Ask Nathaniel column time. You ask. I answer. Herewith seven recent reader questions. Since last night was the finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, we'll end with two similar questions about that show but first, more typical actor questions. You're always asking them. Not a complaint. Just a fact.
PAUL OUTLAW: Which directors would you most like to see work ASAP with these performers (it can be someone new or a former collaborator): Tilda Swinton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Fassbender & Tom Hardy?
Tilda: Anyone. I'd even watch her in a Michael Bay movie though I'd prefer her in an Olivier Assayas. Oh wait, that's my answer.
Gugu: Anyone. She's new enough that we don't know what we have yet other than GREAT POTENTIAL.
Fassbender: We know he can do intense heightened drama and various masculine genres with the best of them, but I'm wondering if he has something more low-key naturalistic in him or how he'd fare in more typically feminine genres. One of my favorite performances of his is Inglourious Basterds which I know is neither of those things but I like how arch and cerebral he seemed as opposed to physical. It was a different mode for him. So a little more of that. I'd be curious to see him in an Alexander Payne style dramedy or Joe Wright in swoony romance mode.
Tom Hardy: It's time for something really erotic. Filmmakers keep covering up his beautiful face and this must stop. We know from Bronson that he's completey unafraid of gratuitous nudity so I wanna say Jane Campion and/or another A lister who is ready to dabble in an erotic drama, their own Ang Lee Lust, Caution type detour if you will.
TYLER: There are four women who are winners of the Cannes Best Actress prize twice over: Barbara Hershey (USA), Isabelle Huppert (France), Helen Mirren (UK), and Vanessa Redgrave (UK). What do you think of this group? Your favorite performance from each?
To help readers catch up if they didn't know this statistic, those women won for the following films
Vanessa Redgrave - Morgan! in 1966 and Isadora in 1969
Isabelle Huppert - Violette Noziere in 1978 and The Piano Teacher in 2001
Helen Mirren - Cal in 1984 and The Madness of King George in 1995
Barbara Hershey - Shy People in 1987 and A World Apart (shared with co-stars) in 1988
More Questions after the jump...
Barbara Hershey and Jodhi May in "A World Apart"
Of that group I've always loved the Hershey stat the most. She's the only consecutive winner ever (actor, actress, palme d'or, director whatever) and the least acclaimed of that quartet. But it's a happy weird stat because both of those performances are strong and totally different. In one she plays a paranoid Bayou matriarch in Louisana and in the second a crusading liberal in South Africa. For those of us who loved Hershey in the 80s (guilty!) there was a very brief period of hope that she'd start getting Streep calibre chameleon leading role offers as a result but it didn't happen. Both films got limited releases in the US in the summer of 1988, which was arguably Hershey's biggest year (a second Cannes prize and 4 films released including the hit Beaches and talking point The Last Temptation of Christ). Hershey has worked steadily since 1968 (!) but she never quite ascended.
But you asked for favorite performances by each - Redgrave (Julia), Huppert (The Piano Teacher), and Hershey (I kind of like her in everything but one signature performance? Hmmm), Mirren... well, she's the next question.
MORGAN: I often find myself sitting down in Winter with a cup of tea and Gosford Park. British acting at its finest. Who do you find to be best in show in the film?
NATHANIEL: At the time I totally agreed with Oscar's decision about who to single out (Helen Mirren & Maggie Smith) but this movie is such a distant memory now that I should revisit. I can safely say that it's my absolute favorite Mirren performance with probably her Morgana in Excalibur in second place. She always does good work but she's not special to me in that personal fandom kind of way, if you get me. I sometimes walk past the theater in Manhattan that she's performing in for "The Audience" (Tony nominee, Best Actress) and I realize I have not one iota of desire to see her doing The Queen again.
Her category at the Tonys on Sunday night - Best Actress in a Play
- Geneva Carr, Hand to God
- Helen Mirren, The Audience
- Elisabeth Moss, The Heidi Chronicles
- Carey Mulligan, Skylight
- Ruth Wilson, Constellations
I assume she's the favorite to win but I'd much rather see any of the other shows! Of the nominees I've only seen Geneva Carr in Hand to God. She was good but that's Steven Boyer's show through and through. He's nominated for Best Actor and it's a great night of theater.
But I don't mean any of this as a diss on Mirren. It's just a personal preference thing. I am glad that Streep isn't the only still-bankable actor from the extremely malnourished (by Hollywood) mid-sixties to mid seventy-something set. I wish at least two handfuls of their contemporaries could fine a plum lead role in the next few years just for some variety. Speaking of: let's all go see Blythe Danner's film. I tried once this weekend but missed it timing-wise. There are a ton of actresses born in the 1940s who are still working (in small parts or irregularly) that could carry a leading role with aplomb. If I started listing them we'd literally be here for hours. So many!
