s life would be able to give audiences an appreciation and understanding of his humanity, to take him off his alabaster pedestal and Mt. Rushmore to be able to understand that he was someone that could and should be related to. And that was not doable with the Civil War in his way. James McPherson, the great Civil War historian, once said that the Civil War is so vast that even a gigantic figure like Abraham Lincoln could get lost in it. And McPherson was absolutely right; Lincoln got lost in my first attempt to tell the story of the Civil War through his eyes, and I jettisoned that project within a year.”
Long story short: “This was going to be a story of his last three years, but the script was 550 pages long. For me, the most compelling part of that screenplay was a 65-page section which was the struggle to pass the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. Tony and I found that the more real estate of Lincoln’s life we covered, the more it diminished him as someone who understood politics, personalities, and political theater. And it took us away from his family. It took us away from the deep cold depths he would find himself in that some people thought was his form of depression. It took us away from that because it covered too much territory. The Emancipation Proclamation and the struggle to find the right time to announce it, the Gettysburg Address—there were so many bullet points in Lincoln’s life that actually the more that we spread over 550 pages, the more superficial his character felt. Once we focused everything on two great issues, the passing of the 13th amendment and ending the Civil War, everything got a lot more concentrated and a lot more focused.”—Mike Fleming Jr.
Benh Zeitlin |Beasts of the Southern Wild
Oscar pedigree: Beasts marks Zeitlin’s first nominations in the directing and best adapted screenplay categories.
The Beasts of the BP oil spill: “A lot of our sets were on the wrong side of the barriers that they put up to block the oil, so we actually had to be in negotiations with BP to get a lot of our sets,” Zeitlin says. “There were incredibly difficult hoops to jump through, but they were looking so bad in the media they were actually uncharacteristically, I would say, willing to cooperate. Actually, it was amazing that we managed to get back there. Anything for good PR at that time, they were going to do. We used that to our advantage.”
Casting without preconceptions: “It’s part of the idea of (my film company) Core 13, to not just write something and fill in the blanks, it’s about trying to work on these ideas and concepts and work on trying to find the essence of the character, to search for that essence in somebody. When you are looking for something in that way, you can find it in unexpected places. We wanted to stay open to what we might find out in the world. We definitely had written the character as a girl—we wanted it to be a girl and focused on casting girls—but within that, we looked at a tremendous variety of people. If you see a brave little boy, you think it might work, but obviously we found a pretty great little girl. We were rehearsing at the bakery in the mornings so that Dwight Henry could get his work done. That was key to his taking the role—he had turned it down several times. On set, we tried to make sure that it felt like a game for Quvenzhané Wallis at all times. We tried to shelter her from the panic of a film set. We always tried to maintain energy on the set that a 5-year-old would want to be part of.”—Diane Haithman
Awardsline 