Q&A: Pretty Boys and the best of Tomei / Collette
Monday, May 8, 2017 at 7:00PM It's part two of this week's Reader Questions. If you missed the first installment in which we covered topics like Cynthia Erivo's film future and Star Wars favorites, click here.
Six more reader questions? YES PLEASE. Let's go...
BHURAY: What are your 5 favorite Toni Collette performances?
I love her so much I have to do a top ten. Hers is surely the star career with the single biggest disparity between how much talent she provides versus how often and well deployed she is by Hollywood. My favorite performances are hard to rank as I think she's the same amount of wonderful consistently but it might go something like this...
- Velvet Goldmine
- Wild Party (Broadway, Tony nomination)
- The Sixth Sense (Oscar nomination)
- The Hours (the most delicious cameos of the Aughts)
- Japanese Story
- United States of Tara (Emmy win)
- Glassland
- Muriel's Wedding (Globe nomination)
- About a Boy
- In Her Shoes
THE BOY FROM BRAZIL: Who do you think will be the internet's favorite for an Oscar win now that Leo got his Oscar?
This is a really good question once you stop to really think about why/how that happens. I mean the obvious answer is "Meryl Streep for a fourth!" because the internet never gets bored of proclaiming her the Greatest Everything Ever. But I personally respect and love acting as a craft too much to pretend that only one person is great at it. As a result my predilection is to always root for people who haven't won a statue yet.
First picture of Michelle Pfeiffer on her way to the Dolby. #Pfeiffer2018 pic.twitter.com/MY1kVoxYZn
— Ali Benz (@Alibenzkr) May 3, 2017
This masses rallying for one performer thing will happen to Amy Adams if she has another hit soon (but it'll have to be soon). I also wouldn't be surprised if the internet rallied around my beloved Pfeiffer this season if she's great in one of her comeback projects. That's because she has enough pop culture nostalgia / appeal to pull in the people who only vaguely pay attention which is what you need for that kind of 'GIVE LEO THE OSCAR!' style meme-ready mania. Much less likely but also conceivable with the right meaty role: Sigourney Weaver or Samuel L Jackson. I also wonder what it would take for Johnny Depp, Will Smith, or Tom Cruise to recover from the souring of public love for them over the years to win that sort of mass adulation again? Hollywood makes the male matinee idols wait and they're all getting on in years so maybe one of them will achieve a redemption arc with the public and then finally get the Oscar in 10 years time?
/3RTFUL: From Marisa Tomei's three nods - which is your favorite? Were you a fan before her first nod? Are you frustrated surprise Oscar wins for acting are improbably today?
True story: I have been a Marisa Tomei fan since being delighted by seeing my older brother fall madly in love with her while we were watching the Cosby spinoff "A Different World" in the late 80s. I think all three of her nominated performances are terrific and I'm glad she has the Oscar nods. I didn't want her to win for My Cousin Vinny, though, because I think Judy Davis deserved the Oscar for Husbands and Wives hands down and would in just about any year. If I could only award a single gold, silver, and bronze for the entire decade in supporting actress it'd be these three women in alpha order (don't make me choose!)
- Judy Davis, Husbands and Wives (1992)
- Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights (1997)
- Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
And yes it's terribly sad that the machinery of awards season is such that surprise wins are nearly non-existent. It takes very special circumstances now for something like the 2007 supporting actress season where different women kept winning along the road to Oscar.
DJDEEDAY: Nat, what is the most recent Oscar-nominated performance that you have NOT seen and what's keeping you from seeing it?
The most recent is Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah (2007) and I never got around to it for three reasons: It wasn't nominated for anything else, it had already left theaters at the time of its surprise nomination, and I was still furious with Paul Haggis about Crash stealing Brokeback Mountain's Oscar.
CRAIG: With all the backlash from studios casting white actors in Asian roles, do you believe casting will become more ethnically realistic? And which Asian or Asian-heritage actors do you believe have breakaway star potential?