AARON: Also, are there any actors/actresses/filmmakers in the past or present where it's virtually impossible for you to enjoy their work because of their celebrity, politics, off-camera antics, etc., even though they may be very well respected or critically acclaimed?
I don't really have this problem. I still like Tom Cruise's Acting despite his Crazy offscreen. Maybe it's because actors and filmmakers whose politics disgust me are not, by and large, the sort I'm drawn to anyway (that stuff usually bleeds through in the work). I don't like to be negative and acting is a tough profession so I tend to cut people a lot of slack. It probably helps that I'm by and large disinterested in celebrity's personal lives even when I love their work. I'm all about what's on the screen. But there are two performers whose work I avoid so I guess there are exceptions. I really dislike Patricia Heaton -- not just for her politics but her barbed comments about other actresses (not cool) and I had to do an about face on Mel Gibsonn back in the day.
Mel getting a butt tattoo in "The Bounty". As one does in Tahiti.
I was really into him when I was young; from Mrs. Soffel (1983) through Maverick (1994) I was buying my tickets if he was in a movie. But he got crazier and crazier and more unsavory with the homophobia, sadism (onscreen), and anti-semitism and I just couldn't anymore. Braveheart, ironically given its reception elsewhere, was what finally broke us up. I've only seen one of his performances since 1995 (Signs, 2002) and though I've seen all four of his directorial features the first one (The Man Without a Face, 1993) was the only one I didn't immediately regret seeing. The others were sick-making with their explicit sadism and blood fetish.
MAREKO: Nat, if you could have Woody Allen give a mammoth, Blue Jasmine-caliber role to any actress who would it be? (For me it would be Angela Bassett, Elisabeth Shue or Joan Allen, but that's just me.)
Oh wow. Such an open ended question. Can I just list all of my favorite actresses. Can you narrow it down? I haven't seen Irrational Man yet but when I heard that Parker Posey'd been cast I thought "how perfect!" -- frankly, I'd be a lot more interested in that film if she was the lead rather than Phoenix & Stone. I wish Woody would stop wasting his time with pretty young things and shift to the funnier weirder screen energy of the type of stars he used to employ (Keaton/Farrow/Ullman/Wiest/Kavner etcetera), women who were sexy through force of character and wit rather than through their starlet-in-demand position in Hollywood. So why not the familiar but underchallenged. I'm just going to list three names that have already done great work but I sense there's a lot more there if people gave them bigger roles: Natasha Lyonne, Jennifer Ehle, and Andrea Riseborough.
But Joan Allen is a great suggestion. She's so toweringly good in Upside of Anger (2005) and just imagine if that dramedy were up to her level? It would be the greatest movie. Sigourney Weaver would also be great in a huge complicated comic leading role. She made me laugh so hard on stage in Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike. It's a total shame that she's not headlining great movie comedies that use her intelligence as well as her gung-ho abandon when it comes to silliness.
CARMEN: What are your favorite movie performances that you would love to see lampooned by the Queens on the Snatch Game?
DENNY: What has been your favorite RuPaul's Drag Race Snatch Game imitation?
My favorite impression from that show ever was Ben DeLaCreme's Maggie Smith. So unexpected / funny. Jinkx Monsoon's Little Edie I was living for briefly but I've soured on Jinkx quite a lot (previously one of my all time favorites) after seeing him on stage with "The Vaudevillians". I took some friends who loved it but they had never seen Kiki & Herb and the act was so derivative of that genius now disbanded duo that it felt almost plagiaristic at times.
In truth the Snatch Game, everyone's favorite episode, fills me with dread each year because it's always terrible. So many of the contestants just can't do improv comedy or voices to save their lives. Some celebrities or characters I'd like to see on this episode? I'm tired of reality tv show stars so it'd be fun to see classics like: Carrie White, Nina Sayers the Black Swan, Catwoman, Tilda Swinton, Ursula the Sea Witch (think about it), "Rizzo" from Grease, Bette Davis and/or Joan Crawford (attempted once but it was godawful), Olivia Newton-John, and Madonna (seriously, you'd think we would have seen a few Madonnas).
Oh and what did you make of the finale this year? It's the first time I haven't cared about the outcome! Congrats to Violet Chachki but wow that was an underwhelming crop/season (save Katya & Trixie Mattel, the true keepers and neither of them in the finals. Sigh)
SPEAK. In the comments.