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THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ALL THINGS OSCARS OSCAR NOMINATIONS I JANUARY 29, 2016

ALICIA VIKANDER’S VERY GOOD YEAR

PALM SPRINGS PORTFOLIO , , CHRISTIAN BALE, , ROONEY MARA, , , BRYAN CRANSTON AND MORE

SPECIAL SECTIONS: INSIDE THE DOC, FOREIGN AND ANIMATED NOMINEES

PLUS THE REVENANT, AND THE OSCARS’ DIVERSITY PROBLEM TheWrap S.2260 Centinela Ave. Suite 150 Los Angeles, CA 90064

16 visits with editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman at TheWrap’s photo studio at the Palm Springs International Film Festival; cover and other photographs by Patrick Fraser.

Contents OSCAR NOMINATIONS | JANUARY 29, 2016

FEATURES DEPARTMENTS

16 WHAT A YEAR 2 Awards Beat: The curious Meet Alicia Vikander: Oscars-money nexus THE WRAP MAGAZINE not just another It Girl EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 4 By the Numbers: Adding up Sharon Waxman

the nominations EDITOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR 20 A NIGHT TO REMEMBER Steve Pond Ada Guerin

Stars glitter in 6 #OscarsSoEmbattled: It’s time DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR our annual Palm for real change Thom Geier Springs portfolio DEPUTY EDITOR 8 Shindigs & Soirees: Globes- Tim Appelo 32 GRIN AND BEAR IT trotting on the path to Oscar VICE PRESIDENT, SALES SALES Nicole Winters, How Inarritu and Chivo Caren Gibbens Mattie Reyes 10 Special Section: Underdog wrestled The Revenant animation, real stories and a DISTRIBUTION CREATIVE ASSISTANTS Trevor Tivenan Laura Geiser, Eric Hernandez into shape desert saga

GO TO THEWRAP.COM 34 SHE’S GOT THE LOOK 36 Oscar’s Back Pages: 80 years For more of our coverage of awards season and all other facets of the Charlotte Rampling, ago, a night of firsts entertainment industry visit us at TheWrap.com. For advertising inquiries, contact [email protected] or call (424) 248-0662 first-time nominee at 69

1 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 FRONT & CENTER / Awards Beat

FOR LOVE or MONEY A few thoughts on the curious nexus where the Oscars meet the box office

BY TODD CUNNINGHAM

An Academy Award can help a movie at The films that stand to get the biggest already, The Big Short could hit $100 million the box office, but the converse is definitely Best Picture bump are the little ones, not if everything breaks right. Bridge of Spies 1. not true. 2. the big ones. has grossed $70 million since opening in mid This year’s nominations prove it. Among the Fox’s The Martian and Warner Bros.’ Mad October, but is out on DVD on Feb. 2. signs that Oscar voters don’t read the Monday- Max: Fury Road, both of which have passed But the films with the most to gain are morning trades as much as everyone else in $150 million domestically, are out on DVD and likely the three indies: Brooklyn, Spotlight and Hollywood: mainly played out in theaters. Another Fox Room. The first two had made $24 million • J.J. Abrams’ blockbuster Star Wars: The Force film, The Revenant, led the nominations and and $29 million since opening when they Awakens, the top-grossing film in U.S. history, may have the most momentum of any film were nominated; Fox Searchlight doubled the didn’t get a Best Picture nomination. ’s right now. “It’s not going to do what American screen count on Brooklyn to 681 theaters the Room, which had made less than $6 million at Sniper did last year,” Exhibitor Relations weekend after nominations, while Open Road the time of nominations, did. media analyst Jeff Bock told TheWrap, “but aggressively expanded Spotlight from 368 to • Only one of last year’s 10 top-grossing movies 973 locations. And A24 has plenty of room to made the Best Picture list: The Martian, which grow with Room, which had never cracked $1 came in at No. 8 at the box office for the year million or been in more than 200 theaters in with $227 million. Only one of last 14 weeks of release. • Actors in hit movies don’t fare any better with the Academy, it seems. Although The Martian year’s 10 top-grossing Since the Academy expanded up to 10 star Matt Damon secured a Best Actor nod, movies made the Best Picture nominees in 2009, the the top-grossing film to produce a nominee in 3. top-grossing nominee has never won. either of the actress categories was the Jennifer Best Picture list The best showing came when the Lawrence dramedy Joy, which has earned less fourth-highest grossing nominee, Argo, won than $60 million and barely cracked the Top 50. in 2012—but more often than not, the winner • In 2015, had the highest between the big debut, Leo [DiCaprio] and has come from the bottom half of the best-pic domestic, foreign and worldwide box office Alejandro [Inarritu], The Revenant is becoming grosses, with The Artist and The Hurt Locker totals that any studio has ever had, but the a water-cooler film. It’s pretty arty to put up being the seventh and eighth-highest grossing studio mustered just four nominations: two for huge numbers with the mainstream, but we’ll films in the category their respective years. the actors in Steve Jobs, one for the screenplay see.” Curiously, though, before the expansion for Straight Outta Compton and one for the song Paramount is biding its time with The Big the Best Picture winner was almost invariably from Fifty Shades of Grey. The studio’s biggest Short and actually dropped the film’s screen the first or second highest-grossing nominee: hits—Jurassic World, Furious 7 and Minions— count from more than 2,500 to 1,765 the Only once in the preceding 26 years was the were completely shut out, even in the technical weekend after nominations, its fourth in wide winner not in the top half of the nominees’ and animated feature categories. release. With around $50 million banked grosses. Go figure. W

2 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ILLUSTRATED BY BRIAN TAYLOR

FRONT & CENTER / Do the Math

ILLUSTRATED BY SIMON DARGAN Oscar Nominations By the Numbers

First-time acting nominees: Bryan Cranston, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, 8 Brie Larson, Charlotte Rampling, , Rachel McAdams, Alicia Vikander

Previous acting winners: Eddie Redmayne, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, 5 ,

Previous acting nominees who haven’t won: Saoirse Ronan, Rooney Mara, 7 Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Fassbender, Mark Ruffalo, , Matt Damon (won for screenwriting)

69 Age of oldest acting nominee, Charlotte Rampling 21 Age of youngest acting nominee, Saoirse Ronan 25 Age of Jennifer Lawrence, the youngest ever four-time acting nominee

37 Average age of Best Actress nominee 43 Average age of Best Actor nominee 35 Average age of Best Supporting Actress nominees 50 Average age of Best Supporting Actor nominees

1 Number of Best Picture nominees released prior to October: Mad Max: Fury Road 3 Number released in October: The Martian, Bridge of Spies, Room 2 Number released in November: Brooklyn, Spotlight 2 Number released in December: The Big Short, The Revenant

