Almost There: Barbara Hershey in “Black Swan”
Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 6:30PM 
You may have noticed that, for the past couple of weeks, The Film Experience has been overtaken by one persistent question: Who should be the next Amy Madigan? We’ve done a team-wide vote and two readers’ polls, highlighting both men and women. At this point, you might be a tad tired of this business. On the other hand, your picks were a nice clue into what performers the readership might be thinking of and harkening for, write-up-wise. With that in mind, it feels like a good opportunity to revive the long-dormant Almost There series, where I go over performances that garnered some significant precursor support before fizzling out on Oscar nomination morning. They were close, but no cigar.
Case in point: Barbara Hershey, who scored high in both the Team Experience and The Film Experience readers' vote, and might have come close to a second Academy Award nomination for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan…
Black Swan is one of those films that diminishes in my eyes every time I revisit it. Its pop psychology approach to horror leaves something to be desired, stabs at queer desires and a woman’s repressed sexuality, all too willing to tread in clichés, and only pierces the surface. There’s a tawdry taste for shocking imagery that always works best when dealing with the physical strain on bodies, whether realist or fantastical, but tends to cheapen the picture when Aronofsky moves sideways toward more overt symbolism, perceived transgressions. Some elements stand the test of time, of course, and the whole enterprise remains a fun curio with tremendous formal execution, plus some nasty little B-movie delights.
Seldom has the director’s penchant for high-grain hand-held cinematography felt more purposeful or beautiful, combining the theatrical artifice of the ballet with filmic idioms that automatically call for notions of authenticity, grit, and whatnot. The design, from costumes to set, tells a tale all its own, where Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake contaminates the world of the characters far beyond the protagonist’s metamorphosis. All the world’s a stage, and there may be no greater terror than realizing you’re trapped within a role you didn’t see for yourself or can’t quite recognize, that you feel consuming you until there’s no complex person where one ought to be, just an archetype whose cruelty cuts both ways.
Even though Mila Kunis’ Lily might be the most obviously limited part in that regard, existing as a twisted reflection more than a character, Barbara Hershey’s Erica is the most familiar from a number of other cinematic nightmares. Shift Black Swan’s perspective to center on this former ballerina turned controlling stage mom, and you have a classic case of Grande Dame Guignol, hagsploitation updated for the 21st century, before The Substance took that idea and ran with it to hell and beyond. However, that’s not the movie Aronofsky made, so Hershey exists at the margins, a shadow at the edges of her daughter’s fragile light.
We see her first as that shade, passing in front of the camera while Natalie Portman’s Nina does her morning stretches, a black figure glimpsed in the mirror that occupies most of the living room. We only get to see her fully when it’s time for breakfast. For the working ballerina, that means half a grapefruit whose pink color inspires a bit of playful girlishness between mother and daughter. Very wholesome on paper, very sinister on the screen. Mostly because of how the actresses perform the routine as if it is, indeed, a performance that each woman is putting on for the other and some invisible audience to their domesticity. The casual flair of it all feels fake.
Perchance it’s all down to Portman’s strained soft delivery, every line sounding like the half measure between a gasp and a breathless exhale. A lot comes from Hershey, whose smile seems held together by wires stitched tight under the skin. This projection of motherly affection looks like it hurts to sustain. In fact, it feels way more natural when that pretension withers away, leaving behind a severe sort of scrutiny, laced with disapproval and something approaching viciousness. “My sweet girl” tastes like poison when she says it, looking right through her scene partner just as Erica looks through Nina to see, not her daughter, but a chance to perpetuate her own needs as a former dancer.
She’s a mother facing progeny that’s both a reflection that inspires pride and a bitter reminder of what could have been but wasn’t. When Nina comes back home at the end of that first day, breaking into tears over what she sees as a failed audition for the lead role in Swan Lake, Hershey allows her smile to slash a gentler line across her face, not so tight anymore. Sure, it can be interpreted as a genuine attempt at consoling her daughter, but there’s a disquieting sense that Erica is pleased to be needed for such comfort. A daughter’s sorrow and disappointment, mayhap more than her success, give a mother purpose. They also make Erica feel like an equal to Nina, as suggested by the loose-hair giddiness with which she regards her baby. For an instant, you can glimpse Erica as she once was, another girl in the corps de ballet.
This mother’s caresses sting like a barbed wire kiss. When Nina gets the part, when she asserts herself a tad too much and doesn’t appreciate Erica’s performance of maternal love with the expected deference, the older woman’s whole demeanor curdles. Since these scenes are so short, Hershey has to flip the switch in the blink of an eye. She fighs for the camera’s attention throughout, wordlessly demanding an edit that will linger on all the sinister meaning she can summon out of another sort of smile, one that wanes and doesn’t quite reach her eyes. And she rewards Aronofsky plenty whenever he gives her some breathing room, however small it might be.
