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?