4 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 $61.4 $75.8 2 MILLION MILLION Number of Best Picture Average gross of films Average gross of Best nominees to have crossed $100 containing Best Actor and Best Picture nominees at time of million on nominations day: Supporting Actor nominees nomination Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian 1 $18.9 $265.6 Number of best-pic nominees to MILLION MILLION have grossed less than $10 mil- Average gross of films containing Average gross of Best Sound lion on nominations day: Room Best Actress and Best Supporting Mixing nominees at time of Actress nominees nomination

Nominees who set new records this year as the most-nominated living 3 person in their category: Roger Deakins, 13 for cinematography; Sandy Powell, 12 for costume design; John Williams, 45 for musical score

Total nominations in all categories for John Williams, the most-nominated 50 living person

4 Number of Williams’ nominations that he received for Star Wars films

Percentage of Brad Pitt’s Oscar nominations that have come for producing 50 (The Big Short, 12 Years a Slave, Moneyball) vs. acting (12 Monkeys, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Moneyball)

Double nominees who are competing against themselves in a category: 3 Steve Golin, picture; Sandy Powell, costume design; Andy Nelson, sound mixing

Non-acting categories with no female nominees: cinematography, directing, 5 score, sound mixing and sound editing

4 Non-acting categories in which female nominees equal or outnumber male Images Brown/Getty M. Frederick ; Powell: nominees: costume design, documentary short, film editing, makeup and hairstyling Theron: Jasin Boland/ © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.; Williams: Paul Morigi/ Williams: Paul Inc.; Entertainment Bros. Warner Boland/ © 2014 Jasin Theron: Concerts Capital for Images Getty

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 5 FRONT & CENTER / Open Letter

Time for a Real Change An appeal to readers and Academy members to #MakeOscarsDiverse

BY SHARON WAXMAN

ehind the scenes, I’m hearing performance was better than those of the I think people of color are just fed up, lots of conversations about nominees. It had nothing to do with his and they want a change. Thankfully, the the supposed silliness of the being black, and something to do with the Academy has Cheryl Boone Isaacs at the #OscarsSoWhite protest. fact that it was a brutal movie about an helm. She heard the frustration and made BI’m hearing insiders—people who know African warlord that not enough AMPAS a bold statement promising “big changes.” how the Oscars work, who know the land- members were in a hurry to watch. The We all want to see them, and that probably scape of this year’s films, who care about Spike Lees and Michael Moores of the means the Academy admitting an extraor- diversity but understand you can’t snap world—both filmmakers are skipping the dinary number of minority (and women, your fingers and make it happen—saying Oscars over the lack of nominees of color— please!) members in the coming year. this is a ridiculous debate. understand these reasons To that end, TheWrap The Academy of Motion Picture Arts perfectly well. is soliciting from our & Sciences is made up of 6,261 individual But what’s happening readers potential candi- voters who cast ballots for the best, most here is about the bigger dates for admission to deserving work in the movie industry picture. It’s not about the This is about AMPAS—people who will every year. It’s fair to believe that those micro reasons why there are make the group more individuals vote their consciences, and no black nominees—there’s “the bigger diverse and broaden take their responsibilities seriously. We always some reason, some picture, not the its perspective. Please know many of those individuals. They’re perfectly good excuse. After email or tweet us your good people. They believe in diversity. watching this issue and micro reasons suggestions and include But as a group, they’re 94 percent chronicling it for nearly for no black the names and pro- Caucasian. Fact. two decades, it’s clear to me nominees.” fessions of the candi- The other reality is that there were not that the African-American dates with the hashtag enough standout performances in 2015 community as a whole is just #MakeOscarsDiverse. from people of color—African-Americans, plain tired of having to fight And to our many readers Latinos, and, my God, when does someone this battle. in the Academy, take these suggestions finally mention the absence of Asians? We Tokenism isn’t the way. Voting for in the positive light in which they are all know that the acting nominees, all of people of color just because doesn’t cut it. offered, and work to make your organiza- them white for the second year in a row, There’s a fatigue with the whole system. tion one that represents not only every- are extremely deserving. Those who want change have had it with one who makes films, but everyone who Yes, there are performances that might the lip service and the earnest promises watches them, too. have made the cut. But while Idris Elba and the only occasional triumphs like We look forward to all of us playing a gave a strong performance in Beasts of No those of , Denzel Washington, role in bringing real, definitive change to Nation, he probably didn’t get nominated 12 Years a Slave—which now give way to the most important body that represents

because not enough people thought his two years in a row of all-white nominees. the movie industry.W PUSHER PIXEL BY ILLUSTRATION PHOTO

6 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016

PARTY REPORT / Mikey Glazer

2. THE STRETCH RUN THE OSCAR ENDGAME ZOOMS INTO FOCUS WITH TROPHIES, SPEECHES AND SMOOCHES AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES AND CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARDS ON NOMINATIONS WEEK BY MIKEY GLAZER

Creed writer-director 1. 1. Ryan Coogler did not forget Sylvester Stallone at the National Board of Review. 2. ”Hello, Ms. Mirren. My 3. name is Bryan Cranston, and I’ll be your waiter at the Golden Globes.” 3. Lady Gaga enters the winners’ circle backstage at the Globes. 4. Best Actress nominees Brie Larson and Saoirse Ronan come cheek-to-cheek at BAFTA’s Tea Party. 5. Adam McKay and Christian Bale make out like bandits at the Critics’ Choice Awards, winning three trophies for The Big Short. 6. Room wunderkind Jacob Tremblay auditions for the next Star 6. Wars at the Critics’ Choice Awards. 7. Fox’s stratospheric 4. 5. Golden Globes night preceded its industry-leading 26 Oscar nominations: Jim Gianopulos, Giannina Facio, Ridley Scott, Matt Damon and Stacey Snider celebrate The Martian on Globes night. 8. Is that a Big Kahuna Burger you’re eating there, Quentin? No, it’s Fatburger at the Globes.

7. 8. STARPIX (1); MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES (2); GETTY IMAGES (3); MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE GREAT BRITAIN CAMPAIGN (4); KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES (5); ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES FOR FOR IMAGES RODRIGUEZ/GETTY E. ALBERTO (5); IMAGES WINTER/GETTY KEVIN (4); CAMPAIGN BRITAIN THE GREAT FOR IMAGES KOVAC/GETTY MICHAEL (3); IMAGES (2); GETTY IMAGES KOVAC/GETTY (1); MICHAEL STARPIX (8) COMPANY WEINSTEIN THE FOR IMAGES (7); RICH POLK/GETTY FOX FOR IMAGES WILLIAMSON/GETTY TODD (6); AWARDS CHOICE THE CRITICS’

8 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016

ANIMATION/DOC/FOREIGN-LANGUAGE

BY STEVE POND While most of the attention on night goes to the heavy hitters nominated in the Best Picture and acting categories, cinematic gold lurks in other corners of the Oscar universe. Here’s TheWrap’s annual look at the nominees in the Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Language Film categories.

