Manuel here to welcome another Best Actress hopeful to the fold. Yes, it was unclear whether two-time Academy Award winner Maggie Smith’s vehicle, The Lady in the Van, would indeed get a US release this fall in time to qualify for awards consideration but with a Toronto Film Festival special presentation, a December release plan, a new poster and a new trailer, we have to welcome Smith to the race. More...
And so, rather than to go with our usual YNMS treatment (we can’t keep up with every trailer since movies get multiples) I figured we’d just give everyone more reason to advocate for Maggie Smith as one of the most gifable actresses working today singling out four such moments from the newly released trailer for Lady in the Van (which you can watch below) with some fun captions for our amusement.
The trailer invariably depends on Smith herself, clearly the big sell:
“Oh, you thought I’d be sitting this year out? Well, I might have been bumped from the Best Supporting Actress category at the Emmys and the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel might not have exceeded its predecessor’s box office haul (though it did pretty well, you have to admit), I show no signs of slowing down!”
Showing us precisely why it is that we love her so:
“When you think you’ve had enough of my acerbic silliness and then you see a film of mine and you suddenly remember why I’m a living legend.”
I mean:
Self-explanatory.
Side note: I am currently fascinated with these ‘Academy-Award winner’ title cards, inspired by that wonderful Winslet/The Dressmaker one. Clearly marketing-induced practice that nevertheless forces you to see images like these as necessarily being imbued with a sense of prestige by name-recognition alone; I mean, who chose this image as the one to remind us of Smith’s awards? Inquiring minds want to know).
And finally:
Actressexuals everywhere when they look at Nathaniel’s current predictions for Best Actress and realize that this year’s race is shaping up to be the most crowded one in recent memory, filled not just with past winners, but also with plenty of rising stars. Can Smith, whose last nomination came in 2002 for her exquisite turn in Gosford Park, find herself back in Oscar's graces?
Related: All Time Oscar Best Actress Hierarchy. Maggie currently at #12... a seventh nomination would catapult her to #7