Interview: Kerry Washington on "Django" & Diversity

Kerry Washington and I were both blindfolded if not gagged when we spoke about Django Unchained. Metaphorically, you'll understand. Neither of us had yet seen Quentin Tarantino's latest revisionist revenge flick when we found a window in her schedule to talk but talk we did.

Kerry Washington as "Broomhilda" in Django Unchained

Amusingly we had quite different feelings about not having yet seen it. I was desperate to attend a screening. Kerry was, apparently, not. When I asked her if she enjoyed watching her films she laughed with a "No!" and a shudder...

It's a process I force myself to endure. Usually not more than once.

For the rest of us the prospect of seeing one of the screen's most stunning actresses is a lot more enticing than 'something to endure'. Since Kerry's big screen roles have rarely been as sizeable as her talent, a key role from an A list auteur is something to treasure while we have it.

In Django Unchained, Kerry found herself in the unusual position of playing a relatively non-verbal part considering the dialogue heavy nature of Tarantino pictures. She plays Broomhilda von Shaft, the wife of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) who aims to rescue her from the sadistic plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) where she currently resides.

Our conversation about Django, her TV work, and the politics of her screen career is after the jump.

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10th Anniversary: Nicole Kidman On Her Oscar Win

Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of The Hours. That's just another reason to feel merry today and remember that gratitude isn't just for Thanksgiving. Especially not when it comes to the gift of cinema. We celebrate the movies all year long but we get extra weepy about the greatness of the artform right about now when drowning in awards and top ten lists .

Christmas 2002 brought three very special actresses together

Not that The Hours is an especially festive or celebratory movie but each Christmas does seem to bring us a super-depressing Best Picture Event (this year's iteration: Les Misérables). The Hours tracks three parallel women Virginia Woolf (Oscar winning Nicole Kidman), Laura Brown (Oscar nominee Julianne Moore) and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) who are connected by difficult personalities, anxious spirits ("I feel as if I'm unravelling"), and Woolf's masterpiece "Mrs Dalloway" which she is writing and Laura and Clarissa are reading in the braided plots. 

The 2002 Best Picture nominee is a beloved classic to actressexuals the world over and, as such, I know it's close to the heart of many of you. When I spoke with Nicole Kidman recently, we took a time machine detour to talk about her winning year. (I thought I'd save that piece of our conversation for a surprise Christmas gift for you. Surprise!) The Oscar winner herself was totally taken aback when I mentioned the approaching anniversary. "Wow. That was ten years ago?!?" 

Indeed it was, Nicole, indeed it was. 

NATHANIEL R: You've been invited back to the Oscars with Rabbit Hole recently but what's your most vivid memory of that winning journey with The Hours?

NICOLE'S PERSONAL MEMORIES AFTER THE JUMP...

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Our Kind of Voting ~ Finale!

These were so much fun on election day (pt 1 & pt 2) that we'll do one more before we hunker down into this year's Oscars. Tell us who you'd vote for and why in these famously divisive and/or just plain fabulous Oscar categories.

BEST ACTRESS 1961
SOPHIA LOREN (Two Women) vs. AUDREY HEPBURN (Breakfast at Tiffany's) vs. NATALIE WOOD (Splendor in the Grass) vs. GERALDINE PAGE (Summer & Smoke) vs. PIPER LAURIE (The Hustler) 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 2007
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Deakins) vs. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Elswit) vs. ATONEMENT (McGarvey) vs. DIVING BELL AND BUTTERFLY (Kaminsky) vs. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Deakins) 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 1999
HALEY JOEL OSMENT (The Sixth Sense) vs. MICHAEL CAINE (The Cider House Rules) vs. TOM CRUISE (Magnolia) vs. JUDE LAW (The Talented Mr Ripley) vs. MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN (The Green Mile)

poll by twiigs.com

BEST PICTURE 1975
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST vs. BARRY LYNDON vs. NASHVILLE vs. DOG DAY AFTERNOON vs. JAWS 

Can you even choose from all the awesome?

Our Kind of Voting Pt. 2

image shamelessly grabbed from My New Plaid PantsI'm feeling anxious today -- everyone around me is too.

We won't know who won the Presidential Election until late tonight but since all I can think of today is voting, we'll continue with our actual favorite kind of voting: Oscar voting.

Or, rather, retroactive hypothetical Oscar voting. See part one if you missed it or enjoy this exercize

So tell me who wins your vote in some of the most famously divisive, contentious, or just plain fabulous categories ever! Explain your choices in the comments.

2003 BEST ACTOR
SEAN PENN (Mystic River) vs. BILL MURRAY (Lost in Translation) vs. JOHNNY DEPP (Pirates of the Caribbean) vs JUDE LAW (Cold Mountain) vs BEN KINGSLEY (House of Sand and Fog)

1974 BEST ACTRESS
ELLEN BURSTYN (Alice Doesn’t…) vs. DIAHAN CARROLL (Claudine) vs. FAYE DUNAWAY (Chinatown) vs. VALERIE PERRINE (Lenny) vs. GENA ROWLANDS (A Woman Under the Influence)

1939 BEST PICTURE
GONE WITH THE WIND vs DARK VICTORY vs GOODBYE MR CHIPS vs LOVE AFFAIR vs MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON vs NINOTCHKA vs OF MICE AND MEN vs STAGECOACH vs THE WIZARD OF OZ vs WUTHERING HEIGHTS

2007 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
CATE BLANCHETT (I’m Not There) vs. AMY RYAN (Gone Baby Gone) vs. SAOIRSE RONAN (Atonement) vs. RUBY DEE (American Gangster) vs TILDA SWINTON (Michael Clayton)

Ready? Set. Go!

Oscar Horrors: "Max Schreck"

HERE LIES... The actor-or-is-he Max Schreck, brought to vivid undead-or-is-he life by Willem Dafoe in 2000's Shadow of a Vampire, nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

JA from MNPP here. When I started rewatching E. Elias Merhige's 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire the other day for the umpteenth time I was convinced that we first see Willem Dafoe's Max Schreck is when he's first being filmed by Murnau & Company - when he emerges from his deep dark tunnel, aka the hole where Murnau says he found him. I was wrong. The first time we see Schreck is a few minutes earlier when Murnau leaves a caged mink sitting outside said hole as tasty bait and Schreck's hands - white as moles, fingers long and sharp as stalactites - appear in the background and snake their way around the bars, enveloping their innocent prey.

Now I'm not one to talk about how an actor uses their hands - it makes me feel like Guy Woodhouse telling Roman Castavet about that "kind of an... involuntary reach" - but Dafoe's performance demands it...

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