THE NOMINEES Anomalisa Boy and the It’s typical Charlie World Kaufman weirdness, Brazilian animator but transplanted into Ale Abreu started an odd, melancholy with the line draw- and touching piece ing of a little boy of stop-motion he found in one of animation about a his sketchbooks— salesman in desper- and that boy, ate search for human connection. “We liked the handmade through his interactions with the quality, and it added a dreamlike quality and a soulfulness increasingly chaotic modern world, developed into a to the characters, and a delicate, fractured quality as well,” wordless, entirely hand-drawn film made without a said co-director Duke Johnson. “Also, it implies the influence script. “I had the feeling that he was calling me to dis- of the animators and the creators on the performances. cover his history,” said Abreu, “so I felt like a With stop motion, you’re able to distill human emotion and detective as I tried to put together moments and sensa-

interaction down to the essentials.” tions that I was feeling.” Pusher Pixel illustration: Photo

10 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 Who You Callin’ Underdog?

ver the last seven years, it’s clear American market and enters them in the that Disney/Pixar has ruled the Oscar race. The company was founded Oscar animation field with nine in 2008 as an offshoot of the New York nominations and five wins. But International Children’s Film Festival, Oyou’d probably be surprised to learn with a specific mission statement. “Our who comes in second: not DreamWorks whole reason for being is to help expand Animation or Illumination or Blue Sky and elevate the notion of what animation or Laika, but a small, eight-year-old New can be,” Beckman said. “As wonderful as York-based company called the Hollywood animated GKIDS. Since it launched films can be, they’re mostly in 2008, the company has ANIMATION CG, PG-rated comedies landed a startling eight with big budgets aiming for nominations with the kind of films that four-quadrant audiences. And there’s so fly under the radar right up until the much more the art form can be.” moment they’re announced as nominees. With this year’s nominees including GKIDS has two of the five nominees four films from outside the Hollywood this year, Boy and the World and When system—Charlie Kaufman’s odd Marie Was There; they also notched two Anomalisa, Aardman Animation’s of the five last year with Song of the stop-motion Shaun the Sheep Movie, Ale Sea and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Abreu’s hand-drawn Boy and the World and two in 2011 with A Cat in Paris and and Studio Ghibli’s When Marnie Was Chico and Rita. They’ve also scored nods Here—Beckman is confident the message for 2009’s The Secret of Kells and 2013’s is getting across. “The medium has so Ernest & Celestine. much untapped possibility, and people “God forbid we should ever be any- are opening their minds to the idea that thing other than the underdog,” said there’s a world of animation that isn’t GKIDS president Eric Beckman with a what you think animation is,” he said. “In laugh the morning after the nominations. live action, you have every imaginable “Everyone asks, ‘What’s the secret, what’s type of picture, from popcorn movies to the secret?’ And there is no secret. The rom-coms to nonlinear pictures. And in voters sit in a darkened room and watch animation, there’s no reason you can’t the movies and rate them. So you just have the exact same range—if anything, need a great film.” you’re more freed up to do anything. Unlike the other companies, GKIDS “Every year it’s amusing to me that doesn’t bankroll or produce its own films; our films get nominated and people say, instead, it scours the world for worthy ‘What a surprise!’ If you watch the mov- animated films, picks them up for the ies, it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Inside Out Shaun When The only the Sheep Marnie Was contender Movie There to also be “Some people The legend- nominated might think ary Japanese outside the stop-mo- animation animation tion is old house Studio category fashioned, Ghibli won (for Best but it’s about an Oscar for Original the stories and the characters,” said Shaun the Spirited Away Screenplay), Inside Out is also the category’s Sheep Movie co-director Mark Burton. For Shaun, and has been nominated four other times, including biggest hit, a moving journey through the mind of the team at Aardman Animation opted to do for this film by Hiromasa Yonebayashi about a young a young girl. “As a parent, you mourn the loss of away with dialogue to tell the story of a rebellious girl communing with a mysterious blonde girl in an the stage your kids have already gone through,” barnyard creature, based on the British TV series. abandoned mansion. Yonebayashi, the youngest said director Pete Docter. “That was the case with Added co-director Richard Starzak, “Putting director at Studio Ghibli, has said he placed his me watching my kids, and we tried to find ways to ideas forward without dialogue was extremely emphasis “on the recreation of what we can feel represent that story arc in the film.”

Photo illustration: Pixel Pusher Pixel illustration: Photo challenging.” with our senses.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 11 ANIMATION/DOC/FOREIGN-LANGUAGE

THE NOMINEES A War, Denmark Embrace of the Tobias Lindholm’s film Serpent, Colombia deals with a Danish Ciro Guerra’s dramatic commander put on film is a hallucinatory trial back home for trip up the Amazon, orders that caused chronicling two sepa- the death of civilians rate trips made by early in the heat of battle in 20th century explorers. Afghanistan. It’s part visceral war movie, part family Filmed in gorgeous drama and part courtroom procedural. “The idea 35mm black and white, it looks nothing like any of the was to start out by jumping between the war in other contenders. “To me, cinema is a way of explor- Afghanistan and home, and then go home with the ing, and it’s a way of knowledge,” said Guerra. “I think guy and sit in a cold room and wait for ,” cinema should be an experience—that’s the prom- said Lindholm. “My goal was that I wanted my mom, ise we get when we sit down and the lights go out. a classic Scandinavian socialist, to cheer for a guy It should be an experience for the audience, and it

who might have killed civilians.” should be an experience for those of us who make it.” Pusher Pixel illustration: Photo

12 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 learning about their history and lifestyle and decid- Blood and Sand ing that they needed to use real Bedouins rather aji Abu Nowar’s Theeb is the least-known of the than professional actors in the lead roles. That led foreign-language nominees, and the film that to eight months of acting workshops before produc- may have come as the biggest surprise to those tion began. Nwho weren’t following closely enough to know The film did include one English actor, Jack Fox, that it earned strong reviews outside the U.S. and who plays a military man traveling across the desert won the audience award at last year’s Palm Springs with a mysterious box that turns out to contain a International Film Festival. Only the second Oscar detonator that could be used to blow up newly built entry ever from Jordan, the film is the story of a train tracks across the desert. The plot device has young Bedouin boy who accompanies his brother to led some to call Theeb the flip side of Lawrence of escort a mysterious Englishman across the forbidding Arabia, where the hero was an Englishman—and desert, bound by the Bedouin custom of hospitality at while Nowar doesn’t completely agree, he said, “I any cost. completely understand why people might think Set in the 1910s, during the Arab Revolt—essen- that. The only reason anybody in the Western tially, the same time and place film world knows about the Arab Revolt is audiences saw from a much dif- FOREIGN because of Lawrence of Arabia, which ferent perspective in Lawrence of LANGUAGE is a phenomenal film. But the reason Arabia—the film has the trappings of we chose to set the film in that time a Western, but is also a document of a time gone by is that having lived with the Bedouin, a lot of their and a nuanced coming-of-age tale, though one that stories are about what they call ‘the dark time,’ turns dark and bloody. when the Ottomans built the railroad and destroyed “I love the films where Kurosawa adapted the the income they’d been making from guiding pil- style of the John Ford Westerns to the samurai grims and protecting the trade routes. culture, and I thought, ‘Why can’t that be adapted to “Obviously, because the Middle East is full of con- the Bedouin culture?’” said Nowar. “I thought I could flict, those stories have been forgotten. You can pick make a Bedouin Western type thing. It was the first your conflict in the region—everyone is fighting and thing I ever tried to write, and it was really awful. killing each other, and there are so many tragedies I abandoned it in tears and went on to write other that theirs has been forgotten. But I saw the par- things and develop my craft over the next allels with what is happening today, and the larger eight years.” context.” But Nowar later went back to the idea with a Many of the Bedouin people, he added, had never co-writer and a different approach—an intimate even seen a film before. It was only their “incred- character drama focusing on two Bedouin brothers. ibile culture of hospitality to any stranger” that kept “We didn’t want to make a generic, clichéd movie them from scoffing at the whole enterprise. “They taking tropes from the Western genre and forcing did admit to me later that they thought we were them on the culture,” he said. “We wanted to move crazy, stupid young guys who didn’t know what away from genre, find out what’s going on in the we were doing,” he said. “But they’re so polite and Bedouin culture and learn about it. I love the pro- generous and hospitable that they couldn’t say that cess of research and discovery.” or reject us, so they kind of humored us until they He lived in a Bedouin community for a year, realized that it was actually happening.” —SP

