In this weekly feature from Murtada we will follow the Oscar contenders and examine how their many interviews and appearances impact their chances. This week we check in with Ryan Gosling, Viola Davis, Pedro Almodovar and Annette Bening.
Ryan Gosling
Gosling is trying to catch up with co-star Emma Stone who’s been promoting La La Land while he was away shooting Blade Runner 2049. He also trying to catch up with Casey Affleck and Denzel washington who’ve established themselves as the frontrunners in Best Actor. Last week he got his hands and footprints immortalized. This week he gets his first solo magazine cover - he's been in a couple with Stone - of the season in GQ. Gosling thinks the his appeal and the popularity of the Hey Girl meme are because … he’s Canadian?
I think it’s part of…um…America just finally realizing that there’s a place called Canada. That it’s nearby. And the people there are, you know, different but the same. And not just America’s hat. We have free health care, education.” So you’re saying that what people see as perfect boyfriend material is actually…? My Canadianness.
Viola Davis
What does a frontrunner in their category do to keep the momentum going? They don’t need to hustle with many appearances and meaningless awards - since the nomination and even win - seem assured. Whatever they do though has to be high impact. Like Viola Davis’ in depth The New Yorker profile. The profile chronicles Davis’ life and career shedding light on her upbringing, what drives her and calls Fences “the best performance of her career”. That's the kind of endorsement needded to cement that frontrunner status.
The profile also recounts the many moments we remember from and about Viola, like Meryl Streep’s “Give her a movie” rallying cry and her own eloquent winner’s speech at the Emmy’s last year. She cites that speech as the moment she “began to pronounce herself in public”.
I didn’t think it was landing. I wasn’t so concerned with that, because my whole life I’ve been focussed on approval, on acceptance, on shame and all that. I’ve been focussed on it for so much. One day it lifted.There is no line in my life and in my spirit, but there is a line in the culture for me as a woman and me as an African-American.
We’ve always thought that she pronounced herself very well, while being cognisant of both her vaunted status and the responsibility it brings. Looking forward to her many speeches this season that will definitely become highlights.
Pedro Almodovar
Julietta was blanked by Oscar’s Foreign Language Committee which means Almodovar’s best chance now lies in the Adapted Screenplay category. It’s apt then that he was part of the THR’s Writers Roundtable. He talks about how different Julietta became once he ditched his original plan to make it in English with Meryl Streep.
Julieta would be completely different if I did it in English. Once I decided to make the adaptation in Spain and in the Spanish culture and language, I changed a lot. I really even forgot the original short stories by Alice Munro [the book is based on her work] for a simple [reason]: In Spain, there's a guilty complex or the sentiment of guiltiness. And the family culture here [in America] is very different from the Spanish family culture. The language pushed me to do it in a very different way.
He’s right of course, Julieta could’ve been called Guilt the Movie. That’s how pervasive guilt is in its themes and story, which is of course very Almodovar-ian and why we love the movie.
Annette Bening
There’s no better way to drum up enthusiasm for a performance than getting one’s co-stars to proclaim how marvelous you are. Greta Gerwig goes the extra mile for her 20th Century Women colleague, Annette Bening, telling Today that Annette should get an exception as an American and be proclaimed a Dame. Watch starting at the minute mark.
A Damehood would be great for Annette, but how about we get her that fifth Oscar nod first, SAG notwithstanding.