Ludi Lin
I actually think Hollywood is already getting more ethnically realistic in its casting. It's just people complain a lot when they don't (not excusing it... just acknowledging that movies are much more diverse now than they've ever been even though we have a ways to go). Star magnetism and size of talent have absolutely nothing to do with skin color so it stands to reason that there are great stars of every flavor waiting to happen if Hollywood gives them a chance.
It hurts my heart for example that RJ Cyler and Dacre Montgomery are sure to get way more offers than Ludi Lin post Power Rangers (due to Hollywood's resistance to casting Asian actors) when I'd argue that Lin gave the best performance in the movie. Don't get me wrong, nobody in that corny blockbuster was Oscar worthy or anything but he was less bland than most and less hammy than a few. He was pitched just right for the movie's broad strokes emotions and pop tone.
Lewis Tan in "Iron Fist" stealing the whole season in 5 minutes flat.I'm going to be doing a series on rising actors soon so I'll have more time to think about the other part of the question. But let it suffice to say for now that it was very obvious watching Lewis Tan's single scene in Netflix's Iron Fist (he famously auditioned for the lead role as well) that he has roughly ∞ time more star magnetism than Finn Jones. I try to keep it positive here at TFE but I think whoever made that call, Finn over Lewis, anyone that blind to star charisma, should absolutely never be allowed to make a creative call in Hollywood again.
JOEY: What male pretty boy actor would you love to see Almodovar direct?
Who speaks Spanish? Any of them! I would love for Pedro and Gael García Bernal to reunite.. especially if Gael brings bestie Diego Luna with him. But my #1 answer here is Edgar Ramirez. Traditionally masculine guys, with pansexual appeal, can work wonders in Almodóvar pictures - think Javier Bardem's sexy paralyzed cop in Live Flesh. And because they're very very pretty maybe Diego Boneta or Jesús Castro? As much as I'm grateful to have a director like Almodóvar who focuses so much on women, it's fun that he throws gay male movies into the mix once a decade or so (Law of Desire, Bad Education, I'm So Excited). I'm personally ready for the next one!
YOUR TURN, DEAR READERS.
Who would you love Almodóvar to work with? And what have been the finest performances in the careers of Marisa Tomei and Toni Collette thus far?
Reader Comments (44)
If you don't, I choose:
Gold: Davis
Silver: Moore
Bronze: Wiest
Davis being of course the best nominated supporting actress EVER.
You know it is. The best ever. And I've seen around 40% of the nominated performances, but I know I am right. That performance is unbeatable.
Ok, I have to do it.
1 Davis
2 Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind
3 Judith Anderson, Rebecca
4 Juanita Moore, Imitation of Life
5 Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights
6 Thelma Ritter, Pickup on South Street
7 Susannah York, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
8 Piper Laurie, Carrie
9 Jean Hagen, Singin in The Rain
10 Melissa Leo, The Fighter
That Toni Collette scene from The Sixth Scene never fails to make me cry no matter how many times I see it; a masterclass in acting.
Sixth Sense and The Wrestler have some fantastic supporting actressing going on from Colette and Tomei, and an even bigger kudos to them for making the absolute most of roles that would probably read as cliche and/or underwritten on the page, especially Tomei's.
Nat, I would highly recommend watching Valley of Elah if you ever get the chance. The film's pretty bad on a script level, Higgis doesn't help, and the color saturation is so weird and in flux between scenes it almost feels like they debated making a black and white film during the shoot. But all that aside, Jones does so much heavy lifting to make that character's plight really hit home even as the plot crumbles. Theron helps, but his unfussy, bottomless grief is remarkably accomplished and unsentimental work that keeps an unsubtle, unimpressive vehicle afloat far longer than it deserves.
Susan Sarandon's supporting performance in "In the Valley of Elah" was one of my favorites in 2007.
This was a really great Q&A. Well done.
You are right on with question #2. With the right role, Sam Jackson or Weaver could easily get a shit ton of public support.
Collette is a goddess. Edgar Ramirez is always a welcome face. Did I mention, I'm digging these write-ups?
