Andrea Riseborough: Why her heart-wrenching turn in To Leslie deserves the Oscar nod

whyyou can easily understand why Andrea RiseboroughHer co-stars are so taken aback by her performance as an alcoholic mother in Michael Morris’s unsung, low-budget film to leslie and why did so many of them vote for him to get a oscar Enrollment, It is hard to fathom why Riseborough was later pilloried in the media for his Oscar campaign and threatened with rescinding his nomination.

no cure Meryl Streep With this level of disrespect – and Riseborough is arguably as close as UK cinema comes to a film actor with Streep’s daring and versatility. The real mystery here isn’t how she snuck into this year’s Oscar race, but that she isn’t more acclaimed and better known.

confirmed today the oscar nominations still stand, despite controversy that has threatened to plague the film in recent times. in to leslie, Riseborough goes all-in. Her character is a Texan alcoholic single mother who has fallen on very hard times. A few years ago, he won the lottery, but drank all the money. Nic Cage’s Oscar-winner turns alcoholic anti-hero after drinking himself to death leaving Las Vegas (1995), seems half-hearted by comparison.

Riseborough is a fan of the intense, naturalistic, semi-improvised plays created by John Cassavetes in the 1960s and 1970s. As Leslie, she harnesses some of the same ferocious, wild intensity you’ll find in the best Cassavetes pictures from actors like Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara. Her portrayal captures both Leslie’s fragility and intoxicated arrogance. Her behavior is devious and sometimes despicable, but we root for her all the same in the end. He has the naïve, pitiful quality of a lost puppy. The film may be soft-centric of late, but for the most part, it’s an unflinching look at addiction, with a heartwarming turn from its lead.

to leslie Makes for a tough and downbeat look. There are moments in the film when you want to look away, for example when Riseborough’s character steals cash from his 19-year-old son so he can get drunk again. Even grimmer is the scene in which she’s vomiting after going cold turkey. She’s a self-pity wreck of a woman who hides bottles of gin under her mattress and confronts almost everyone she encounters, including her son. She would be living a rough life on the streets if not for the kindness of a motel manager (Marc Maran) who gives her a job as a cleaner.

However, it is the mode of functioning at its best. Riseborough inhabits his character and doesn’t shy away from showing him in his darkest, darkest moments.

When the Oscar nominations were first announced, it seemed like a triumph for old-fashioned American indie blue-collar filmmaking. to leslie was a story that featured a type of female protagonist rarely accepted in mainstream American cinema. Leslie Riseborough isn’t a big-name musical conductor like fellow Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett’s character Tar, Nor is she a traumatized movie star like Ana de Armas’s Marilyn Monroe. White, She is a desperate woman eking out an existence on the fringes of society, much less able to take care of herself than Frances McDormand’s traveling, van-dwelling widow. nomads (2020).

First, the American film trade press wrote about the highly effective “grassroots” awards campaign run by the British star and his team. Then, a backlash ensued. Commentators noted black women who were not on the Oscar nomination list, among them Viola Davis, star of lady kingAnd Danielle DeadwilerWidely praised for her portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley, grieving mother and civil rights activist until, Both were seen as close shoo-ins for the nomination.

There was also criticism from influential fans of to leslieThey include A-list stars like Blanchett, Kate Winslet and Gwyneth PaltrowThose who hosted the screening posted their support on their social media channels and spoke publicly about Riseborough’s talents.

As the Tom & Lorenzo Podcast reported this week about the “Riseborough Affair,” the perception was that this white actress, along with all her white actress friends, outed two highly famous, highly buzzed and expected Black actress nominees. ” It was dubbed, undermined this year’s Oscar race.

Somehow, Riseborough, the brilliant, chameleon-like UK actor famous for playing the same role twice, became a lightning rod for criticism of the Association of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for its lack of inclusivity Was. The talk was no longer about his exceptional performance to leslie But about the continuing unfairness of the Oscars.