Does she deepen Erica beyond the shallowness of a schlock horror harridan, a stock type? Perhaps not. Even so, if she’s merely playing one note of maternal monstrousness, Hershey is still playing it to an inspired level of excellence, negotiating the character-based approach one might expect from a serious drama with the grotesquerie demanded from the movie Black Swan is actually committed to delivering. It helps that the role’s scripted as a crescendo, every scene a step further into madness, each moment more declaratively hostile between mother and daughter, between a discombobulating Portman and a furious Hershey getting ever sharper.
What was once a hint of jealousy turns into open resentment over jewels that don’t look that fake to her critical eye. What was once the soft smother of a coddling mother explodes as weaponized infantilization, so obvious it can’t be rationalized as anything but. By the end of Nina’s descent into darkness, Erica’s malice is on full display, and Hershey positively relishes the opportunity to let go. An inquiry into Nina’s skin is wielded as one would a blade with full intention to draw blood, for example. More curious, however, is the fear Hershey lets into her portrait of Erica. Because the former dancer isn’t just angered by her daughter’s apparent rebellion. She’s scared, too, shrieking in terror and crawling, bloody, on the floor.
One of the great mysteries in Hershey’s work lies in the root of these trepidations. Is she apprehensive about her daughter’s well-being? Is she scared about what she might do to herself? Is she suddenly panicked about what she might do to Erica? Or is it all just the horror of the manipulator losing control over their pawn? Hershey allows these possibilities to coexist right to the end. We last see her on the night of Nina’s premiere and potential death, staring from the audience, those inklings of fear metastasized into awe, teary and terrified, both as a mother and a member of the audience, as a mirror for the woman on stage. Whether or not she’s real or a hallucination, who is Erica supposed to be seeing then? Nina? The Swan Queen? Herself? I’d wager she sees the void, an abyss that’s hungry and bottomless, no matter what face it wears.
For her nightmare of a dance mom, Barbara Hershey received some well-deserved critical acclaim, though reviews tended to privilege other, more outwardly juicy performances in the same film. Still, when it seemed like Mila Kunis would be Black Swan’s Best Supporting Actress bid, Hershey nabbed a BAFTA nomination to join her small treasure of critics' awards citations. She probably finished quite close to the finish line, a stone’s throw away from the nomination. Instead of her, AMPAS chose to honor Amy Adams and Melissa Leo in The Fighter, Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, and Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom.
Leo won and, in a world where category fraud was more frowned upon, Hershey might have gotten the slop that went to Steinfeld. Then again, Aronofsky’s film underperformed according to pundits’ expectations, scoring nods in only five Oscar categories, though they were major ones – Picture, Director, Actress, Film Editing, and Cinematography. It was ineligible for Original Score because of Tchaikovsky’s heavy presence in Clint Mansell’s compositions, and a small controversy might have hindered it in Best Costume Design even more than its contemporary setting already did. As we all know, Portman came out victorious in her race, aided, in no small part, by the work of scene partners like Barbara Hershey at her most terrifying.
Black Swan is available to rent and/or purchase on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. There is also a physical release out there, on Blu-ray and DVD.
Reader Comments (11)
It seemed like Hershey got typecast after Black Swan. Her most high profile works afterward were in the horror film series Insidious and playing another manipulative mother in the Once Upon a Time TV series (I do give the TV series credit for always making her look fabulous as well as having other characters blatantly flirt with her, showing a woman of a certain age was indeed desirable.)
I think for her to get a nomination again she needs to not go the way of Amy Madigan but of Kathy Bates/Isabella Rossellini- get into a prestige ensemble pic that can use her persona well. A determined but mysterious supporting character seems prime for her next nomination. Maybe if they make a film of the play The Inheritance?
Steinfeld was one of the worst fraud cases of all-time, and this is the kind of thing that misses out.
I love Hershey in this - it has a neat parallel to her nominated performance, too: another dangerous maternal figure who's prey cannot escape from.
Claudio, this is as always such a thoughtful take on Hershey's performance in this film...I appreciate that you didn't overrate it yet still note both the broad and the ambiguous successes she makes with a very limited part. I haven't seen the film since it was released but remember loving it so much...you make me hesitate to revisit it! I have never been convinced that Hershey is a great actress per se, but I have a colossal soft spot for her for many reasons...lots of lovely work from her over the years, especially in Portrait of a Lady and The Last Temptation of Christ.
She definitely deserved a nom (and a win) for Last Temptation of Christ. Would’ve thrown her in the mix for Hannah and Her Sisters too.