I don't think public affection has wavered for Johnny Depp. The general public still loves him, no matter much of a mediocre parody of himself he's become. I actually saw a post not long after Leo won saying Johnny Depp should be next. lol. I think he could win for sure in the next decade, with the right movie.
Tom Cruise, I don't know. He's still a major star somehow, but his public image has definitely gone downhill over the years.
I don't know that Will Smith will ever win (it is kinda interesting that both times he was nominated, he lost to a black actor), but if he gave a strong performance in a movie that was about more than just his performance--i.e. a best picture nominee or something, he could totally win.
I think that Smith will probably win-he's such a big star and made so many people rich, and he didn't really ruin his career in the same way that the other two men did. It's weird because he's easily the least of the three in terms of actual acting talent (and weirdly his best work is in Men in Black, which is nowhere near an Oscar movie). I also wonder if Travolta, Harrison Ford, or even Bruce Willis might be in the running for an Oscar at some point. Male matinee idols of a certain age are always one role away from a nomination (see also Mickey Rourke or Michael Keaton).
I have to do the Supporting Actress Nominee of Each Decade Thing To (of the ones I've seen):
30's: Olivia de Havilland (GWTW)
40's: Agnes Moorehead (Magnificent Ambersons)
50's: Jean Hagen (Singin in the Rain)
60's: Angela Lansbury (The Manchurian Candidate)
70's: Ronee Blakley (Nashville)
80's: Oprah Winfrey (The Color Purple)
90's: Juliette Binoche (The English Patient)
00's: Mo'Nique (Precious)
10's: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)
Lupita Nyong'o for Pedro. She's fluent in Spanish. Please make this happen since Hollywood don't know what to do with her and it's been YEARS.
And also Christina Hendricks. We can crowdfund her Spanish course. She would be juicy in Almodovar pelicula, I think.
I would like to see Almodovar direct Miguel Angel Silvestre (Sense8) in a comedic romp of a film. Silvestre, I believe, has breakaway star potential of the Sense8 cast, and reminds me of Antonio Banderas.
great post, nathaniel!
you can never talk enough about toni collette. it is indeed a bummer that hollywood doesn't get her, but at least she works a lot. she needs to find her own big little lies equivalent.
and edgar ramirez! yes to him and almodovar, a match made in heaven now that you mention it.
Isn't Davis divine? Judy is currently directing a play at my university. She is so humble and such a legend.
@MDA I feel exactly the same way. Toni Collette deserved the Oscar for that scene in the car alone. The part where Cole reveals to Lyn that he's spoken to her dead mother never fails to start me blubbing:
Cole: She said, you came to her where they buried her. Asked her a question...she said the answer is "Everyday". What did you ask?
Lyn: Do I...make her proud?
Can we just applaud the Academy for nominating Toni Collette's superb work despite having no awards traction that season? I'm sad it came at the expense of Cameron Diaz's best work, but I'm so happy Toni has that nomination.
Nathaniel, I'd strongly urge you to give In the Valley of Elah a chance. I've seen in twice and it didn't fail to move me on both occasions. For what it's worth, I consider it to be one of the better examples of the spate of post-Iraq/Afghanistan invasion films that were released during the 2006 to 2009 period. It also totally turned me around on Tommy Lee Jones, an actor who I had hitherto felt to be overrated, and undeserving of his 1993 Oscar win for the Fugitive. But he's my runner-up choice for the 2007 Best Actor Oscar (after DDD for There Will be Blood, naturally), and he's one of those performers that keeps getting better with age (he was my #1 Best Supporting Actor choice in 2012 for Lincoln, and he has also been magnificent in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and the underrated The Company Men). The reliably brilliant Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, in particular, are also very good in Elah.
Also, and I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful, but I wouldn't hold Crash's Best Picture Oscar win against Paul Haggis. By all means feel angry with the AMPAS for its decision (I'm not as down on Crash as many are, but I agree that Brokeback Mountain should really have won that award). It's not his fault he made a film the Academy favoured (rightly or wrongly), and movies apart, he strikes me as a decent guy who had the guts to vocally leave Scientology and expose its many disturbing practices.