Mustang, France Son of Saul, Hungary Theeb, Jordan Of the 18 films screened in “Films that try to show the See main article, TheWrap’s foreign-language entire event only diminish above. screening series, nothing got the scope of it by making the audience reaction of Deniz it into a spectacle,” said Gamze Erguven’s sobering but director Laszlo Nemes of ultimately triumphant look at a his decision to shoot a family of young girls struggling Holocaust movie almost against a repressive upbringing entirely in tight closeups on his lead actor, Geza Rohrig. The in Turkey. “There is a filter of sexualization through which wom- result was the most acclaimed foreign-language film of the en are perceived in Turkey, and it starts very early when girls are year, and one that won the Jury Prize at Cannes. “I wanted starting to be teenagers,” said Erguven, who lived in both Turkey something immersive and very visceral, and I wanted to and Paris growing up. “I was a complete coward and didn’t speak focus on the experience of one person,” said Nemes. “That out when it happened to me—so I made these characters my way you can convey something about the experience of heroes, who do what I never had the guts to do.” the camps, the frenzy and the narrowness and the horror.” Photo illustration: Pixel Pusher Pixel illustration: Photo

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 13 ANIMATION/DOC/FOREIGN-LANGUAGE

Why This Movie?

In our conversations with the directors of the nominated feature documentaries, which took place over the last several months, we asked them all the same thing: Why were you driven to make this movie? Here are their answers.

ALL INTERVIEWS BY STEVE POND

DOCUMENTARIES

Film: Amy Film: Cartel Land Director: Asif Kapadia Director: Matthew Heineman Subject: The talented but self-destructive Subject: Two different vigilante groups on singer Amy Winehouse. opposite sides of the U.S./Mexican border: Kapadia: “I lived around the area where she a group of U.S. citizens trying to police the lived in London. Amy’s story was happening half border in Arizona, and the autodefensas, a citi- a mile away from my door. But we also kind of zen’s group formed to combat the drug cartels ignored it for that reason: ‘Oh, her again.’ To me, in Mexico. she really was the girl next door—very ordinary, Heineman: “I had started shooting in Arizona, down-to-earth, just like us, with all of the inse- and I thought the film was going to be about that curities that all of us have. Broken hearts, love, group. But my father sent an article about the family—all of these simple, ordinary things that autodefensas, and right when I read it, I knew I played out in her life affect people. wanted to create this parallel story of vigilantism “I was aware of her being messed up on stage, on both sides of the border. Two weeks later I outside a pub, in newspapers—there was one was in Mexico, and what was supposed to be a court case after another and one bad thing after few weeks turned into months turned into nine another. I was just thinking, ‘Why are you being months. seen on stage in that state? Why is no one stop- “I originally thought, especially on the ping it?’ It never really made sense to me. And Mexican side of the story, that I was telling this those questions were part of reasons I wanted very simple hero/villain story, of guys in white to make the film, and the things that I suppose I shirts fighting guys in black hats, in the classic wanted to answer. Western sense. And over time, I realized that the “I wasn’t the world’s biggest Amy fan, never lines between good and evil were much more saw her live. It was just an instinct that there blurry. And that blurriness and murkiness fasci- was a story here—and it was a story about her, nated me. I almost became obsessed with trying but also about London, about now, about how we to understand what was really happening, who treat people.” these guys really were and where this movement was actually going. That’s what led me to go down there.”

14 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 Film: The Look of Silence Film: What Happened, Miss Simone? Film: Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight Director: Joshua Oppenheimer Director: Liz Garbus for Freedom Subject: Families whose members were killed Subject: The troubled life and glorious art of Director: Evgeny Afineevsky during the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s, singer, musician and civil rights activist Nina Subject: The protests in the Ukranian capital in a companion piece to the 2013 Oscar- Simone. of Kiev in 2013, which led to bloodshed at the nominated film The Act of Killing. Garbus: “I had been a huge Nina Simone fan. hands of the police but ultimately toppled the Oppenheimer: “When I started filming families I had found her in college and everyone was country’s government. who lost people in the genocide, people would be listening to her. She was very cool, but I didn’t Afineevsky: “I was at home in Los Angeles, and crying out of fright at the idea of talking. And after know anything about her life. And I knew her friends called me from Ukraine. They said, ‘You three weeks, knowing how vulnerable and fright- political songs, but I didn’t know the strength of have to get over here, you have to come see what’s ened everyone was, the army came and threatened her activism. But when Radical Media invited me happening in Maidan Square.’ The youth came out them not to talk. So the people called me to a secret to pitch myself as a director, I bought her autobi- and they wanted to stand their ground and not let midnight meeting and said, ‘Please don’t give up. ography and I read it and I was like, ‘Please!’ politicians into the square. So I hired two camera- Try to film the perpetrators.’ That’s how The Act “And at some point along the line I figured out men and started to film. of Killing happened. But I always knew I would go that I could think of the film as a musical, from “It was literally a festival at the beginning, and back and film the familes. an editing standpoint. The songs could be used all of a sudden everything happened spontaneous- “I spent two years filming every perpetrator to provide narrative momentum—they were ly, in nine days. The police started getting violent, that I could find, and it was like they were reading not just a demonstration of her art, they could and everything changed. At four in the morning, from a shared script. I had to let go of this idea that illuminate the chapters in her life. me and all my team got beaten horribly by the they were monsters. If there’s monstrosity here, it’s “Incredible music doesn’t always make an police. I realized history was happening there. collective, and it’s political. It’s impunity. It occurred incredible film, and just because someone is a “I was surrounded with these real filmmakers to me, this is like wandering into Germany 40 really great artist doesn’t mean they have a great all on the front lines. There were GoPros, cell- years after the Holocaust if the Nazis were still in film about them. But Nina had everything. I can’t phones, camcorders, drones… All of them wanted power, and if the rest of the world had celebrated think of another artist that would allow me to to share their stories, and they all came to me. In the Holocaust while it took place. make a film that could be as rich from an artistic some moments I was able to angle the camera, to “And I knew that this was one of many, many point of view, a psychological point of view and a be in the director’s shoes, and at some points I was massacres that had taken place across the global political point of view.” just facilitating what they were bringing in. I was south, while perpetrators remained in power, and committed [to shooting] for two weeks and stayed people live under authoritarian regimes in fear. I six months. I felt responsible for documenting the felt impunity is the story of our times, and I will history.” stop everything I’m doing to address this.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 15 STAND BACK: ALICIA VIKANDER HAS ARRIVED THE SWEDISH ACTRESS HAS HAD A YEAR TO REMEMBER, BUT SHE’S JUST GETTING STARTED BY SHARON WAXMAN

