GREG IN HOLLYWOOD

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Greg In Hollywood chats with actress Melissa Leo, a supporting actress Oscar nominee for “The Fighter”

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When you win both the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award for your performance in a film, it usually makes you a front-runner heading into the Academy Awards.

Mellisa Leo, an Oscar nominee for Frozen River two years ago, won the SAG and the Globe for her performance in The Fighter then was featured in a series of “For Your Consideration” glamorous ads in Hollywood trade papers that has led to speculation that voters may have been turned off and Miss Leo may have hurt her chances to take home the Oscar for best supporting actress.

It would be a shame if something like that was responsible for denying this fine actress an Academy Award. She has been turning in superb performances in television and film for decades. I first took notice if her in the indie film Last Summer in the Hamptons and thought she was very powerful in 21 Grams. TV viewers remember her from role at Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets or from the current HBO series Treme.

I’ve interviewed Miss Leo several times in recent years and found her to be one of the more gracious and humble stars around. Most recently, we chatted at the BAFTA/LA Awards Season Tea Party which took place the day after she won the Broadcast Critics Award and the day before she won the Golden Globe.

She began our conversation by thanking me for writing kind things about her work in the past: “It gets me kind of verklempt because you are one of them who has changed my life when you write, ‘Melissa Leo – when are we going to see more of her?’ My father for years has sent me these quotes he finds.”

http://www.dailyactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/frozen_river-1024x819.jpgI wondered how her career had changed since her best actress Oscar nod for Frozen River. Have bigger and better roles been coming her way?

Frozen River made people start to feel it – by people I mean producers primarily,” she explained. “Writers have always kind of adored me, directors I’ve weedled my way into their hearts. Producers don’t know if they’re going to get their money back on me. Frozen River made them decide that they might take a chance on me. That chance includes Treme that I’m doing for HBO, The Fighter and two other films in the can.”

How did she feel about playing the role of Alice Ward in The Fighter, a woman who is mother and manager to two grown sons, both professional boxers, played in the film by Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale?

“I’m 50 and they’re about 10 years younger than me! I wasn’t going to do the job, I wasn’t going to be here talking to you. I had heard [director] David O. Russell wanted to meet with me. I was in New York, he was in New York and wanted to talk to me about playing Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale’s mother. I thought: ‘Thank you, no thank you, maybe down the line.’ Well, silly me. When I was 30, I was playing parts for women that were 40 to 45. So I sat with David O. Russell and he, in two minutes, was engaging me in the process of my becoming his Alice. That engagement from him, the belief he had in me, and I took him by the hand and followed him to Lowell [the town is Massachusetts where the film is set], and put on [designer] Mark Bridges costumes and met Alice Ward and realized I had an internal connection to this woman. … The town of Lowell would greet me when I came out of the trailer with ‘Hey Nana!’ It was an amazing, remarkable experience.”

FILE UNDER: Awards, Interviews

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One Remark

  1. Great Article! Academy voters should remember that the Academy Awards were created and exist to recognize and reward achievement. If an Academy voter ignores the outstanding quality of her performance because of the ads, they might as well cast all of thir votes on the basis of the actor/actress’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political affiliations. Melissa Leo gave a phenominal performance! If somebody disagrees, they should vote for the nominee they feel was best. To deny her the Oscar because of her ads would be a travesty of the whole process!

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