Shout out to Hayden Szeto for being suuuuper-appealing as the love interest in "The Edge of Seventeen". Here's hoping he gets to continue working.
My hope is Meryl Streep never wins her fourth. So bloody lame.
I don't think he'll ever reach internet-Leo level Oscar fanning, but how about Gosling? He was everyone's boyfriend after The Notebook... became a meme with the Hey Girl thing... got his cool guy cred with Drive... delivered at least two Oscar-worthy performances (Half Nelson, Blue Valentine)... just appeared in a $150mil-grossing Best Pic-nom film... and will have two films in the next couple years that will have audience/critics/Academy buzzing (Blade Runner, Armstong biopic). Just putting that out there.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting impatiently for James McAvoy and Oscar Isaac to land their first Oscar nod, but ya know.
Was there ever amy traction for Samuel L. Jackson in Django? I thought he was by far the best part of that movie.
MDA - I was so baffled that no one got behind Leo or Sam in Django, and instead, Christoph doing the same role he did a few years prior. It would've been an easy way to enter a non-winner into that lineup and give Leo or Samuel L. Jackson an Oscar!
Tomei's finest performance is a Cuban woman obsessed with John Wayne in The Perez Family (1995).
Almodovar should make a movie with Spanish speaking black characters. The story does not have to revolve around the black experience in Spain because he'll be unable to fully comprehend it from the outside. But I would like to see darker hued performers in his work. I was shocked at the sight of a black woman singing in The Skin I Live In (2011).
My favorite Tomei's are Untamed Heart, Only You and Unhook the Stars.
Toni Collette should have won an Oscar for The Sixth Sense hands down. Despite all of the praise for M. Night Shyamalan's script at the time, it was the acting that truly elevated the material, specifically her scenes with Haley Joel Osment. Furthermore, hers is the best performance in The Hours, Nicole Kidman's included. She almost always has such palpable chemistry with her co-stars, which is a large part of her magic.
Marisa Tomei is overdue for another Academy Award nomination. She needs to work with Steve McQueen!
muriel's wedding in eighth place??! i mean, toni's great in everything but muriel/mariel is her signature role! i never tire of watching her in that [it's on tv a lot down here]
japanese story would be my #2
just noticed on imdb she has TEN 2017 releases lined up.hopefully there's another award worthy role in the bunch
"Who would you love Almodóvar to work with?"
Let's Just say...
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Does anyone/anything compare to Toni Collette in the second half of Japanese Story?
Isn't it now a given that 'Oscar Isaac' is the automatic and correct answer to any question of the "who should star in/who should x work with/who should win an award for" variety?
Toni Collette was wonderful in The Sixth Sense, but I've always thought Chloe Sevigny was the most deserving of the Oscar that year. My favorite Supporting Actress nominee of the decade.
Why not Tomei (or even Collette) in an Almodovar film? I would love to see that. Although I also love the suggestions of Hendricks and Silvestre (he's who I immediately thought of, too, although that might be because I just started watching season 2 of sense8).
As for not seeing a nominated performance, I still can't make myself sit through The Hateful Eight. That running time, the male:female character ratio, etc. Just can't do it.
I co-sign Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry, who was on par with Hilary Swank and won nearly as many critics awards as the latter. My '99 BSA line-up was:
Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich)
Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry)
Julianne Moore (Magnolia)
Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense)
(Angelina Jolie got the dreaded sixth spot.)
Love Marisa Tomei in Untamed Heart and Only You. She arguably is underutilized (or undertapped) as much as Collette, which is a damn shame. She can do so much, and, like Collette, has theater chops and can oscillate well between the stage, big and small screens.
Samuel L. Jackson was definitely Django Unchained's best in show, but what a lousy show that was. The fact that Cristoph Waltz won an Oscar for that role/performance is almost as embarrassing as Django's best picture nomination. (Oof.) Will Smith was wise to turn down the titular role.
Amy Adams has to be the next drumbeat Oscar winning actor, although she already is getting (lifetime) achievement awards so...maybe not? Fingers crossed for Michelle Pfeiffer as well as Annette Bening for Movie Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, which looks terrific.