PHOTOGRAPHED BY PATRICK FRASER

Not long ago, few would have recognized the name Nor face of Alicia Vikander. Now it seems as if the 27-year-old actress is everywhere, appearing in four movies in 2015, on magazine covers and at every awards show of the season for her performances in and Ex Machina. Now Oscar- nominated for her heartfelt and funny performance as Gerda in The Danish Girl, the Swedish-born actress discussed the challenges of being thrust into the spotlight, the thrill of recognition and what it’s like to be a first-time nominee.

Congratulations on your first Academy relaxed, interestingly enough, doing all Award nomination. these interviews and going to awards That still sounds so surreal, especially shows to present or go up and do a when someone says it out loud. I can’t speech for the first time in my life. really get that my name is in the same sen- tence. But it’s really wonderful, it’s beyond Can you just be yourself in those anything I would have ever dreamed of. situations? I think “be yourself” is something I met you at the Cannes Film Festival everybody is struggling to be. It’s that last year and I had a notion that you thing of knowing what grounds you and were about to have your moment. What what brings you back to normality. It’s does it feel like to go from relative realizing that it’s wonderful to do these obscurity to being the person everyone things, and then in my off time I call my wants to talk to? friends, I read my books, I take my walks. It is very overwhelming in the sense that I get excited about finding new projects it’s been a very big change for the last or work that I want to develop or that few months. I think it’s something you I dreamed of doing. What I mean is to can’t really prepare for. But I feel very not fear what doesn’t need to change.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 17 Whatever has been you the whole time will probably continue to be that way.

Last year, you were in a period film that is getting so much acclaim, The Danish Girl. You did a thoughtful sci-fi thriller, Ex Machina. Now you’re doing an action movie, the new . You’re playing across so many genres, but where do you really live as an actress? There’s a lot of When it comes to my art, acting is something that makes me feel very emotions that you comfortable. You want to take on challenging roles, because that is normally heading into something you haven’t really done before. I love don’t allow yourself that I learn so much about myself when acting, getting to try out differ- ent roles and try to understand characters. Also having to dig down in life because of and find those emotions. Normally in life, there’s a lot of emotions that morals or society, you don’t allow yourself because of morals or because of society. In everyday life, you live a certain way. But in acting you actually get to but in acting you just go wild and crazy and explore. I feel it’s very liberating. Sometimes get to go wild and emotions that I never thought I had access to suddenly feel very inter- esting and close to me. When I’m in scenes and I get to experience that crazy and explore. thrill is when I enjoy it the most. It’s very liberating.” Is there a specific scene you’re thinking of? It’s something I’ve done since my first role, in a movie called Pure. I played a troubled young girl, and trying to find the complexity and the anger within her, which was very not me—to come into that and let go was very freeing.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of Gerda in The Danish Girl. You have a wonderful partner in the film with Eddie Redmayne. He’s an extraordinary actor, and an incredible friend and man. He really pushes himself. To see the work that he put into creating Lili was extraordinary. A lot of people had been involved for a long time in this film and I know that Eddie read the script several years ago, so I was kind of the last one in, the newbie. And to see, when I came in for my audition, the amount of work that he had put in, I was so impressed.

What scene did you audition? It was the scene after the first night when they’ve both been to the ball, Lili and Gerda, and Lili kisses another man. So it’s a scene when they wake up the day after. I had done a reading and met with [direc- tor] Tom [Hooper] before I was called in to do a chemistry read with Eddie. It was really nerve-wracking. I had met Eddie a few months earlier at the BAFTAs, where we had presented an award together. He was so sweet, he said, “I know that you’re nervous, sorry to put you in this situation.” Then we just sat down on the floor and had a chat for a Alicia Vikander’s while about the scene, about the roles and what we wanted to do. extraordinary 2015 included The Danish Girl, Ex Machina, The Man When you did the scene, did you feel that you got it? From U.N.C.L.E., Burnt We got completely silent afterward. I was trying to read Eddie and and the narration for : In Her Tom. Then Eddie looked up and he had apparently gotten quite emo- Own Words. Up next: tional. It was lovely to work with him because he went all the way , The Light even though he had the part, and we did that scene and we both felt it. Between Oceans and the next Bourne film. But then I walked out and all I could do was just wish that I would get a call saying that I got it.

I think that also tells you the difference between acting and just playing a part, when you tap into a real emotion like that. When I hear the word “cut” or when the scene’s over and I don’t really know what just happened, that’s the best. I love to do rehearsals, and with The Danish Girl, Tom actually gave us the gift of two or three

18 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 weeks of rehearsals, more than I’ve ever had on a film. So wonderfully enough you build this big framework of realizing what world you’re in and knowing who your character is. And when you do the scene and you let go, it’s a wonderful feeling when you get lost.

One of the things that’s so remarkable about Gerda is how complex what she’s dealing with is. She loves her husband, but she has to give him up in order for him to become who he needs to be, which is Lili. What I thought was remarkable with her was the feeling that she always knew who the person was that she loved. I love that the art in a way was where that started to come through—the drawings and paintings of Einar, or Lili as Einar. And I love that she was a very mod- ern woman who could see things for what they were but she could also, in a time when there was no reference for this, see who Lili was from the beginning.

It’s a real love. Exactly, and I love that it was so pure. I look up to her for always standing by and being so supportive. Of course, the journey was tough and she must have been terrified at many points of losing the person she loved. And she knew that the relationship was never going to be the same.

She’s so strong and funny and smart and self-confident from the first moment you see her. She’s already this image of modern woman. It was amazing to see Lili and Gerda together. You could see in a photo the kind of bond that they had, and how playful and artistic they were. And a lot of humor, and a lot of laughter between them. I love that we got to discover, what is true love? Is it friendship? Is it passion? Is it understanding? Is it giving? I assume it’s all of that, but that’s also why it made this story so wonderful because they go through all these stages together.