Recalling the 2010 season, Mila Kunis was way ahead of her in the supporting actress race and was the true snub. Hershey was good but it’s a smallish part — mostly brief two-handers and reaction shots after Portman’s rehearsals.
Despite the category fraud most expected Steinfeld to get in. Jacki Weaver was the somewhat surprise inclusion. And then she did it again 2 years later.
I wasn't mad she didn't make it but it would have been a nice career capper and I agree that typecasting has limited her since that role.
I will say this once again,I think her role in 1996's The Portrait Of A Lady is the greatest nominated supporting actress performance in the history of the Oscars.
I love Binoche but Hershey is the one performer from that nominee pool who I want to know more about before she enters the film and also after she leaves.
She was only Campion's 3rd choice after newly minted Oscar winner Sarandon passed on it and then Sigourney Weaver who would've aced it too and had her chance to play a similar character in The Ice Storm a few years later.
Nice piece Claudio,never saying it's an alltimer but solid work from an overlooked actress.
She's one of those monster moms but subtly so,that cake throwing and weeping over canvases is strange,I still don't know if she's real,she never leaves that apartment but for the ending she maybe a ghost.
Yay, AT is back! I thought this season would start with Chase Infiniti and Paul Mescal, but going back to Hershey is a pleasant surprise! By the time Hershey finally got her one and only Oscar nomination for The Portrait of a Lady (in what was considered somewhat of a disappointing Piano follow up for Jane Campion), Hershey had put in increasingly high profile performances for 3 decades. Her mid to late 80s performances ranged from being overlooked in high-profile The Right Stuff, The Natural, and Hoosiers to her back-to-back Cannes winning performances in the little seen Shy People and A World Apart along with awards attention for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Last Temptation of Christ and then Beaches (getting attention now for its stage musical adaptation but more known then for her lips) before her phenomenal TV movie work in the early 90s. Seeing her in Black Swan was a nice use of her quiet (and then not so quiet) power that she exhibited in all of these earlier roles in some way. That BAFTA lineup, with sweeper Melissa Leo not even nominated, was a nice shakeup, particularly to give Hershey some attention for this performance, especially with Kunis getting the majority of the supporting actress attention for Black Swan. It would have been nice to get both (and even Ryder) in as well, but Weaver (a new discovery) eventually asserted her presence as the "monster mom" for that year. Hershey sadly hasn't been seen much in the last 10 years, but she showed up for Bette Midler's Kennedy Center Honors and was just in a pilot with Corbin Bernsen, so hopefully she can still get good parts to harness that impactful intensity of hers.
All that season I was hoping she'd get the "overdue veteran in a small, juicy part" slot but it never got any traction, all the attention was on the young women. She's always had such a strong screen impact, even back to Boxcar Bertha.
Weist owns Hannah and Her Sisters, but I think a double nom with Hershey would have been worthy. Even her big smile on the poster is worth it.
Were her two Cannes wins just not seen enough?
I have admired Hershey since 1969 when she played nasty Sandy who tortured poor Rhoda (Oscar nominee Catherine Burns) at the beach in Last Summer. Yet, I wasn't overly impressed with her performance here. For impactful work in small roles in 2010, I prefer Elizabeth Marvel in True Grit and Rooney Mara in The Social Network.
davidandwaffles -- as someone who lived through the 1980s and was just beginning to understand the oscars around Hershey's acclaimed run -- that was definitley part of it. I remember hearing about these Cannes wins but seeing the movies was difficult. I wasn't in LA or NYC of course but there was very little in the way of discussion about those titles. I think A WORLD APART was probably too dry (if i remember correctly) to really catch on and SHY PEOPLE got a blink and miss it release *i think*. It certainly didn't hit Detroit in any major way (where I grew up). I remember being so excited when I finally saw a copy of SHY PEOPLE in the local video store to see what the fuss was about with her Cannes win.
I remember thinking SHY PEOPLE was very good but i have no concept if it holds up or not as I was probably too young for it. I also think it would have been hard to get a Best Actress nom out of it for Hershey because even though it's a complete 180 from the other work she was doing at the time (she has real range -- which makes her typecasting over the years quite annoying) but it's more of an ensemble picture if I recall correctly.
I remember Black Swan being big enough on release that we were debating whether shoe-in Mila Kunis would be joined by Barbara Hershey in Supporting Actress. Sigh.
Oh, I've just seen her in the new Bette Midler music video and she looks kind of hot with grey hair. And there's this restored copy of Last Summer coming up. Maybe she's our next Madigan.
Cannon was definitely not the right fit for Shy People. Weird movie, she has this tremdous monologue. 87 was pretty stacked and Kirkland got the independent slot.