P.S. Collette was delightful in Miss You Already. There wasn't a lot else to recommend it, but she and Ruth Negga's boyfriend Dominic Cooper had somewhat surprisingly super sexy and playful chemistry in that one. See it for them alone.
"I mean the obvious answer is "Meryl Streep for a fourth!" because the internet never gets bored of proclaiming her the Greatest Everything Ever. But I personally respect and love acting as a craft too much to pretend that only one person is great at it. "
"There's no such thing as the BEST actress. There's no such thing as the greatest living actress. I'm in a position where I know this to be true."-Meryl's SAG Speech 2009 which includes her shoutout to Viola Davis.
I'm a stan of her, undoubtly, but I'd surely love her even if she's the worst actress of all time.
I can only dream of Academy Winner Gillian Anderson or Academy Winner Christine Baranski.... they will probably never be even nominated. *sigh*
Sonja - if there are 10 actors I'd stake money on receiving an Oscar nomination before they die, Gillian Anderson is one of them. She's too good, works too frequently and has too much industry respect (BAFTA and Olivier have already noticed her) not to.
The holy trinity of Collette is surely Muriel's Wedding, Velvet Goldmine and The Hours?
My favourite Tomei performance is in Factotum - was written as a caricature and Marisa made her a heartbreaking, all too real woman.
The internet drums rarely beat for actresses and this will likely not change. I assume Gosling, Fassbender or Pitt inherits the mantle next...
Thank you for putting in writing that Judy Davis should have won the Oscar for Husbands and Wives. When she brings Liam Neeson home after their date, I just sit and watch in awe. So good.
MMinDC
kermit_the_frog: Hope dies last. I really hope you're right.
Oh and my favorite Collette performance is for sure United States of Tara.
What.A.Show!
Why the hate for Django Unchained? Personally, and as far as Tarantino's revisionist history films go, I think it's much superior to Inglorious Basterds (or as I like to call it 'Brad Pitt and Some Anonymous Jews Versus the Loveable Nazi'). In this one, the black guy actually gets to do something (certainly more than the Jewish characters do in Inglorious Basterds), although I still adore Waltz's erudite sidekick, especially his final speech to Leo's villain, lecturing him, and much of the audience I suspect, on Alexandre Dumas' black heritage. Plus, although Waltz effectively won another Oscar for playing a variation on the same character he essayed in Inglorious Basterds, the implication is much less morally dubious here because we're being asked to laugh along with and admire the intelligence of a good guy, an abolitionist in fact, as opposed to a loathsome 'Jew Hunter'.
Moreover, I know many black people who had a problem with the same year's Lincoln (a film I personally like) for quite understandable, albeit unavoidable, reasons since it (necessarily) reduced African-Americans to ciphers in their own story whilst focusing on white men in drawing rooms cutting deals to bring about the eventual end of slavery. For many of them, Django provided an antidote to that reminder of a shameful and difficult chapter in American history because it allowed its black heroes, Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington, to serve as the proactive focus of their story rather than simply background victims whose lives were being bartered with behind closed doors. And I say that as someone who generally considers Lincoln to be a better film than Django.
Maybe it's too late, but it still bugs me that neither Glenn Close or Sigourney Weaver has an Oscar, likewise Michelle Pfeiffer (although she's about a decade younger and still has a few promising projects on the horizon). As far as 'current' names, I'd be inclined to agree with those suggesting that Amy Adams is the current perennial near-miss as far as Oscar recognition goes. I'm pretty confident though that her time, like Leo's and Julianne's, will eventually come.
kermit_the_frog: Not to mention that many of those who beat that internet drum in favor of overdue Oscar also-rans are millenials who have no concept of anything before they were born, or at least had any consciousness of it. I highly doubt that a lot of them know enough of Michelle Pfeiffer or Sigourney Weaver to generate a fury for them.
Please, I am begging you (Toni's people and the cosmos), please please get Toni up on stage again singing an incredible role. I don't think the people commenting here even now how good of a singer she is.