When you have time, are you able to walk around on the street without being harassed? Yes. Mostly, I’ve been working. When I haven’t, I’ve been to my friends’ houses. I haven’t been out that much, I must say. I try to just hang out with my family and friends. I like to be out in nature, but I also very much like to be at home, cook food and have my friends over.

Just a normal movie star. It’s weird, because when I grew up in , I couldn’t even dream of it. I didn’t really think it existed, because I didn’t know you could work abroad and it felt like a very far distant dream.

What did? Hollywood, or the movie industry and all that. Even though I had a mom who was an actress, I dreamed of maybe being on stage in Sweden and maybe doing a film in Sweden every fourth year. Then, of course, you come out here and the wonderful thing is that I realized that, working-wise, it’s not such a big difference. I thought it would be a lot different when I came on my first studio film. Then when the first day came, it was the director and my co-ac- tors and we met in a tiny room without windows. I was like, “This looks like a closet and we’re just going to do some rehearsals like we normally do.” Then you walk on set and it’s a lot more people, but the actual work is not much different. W

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 19 o sooner had the new year dawned than the trek began. They headed east from Los Angeles into the desert for the Palm Springs International Film NFestival’s Awards Gala, which a quirk of the calendar had put on only the second day of 2016. With the homestretch of Oscar nomination voting suitably jump-started, the contenders came to shine and were met with a storm of flash and finery—and before two weeks were up, almost all of them would be Oscar nominees, and their films would have accounted for 38 nominations. Before they stepped into the cavernous Palm Springs BY STEVE POND Convention Center, they stopped by TheWrap’s photo PHOTOGRAPHED BY PATRICK FRASER studio and hospitality area. Saoirse Ronan, on the verge of heading to New York to star in a Broadway production of The Crucible, quizzed Bryan Cranston about that play’s director, with whom he had worked. Rooney Mara wait- ed patiently while her Carol co-star Cate Blanchett chatted away with Steve Carell, then Matt Damon. Brie Larson came in wearing a spaghet- DESERT ti-strap gown, her bare arms and hands freezing from her trip down the red carpet on a cold desert night. And, of course, they posed for the pho- tos you see on these pages. STORM 20 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ◄ JEREMY STRONG, STEVE CARELL, FINN WITTROCK, CHRISTIAN BALE & ADAM MCKAY, THE BIG SHORT

Director Adam McKay, far right, was best known for the comedy of Anchorman and Talladega Nights when he tackled The Big Short, which required him to make the financial crisis comprehensible and also wrangle a cast that included, left to right, Jeremy Strong, Steve Carell, Finn Wittrock and nominee Christian Bale, as well as Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt. Bale summed up the entertaining but sobering film this way: “Let’s hope that in some small way this can help the people who were shat on by the fat cats.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 21 ▼ PHYLLIS NAGY, CAROL

“It was a love story that wasn’t just about two women,” said playwright and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy of The Prince of Salt, the novel (later retitled Carol) she adapted and shepherded for 18 years. “It was a larger statement about the nature of love—that everyone’s actions are motivated by love, and the more restrained it is, the more emotionally powerful it could be.”

▲ ED LACHMAN, CAROL

Cinematographer Ed Lachman started with Todd Haynes’ elaborate “look book” when planning the visual style of Carol, which relied on photography of the early 1950s. “We were trying to create an emotion-based reality for the actors visually, without referencing the cinema or noir or melodrama,” said the Oscar nominee.

22 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 CATE BLANCHETT & ROONEY MARA, CAROL ►

Todd Haynes' exquisite period piece is a subtle duet between Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, an intimate love story treated with surpassing delica- cy. “I don’t really know where to go from here as an actress,” said two-time Oscar winner Blanchett, “because Carol set the bar so very high.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 23 SAOIRSE RONAN, BROOKLYN ►

“I thank my lucky stars daily that this film has been seen by real live human beings,” said Irish actress Saoirse Ronan of Brooklyn, the touching indie about a young woman leaving her home for New York City in the 1950s. She made the highly personal film, she adds, shortly after moving out of her own home, “when homesickness was my default emotion.”

24 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ◄ TOM MCCARTHY, SPOTLIGHT

“I mostly like engaging an audience, provoking them to see the world just slightly differently than they did before,” said Spotlight director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, who did just that with his drama about the Boston Globe’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse and coverup in the Catholic Church. The film got six nominations, including two for McCarthy. ▼ LENNY ABRAHAMSON, JACOB TREMBLAY & BRIE LARSON, ROOM

Going into the dark drama Room, Brie Larson knew that director Lenny Abrahamson, below left, would be focused on getting a performance out of 8-year-old co-star Jacob Tremblay. “I knew that I couldn’t be precious about my performance at all,” said the Oscar-nominated actress.

26 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ▲ PAUL DANO, LOVE & MERCY

Paul Dano’s eerie performance as the young Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy, which landed him a Spirit Awards nomination, started not by meeting the Beach Boys mastermind, but by listening to his work. “I didn’t want to mimic him,” said Dano. “The gateway to him had to be his amazing music.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 27 ▼ DENIZ GAMZE ERGUVEN, MUSTANG

“This is pioneer territory," Mustang director Deniz Gamze Erguven said of her nominated film about young women pushing against the strictures of fundamentalist Islam. "In cinema history, we are used to seeing the world through the eyes of men."

28 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ◄ MICHAEL FASSBENDER, STEVE JOBS

“I believe you have a movie that will stand the test of time,” Best Actor nominee Michael Fassbender told Universal Pictures about the acclaimed if underperforming Steve Jobs in his Palm Springs speech—adding, with a grin, “It’s unfortunate about the box-office figures, but at least you have Jurassic World.”

▲ BRYAN CRANSTON, TRUMBO

Portraying an over-the-top, theatrical char- acter like blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo initially terrified Bryan Cranston, but it also connected him to Trumbo’s fight for freedom of expression. “We do not just tolerate differences of opinion [in America], we embrace them,” he said. “That is what makes us a great nation.”

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 29 ▲ RIDLEY SCOTT & MATT DAMON, THE MARTIAN

“Frequently, when you have fun on the set, the movies are pretty bad,” said director Ridley Scott, who escaped that fate working on The Martian with Best Actor nominee Matt Damon. Scott may have lost out on a Best Director nomi- nation, but he’s still in the running as producer of the Best Picture nominee— and working with the veteran director, said Damon, “is like a mecca for actors.”