AMPAS was accused of misogyny and racism. The organization was so shaken that it launched an investigation into the campaign. This was plainly absurd. There was a feeling that the Academy was desperate to stop the criticism and therefore was using scapegoats. to leslie, Riseborough ended up in the firing line. If it was a bigger film with a better known star, they might not have dared. While the nomination hasn’t been rescinded, her reputation has certainly been tarnished and she now has little chance of winning the Best Actress award.

Ironically, Riseborough himself had previously been vocal in his calls for the Academy, of which he is a member, to become more diverse and inclusive.

“As much responsibility comes with being an Academy member, it is truly immeasurable the impact you have on the world; How does your ignoring or ignoring something affect the world – how does it affect kids seeing their own image on a billboard, someone they can identify with on a billboard… as much as we do things “The attitude we can go in, the better we can open our minds to new things,” Riseborough said in a 2020 interview.

These don’t sound like comments from someone plotting in a Machiavellian way to steal someone else’s Oscar glory for themselves.

Not that Riseborough takes winning an Oscar seriously. with him recently on a podcast to leslie co-star, Maron, she quoted For your consideration (2006), Christopher Guest’s satirical comedy about the brutal treatment of the cast and crew of a low-budget film that was vying for Oscar recognition as one of his favorite films.

“It’s so funny. Just smelling the farts of some nominations…[and] Everyone loses their minds… any connection to reality,” Riseborough commented about the film. Now, she herself is caught in the middle of the same intoxicating Hollywood hysteria that The Guest is fueling with such glee. Was.

The English star is far less well-known than this year’s other Oscar nominees. He himself is partly responsible for his relatively low profile. Since the beginning of her career, she has been appearing in National Theater productions such as in 2006 burn Along with other young actors like Matt Smith and Andrew Garfield, Riseborough has shied away from the limelight. Unlike Smith and Garfield, she has not appeared in blockbuster TV shows or films such as Dr Who And Spider Man, Instead, she has worked primarily in character roles with directors from Mike Leigh and Alejandro González Iñárritu to Tom Ford, David O’Russell and James Marsh. She produces films as well as appears in them, invests her own money in them.

Riseborough claims that he never “played anything with my own voice or my own physicality”. She reinvents herself from project to project, insisting on keeping a clear space between her work and her personal life. He will be cast as an alcoholic in one film and a cancer survivor in another. At the beginning of her career, she was young Margaret Thatcher in tv drama the long walk to finchley (2008), but she also played Stalin’s daughter death of stalin (2017) and a Belfast woman caught between the IRA and the British Army in James Marsh’s very intense thriller, shadow Dancer (2012).

Born in the North East of England, Riseborough grew up acting. A member of the People’s Theater as a child, she was in her first play at the age of nine and appeared in over 60 productions before auditioning for RADA. She went on to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as the National Theatre. Early in his career his mentors included such prominent figures as Peter Hall and Mike Leigh. Few of his contemporaries can match his pedigree.

“I was looking for a certain quality: something delicate, androgynous, and yet really old-fashioned. When I saw Andrea, I immediately knew she was it,” mother of jesus explained why she cast Riseborough as divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson in her 2011 biopic, King Edward VIII’s Abdication, we,

The film was not successful. Madonna was vilified by the British media for daring to make a film about the royal family but the singer was right about her young star. Riseborough has the ability to appear fragile and very steely at the same time. She can play blue-blooded, aristocratic types, for example, Christian Bale’s glamorous but very aloof wife. amsterdam, as well as tough characters like Leslie who spends her life in bars and bus stations. she can do comedymindhorn, Carefree, made in dagenham) and tragedy (she appeared on the stage of Strindberg miss julie, His filmography includes horror pictures, for example, Brandon Cronenberg’s owner (2020) in which she plays an assassin who takes control of other people’s bodies and overgrows mandy (2018) in which he starred alongside a chainsaw cage. She has also had her share of literary adaptations and art plays.

Riseborough is among the most daring and inventive actors of his generation. That’s why it’s so disappointing that it now looks like he has an asterisk next to his name. She’s being talked about, not for the brilliance of her performance, but because Oscar organizers still can’t seem to get their house right.

‘To Leslie’ is available on Amazon Prime