Maybe you can arrange something on HBO? A Night With Toni? Where she can sing all the songs she should have been doing all these years?
Or at a bare minimum, please get Toni into a recording studio with a small combo and record something? She should be doing an album a year.
Okay, rant over. I have been besotted with Judy Davis for years and just wish she was still being utilized by Woody. Can she work for Almodovar?!
Both Gael Garcia Bernal and Miguel Angel Silvestre had already been directed by Almodovar, the former in The Bad Education, the latter in Im So Excited
Marco -- while I understand what you're getting and that you don't necessarily agree with that particular criticism, I'd argue that Lincoln the movie is telling Lincoln's politicking story above all else so no one's story is begin taken away from them. Unfortunately, unless you're rewriting history (like Django - Tarantino enjoys history as fantasy -- see also Inglourious Basterds) or unless you're focusing on a very specific sliver of civil war history (like Glory or individual biopics) you necessarily cut black heroes out of the story since one of the many many many (among thousands) of dehumanizing cruelties of slavery was depriving human beings of any agency and power and thus they can't be active heroes of the story (unless you're opting to only tell their individual stories of resistance which is great but it wouldn't be the story of the political fights to end slavery.
Kermit & Troy -- i'd argue that Pfeiffer and Weaver are rare examples of actresses who could overcome that age problem with younger viewers (due to pop culture touchstones) which is why I mentioned them. Glenn Close, unfortunately, I don't think has any movies that younger crowds are super familiar with (and DAMAGES is already "old" now) but I think Pfeiffer and Weaver both do. SCARFACE for instance is perennially discussed (and constantly riffed on in pop culture -- see Rihanna paying tribute to Michelle Pfeiffer's look in that movie a few years back) and most people know BATMAN RETURNS and GHOSTBUSTERS or the ALIENS franchise.
but yeah it's true that the mainstream is more likely to rally around men in general (sigh)
Toni Collette is one of my favorite actresses, she is a safe pair of hands for any part.
A role that hasn't been mentioned yet, In "About a Boy" she is awesome as the suicidal mother of Nicholas Hoult. She has several great scenes with Hugh Grant.
I believe Amy Adams will have a coronation of an Oscar campaign for her next Oscar worthy role. But I would levitate with happiness to see the Internet go nuts for either Benning or Pfeiffer this year.
NATHANIEL I 100% agree with you. Like I said, I prefer Lincoln to Django, and the former is in fact one of my favourite films of 2012 (and as I suggested in an earlier post, I think Tommy Lee Jones deserved the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year for Lincoln, alongside Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who deserved his win). I also agree that there's no way one can tell Lincoln in any other way that the one Spielberg and Kushner chose, and I hold nothing against them in crafting this brilliant film (it's especially fascinating to me as something of a political history junkie).
But that doesn't take away from the fact that this is a difficult part of history for us all to deal with, and I've encountered many African-Americans in particular who are, understandably, uncomfortable about most slavery films, including even the superb 12 Years a Slave, which at least features a black protagonist who displays some degree of agency. And so, for many, Tarantino's revisionist approach to history is, at least as a piece of entertainment, far preferable to those films that depict their ancestors being physically and systematically brutalised and unable to fight back.
Of course this fantasy approach to history raises all sorts of other ethical questions, and once again I must personally stress that although I like Django, I have serious misgivings about both it and Inglorious Basterds, which I liked much less. Nevertheless, they do offer a type of catharsis to audience members who, quite understandably, have difficulties seeing their ancestors and ethnic/racial group portrayed simply as victims.
@LadyEdith I find About a Boy to be an underrated film in general (it arguably features Hugh Grant's richest and most compelling performance), but Toni Collette is particularly overlooked playing a character who, on paper, could seem like a variation on her struggling single mother from the Sixth Sense. Yet it's a completely different character, one that I am very familiar with (i.e. a hippyish and slightly over-earnest woman struggling to maintain her strong principles despite difficult circumstances and increasingly fragile mental health), and Collette plays it to utterly credible perfection.