30 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016

Q & A ‘IT ALMOST KILLED ME’ “Maybe it was a crazy, irresponsible idea,” Alejandro G. Inarritu admits of The Revenant

BY STEVE POND

e know that The Revenant was a tough shoot. By now, we’ve all heard stories of how tem- peratures in the film’s remote locations in the Canadian Rockies reached 40 below zero, until suddenly the snow unexpectedly melted Wand the entire production had to move to South America to shoot the final scenes. Stories of how the brutal condi- tions took its toll on the actors, how Leonardo DiCaprio ate a real bison liver onscreen, how director Alejandro G. Inarritu was limited to shooting for only a few hours a day because he and cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki were insistent on only using the few hours of natural light in their location. A dozen Oscar nominations later, Inarritu has a com- fortable seat from which to look back on the filming of his brutal epic, which was based on the true story of 19th-cen- pixel-izing our world in cinema so much that go anywhere. And that is scary. It’s scary tury frontiersman Hugh Glass, who was left for dead by people are shocked that I would even attempt because now ambition is punished. You his companions after being mauled by a bear. to risk going to the real locations. But that attempt to do something out of the box, you was our duty and that was our pleasure and are risking the whole fucking agreement What drew you to this story? that’s what an artist is supposed to do. that we all have that everything should be I think the real event was very brutal, very primitive, very And when people ask me if what I shot predictable and comfortable. biblical in a sense—the survival of somebody about to die. was real—yes, real life, with light from the And the opportunity to explore it in this open space of nature, sun. There can’t be more beautiful light You shot your last movie, Birdman, to look in this time 200 years ago that doesn’t exist anymore—to than the sun gives. So why would I put a like one take. It strikes me that you’re most explore that cinematically and personally was a great oppor- shitty film light on my actors that they will comfortable as a filmmaker when you’re tunity that I had never done in my life. look artificial? setting yourself challenges that complicate the task in front of you. Most of your films are set in urban environments. But did you ever wonder if it’s fair to put It’s exciting to attempt something that can I have never had one tree in any of my films, never. I hate your crew and your actors through this? fail terribly, don’t you think? If you can trees in my films. You will never see green. I had nightmares Anybody that signed up for this film knew explore something technically or emotion- about how to shoot the forest. This was absolutely uncharted where we were going. Some of them felt ally that takes you out of your comfortable territory for me. uncomfortable about it. We were extremely zone, it can be more powerful. I find myself high, and shooting too long, and not in the a little bit bored when I do things that are Did you ever consider filming in less remote locations? comfortable zone that they were used to—so a little bit too easy or too predictable or too I will ask you a question: What do you prefer, to bite and taste yeah, it was very demanding, very rigorous, obvious. Maybe is a weakness, but that’s real corn, or to bite GMO corn? What I am saying is, we are and not for everybody. exactly who I am. now so used to the GMO food that we can’t remember when This was a fucking animal on another the real flavors of food were available to us. We have been planet—a big canvas with no frame. It could If Birdman was a song, this is a huge

32 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 ATTACK PLAN Emmanuel Lubezki on shooting two brutal Revenant scenes

inematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki was 0-for-5 at the Oscars C three years ago, despite having photographed such landmark films as A Little Princess, Children of Men and The Tree of Life. Now, after back-to-back wins for Gravity and Birdman, he’s going for his record-breaking third consecutive win for The Revenant. He talked to TheWrap about two of the film’s signature scenes.

How did you plan and shoot the American Indian attack at the beginning of the film? We wanted the attack to be very immersive, to plunge the audience into that environment. So we decided to use very wide lenses and smaller cameras that allowed us to move around. We called it an elastic shot, moving from the objective to the subjective. Alejandro had a very clear map of how he wanted to start from the point of view of the audience, and then go to these characters, Leo and the Indian chief

Alejandro G. Inarritu, who’s looking for his daughter. The stories are far left, on the set of interconnected, which is why the shot almost The Revenant with doesn’t cut. You can see what’s happening, and Leonardo DiCaprio. “People are shocked then feel the desperation of the characters. that I would go to the It’s the horror of war. We definitely didn’t real locations,” he says. want to glamorize violence—I’m a bit sick

© Courtesy of 20th Century Fox 20th Century of © Courtesy of that, because Hollywood movies overdo it. That’s always a fear I have when I shoot violence. dark opera, massive and immersive and tension that is created in this film. implacable. What I had in mind was Andrei Rublev by What were the particular challenges of shoot- I always thought about Caravaggio. Sometimes Tarkovsky. Dersu Uzala by Kurosawa. Aguirre, ing the bear attack, which was a blend of the when I go to the Metropolitan [Museum], I think, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo by Herzog. real actors, stuntmen and a CG bear? “Why is the impact so much?” It’s because of the Apocalypse Now. Films that deal with men The toughest thing is that when you have light, and because those landscapes and every- against nature and men against men in vast, the empty canvas in front of you, there are thing seem like a dream. This film has to do with spectacular landscapes, with action but also a so many possibilities. How can you create a dreams and paintings and memories and ghosts. very spiritual dimension. language to tell the story of the bear attack? It took a lot of talking, watching a few examples Maybe because of that dreamy quality, The I think you’re probably a little nuts for of real attacks. We met [trained] grizzly bear Revenant has been compared to Terrence trying to make this film, but it’s quite an actors, and decided we didn’t want to do it with Malick at times. Is that a fair comparison? accomplishment. bear actors, because they’ve been in captivity I love Terrence Malick’s films, especially the Yeah, I’m very proud of it. There’s absolutely and don’t even act like real bears anymore. first ones, and I’m honored to be mentioned nothing that I kept in my pockets—that’s all that Little by little, all these situations tell you with Malick. Obviously it has been compared to I’ve got to give. It almost killed me, too. how you should shoot the thing. We wanted Malick because Chivo and him have worked on It was a very ambitious film. It was always to do it with very few cuts, because again we so many films, and obviously Terrence likes too conceived with high standards, and it was may- wanted to be very immersive, and we want- to shoot at the right time of the day. But other be a very crazy, irresponsible idea to have made. ed to feel the randomness of the attack. We than that, I don’t think so. I think the narrative I expected it to be hard, but I never expected it to wanted to tell a little about real bear behavior, and the storytelling of Terrence, lately especial- be as challenging as it was in reality. But having and we wanted the audience to be right there, ly, with voiceover and the fragmented time and survived it, maybe having died and been reborn as if they were watching or even suffering the space that he creates, is far from what I’m trying many times during the shooting, I feel extraordi- attack. —SP to do here with the narrative and dramatic narily proud. W

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 33 AT LONG LAST

It’s takenLOVE Charlotte Rampling 50 years to get Oscar recognition, but she was never very interested in playing the Hollywood game

BY TIM APPELO Dummy Supienam qua notabus nius cutem andes! Satrobus. 34 THEWRAP JANUARY 29, 2016 Ipses inatis, nove, etiamqu erficerit. Aris culudam in hoc voc tum ’ve had an odd career,” said Charlotte Rampling, and believes her secret weapon as an actor is her piercing, she’s not kidding. When Rampling broke into star- hooded gaze. “What happens through the eyes [comes] dom as the icy, forbidding ingénue beauty in 1960s naturally,” she said. “What you are thinking can really be hits like and The Knack, few would have felt by others, because it comes through the eyes.” predicted that she would get her first Oscar nomi- Rampling never tried to craft a popular persona with nation in her seventh decade in ’s 45 those come-hither eyes and batting lashes. “There’s Years, and that she’d make her first stroll down the more elasticity in your persona when you move freely Oscar red carpet as a Best Actress contender at the through different cultures,” he said. “I live in France, I age of 70. (She’ll hit that milestone on Feb. 5.) speak French. I’ve done all sorts of things, and I haven’t Doesn’t she know that actresses are supposed to really conformed to a system. I tend to shy away from vanish at 30? Is the patrician British actress deliber- them. I take long breaks and don’t work, and something ately trying to break Hollywood’s rules? brings me back.” “I like that theory!” said Rampling. “I didn’t go the Indeed, Rampling is the queen of comebacks. Fleeing “IHollywood trail, the conventional trail. I sought out Swinging London for Rome and Paris after her first burst other types of films; cinema d’auteur, experimental films. I of fame, she became a darling of the arthouse in the didn’t want to go the big route. Whether I could’ve done Nazi-haunted The Damned (1969) and it or not I don’t know—I’m not saying that. But I didn’t (1974), thanks to costar , who insisted on feel it was my place. casting her. revealed a deeper aspect of her “I felt a bit out of place, for some reason. I don’t know persona, casting her as his troubled girlfriend in 1980’s quite why. And I’m feeling quite in my place now.” . And as ’s betrayer in She’s in a fine place because of , which brought 1982’s The Verdict, she helped propel the film to five her best-actress awards at Oscar nominations for every- the Berlin and Edinburgh one but her (including Best film fests and from the Los Picture and Best Actor for Angeles, Boston and London Newman). film critics. In the quiet, But perhaps her most emotionally wrenching film, crucial benefactor was Rampling plays a woman director Francois Ozon. who, on the verge of her 45th Rampling won Best Actress wedding anniversary, finds at the out that the love of her hus- for Ozon’s Swimming Pool in band’s young life, who died 2003. Although she made in a 1962 glacier plunge, has 50 movies before Swimming been found dead but perfectly and Rampling in 45 Years Pool and 30-some since then, preserved. all but 10 of her 60 awards In the old days, when critic David Thomson called credits on IMDb came after she turned 57 that year, and Rampling’s characters “baleful gargoyles”—hard chicks she’s never been a hotter property than right now. who ate men for breakfast—she might have been cast Making 45 Years, Rampling said she felt particular- as the beautiful corpse, or maybe the glacier itself, but ly at home opposite Courtenay, another ’60s English never the wounded wife whose authentically aging face beauty who fled Hollywood stardom and returned older draws us into the complicated dilemmas within. and wiser. Their melancholy chemistry was so great, “The scenes are very simple, and we’re both react- Haigh kept cutting dialogue and letting the faces tell the ing against something we don’t know how to handle,” tale. (Not for nothing is the 2011 documentary about Rampling said about the couple played by her and fellow Rampling called The Look, and Courtenay is one of the ‘60s Brit star Tom Courtenay. “When he’s off in this few who can meet it.) fantasy land and reliving the youth he had with his dead “The screenplay had many more chatting scenes,” girlfriend, I’m trying to keep everything on an even keel said Rampling, “scenes where we learned more about and not understanding—or not wanting to understand— the day-to-day life of [the couple]. But Andrew kept what’s going on.” pulling these scenes out because actually what was more In real life, Rampling has faced comparably big interesting was the silence, and what was happening in emotional challenges in keeping an even keel, coping between the lines, in a way that did not need words. He with her adored sister’s suicide at 23 (which their icy was surprised by it. He knew what I could do, but you British military father, a competitive Olympic gold medal don’t know to what extent people will inhabit your lines winner, required her to keep secret from her mother without saying all the words.” for life), a bitter split from former husband Jean-Michel Rampling said it’s “very true” that 45 Years offers Jarre two decades after they met in 1976, and depression more complexity than even her most early iconic roles, in the ‘80s and ‘90s so serious she almost quit making but she disputes the whole notion that you should even movies. call what she’s done for 50 years a career. “I don’t consid- Rampling doesn’t talk much about personal matters, er the acting part of my life a career,” she said. “I consider but they inform her performance. “There always is part of it a companion to my lifestyle.” you in the people you play, the whole emotional baggage— And if she wins the big prize, Rampling has no plans Charlotte’s baggage—that I give over to someone else,” she to do a Hollywood victory lap. “I think I’m going to go sit

Clemens Bilan/Getty Images Clemens Bilan/Getty said. She’s adept at playing someone with a secret, and in a big field in the country and think about life.”W

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 35 OSCAR’S BACK PAGES / Drama Club

THE ACADEMY’S ROCKY NIGHT OF FIRSTS Caught between hostile unions and indifferent studios in 1936, the Academy piled up the milestones BY STEVE POND

his isn’t the first year when the Oscars faced the threat of the boy- cott. That happened 80 years ago, when the Oscar ceremony was as dramatic as they come, and filled with firsts. Even before the voting began, voters saw the first Oscar campaign ad ever—for a movie, TMGM’s Ah, Wilderness!, that didn’t get a single nomination. And for the first time, the Academy hired outside accountants to tally the ballots, bringing in the firm of Price, Waterhouse & Co., who still hold the job eight decades later. As for what the accountants put in those envelopes, there was the first “It’s a consolation (and only) write-in winner, A Midsummer Night’s Dream cinematogra- pher Hal Mohr, who was sitting at home when the Academy called him prize.” after midnight to say he really ought to put on his tux and get down to the Biltmore Hotel. And the first win for , who got an Oscar —Bette Davis, above, on her Oscar for Dangerous but complained, “It’s a consolation prize,” insisting she win; below, Irving G. Thalberg, Clark should have won the previous year for Of Human Bondage. And the first Gable and winner ever to refuse an Academy Award, The Informer screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who turned down his award to protest the Academy’s role in helping the studios fight off the influence of the growing labor- union movement in Hollywood. In fact, that perceived battle between the Screen Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and the newly formed Directors Guild was the source of the night’s biggest drama. A week before the show, the three guilds sent their members a letter advising, “Since the Academy is defi- nitely inimical to the best interests of the Guilds, you should not attend.” Meanwhile, as if to prove that the Academy was in a no-win situation, the studios had pulled their own financial support, angry that the orga- nization hadn’t done enough to keep salaries down. According to Mason Wiley’s Inside Oscar, the move forced the AMPAS board members to pay for the Oscar dinner and ceremony out of their own pockets. In an attempt to boost attendance, new Academy president Frank Capra announced a special award to cinema pioneer D.W. Griffith, who hadn’t been able to get a movie made in Hollywood for several years. A decent crowd showed up on Oscar night, though it was less star-studded than usual—and at the end of the night, after Mutiny on the Bounty had won Best Picture, Griffith got his tribute and received what was reportedly the first standing ovation in Oscar history. Oh, and there was one more first: Around this time, for reasons much disputed and lost in the mists of time, everybody started referring to the Academy Award of Merit statuette as the Oscar. W

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