This Had Oscar Buzz - 127 – Conviction

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

This episode, we’re looking at 2010′s Conviction starring Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters, a real life Massachusetts woman who earned a law degree to fight for the innocense of her brother wrongly convicted of murder. With a cast that includes Minnie Driver, Peter Gallagher, and Sam Rockwell as Betty’s jailed brother Kenny, the film received a … Continue reading "127 – Conviction"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilynne Heck. Kenneth Waters, you're under arrest for the murder of Katerina Brow. Are you out of your mind? We find the defendant guilty, Your Honor. We'll get you out, Kenny.

You hear me? When her brother was convicted of murder, I can't spend the rest of my life in here. Betty Ann Waters began an impossible 18-year struggle to set him free. I'm going to stop by trying to get a BA. After, I finally take the stupid GED test. After that, I'll apply to law school, but you just have to promise me that you'll never give up. I don't really have time for a friend right now.

We're going to be friends, because we're the only ones in class with through puberty. My brother Kenny, he's been in prison for 12 years' life without parole. Wow. I'm going to find a way to get him out. Hello, and welcome to this head Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast whose immorality is signaled by our Red Sox hat. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died.

We are here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with the other old lady in my law class, Joe Reed. Oh, um, uh, what are you doing behind that bah? I don't know. I didn't want to do something in mini-drivers. I was very confused by the dialect. Very aggressive Boston accent in this, or Massachusetts accent in this film. Especially because-

Yeah, but it was like Massachusetts Southern. She was more like Boston, Massachusetts, but, like, everybody else in this movie is, like, Massachusetts Southern? Oh, I can't, farce... Yeah. To get in my mentions and tell me... I'll ask my mom. Regional Massachusetts dialects. I'll ask my mom.

My mom was born in Massachusetts and grew up there. Massachusetts Queen. Yes. But it made me obviously think of mini-driver in Goodwill Hunting, who doesn't. she doesn't have a Boston accent in that movie because her character is allowed to be British. But don't at me that she's whatever half Welsh, Yorkshire, Manchester, whatever. There's England there. I don't know. I have PTSD about getting yelled at about British accents. But I was just like, oh, God, and now she's got to go back into this headspace where she's like, oh, no, I'm in a bar with Boston accents around me.

and now I have to think about my ex-boyfriend and the movie they won an award for, and I didn't. Phantom of the Opera famously shot in Massachusetts. Famously, yes. Yeah. The beginning of this movie is so funny.

Where it's you know, Hillary Swank, working hard behind the bar, no time for anything. You know, no time for even a smile. She's, you know, slinging beers around and she's bantering with the the seemingly owner of the bar and whatever and mini driver just recognizes her from the law class and decides that she wants to be a friend and Hilary Swank is just like oh what sorry I don't have time

for friends or anything I have whatever and mini driver is like oh really and she's like yeah because here's the story about me my brother like several years ago got accused of murder and we were very very close and our mother was like a terrible mother and like lays out her entire life story for her, like, eight seconds after being like, I don't have time for even, like, polite conversation. It was very funny to me. And Minnie Driver still shows up for it. She's like, okay, I can be down with all of this. What more can you lay on me?

And then they are friends for life. Minnie Driver is, like, a saint on earth in this movie where she, like, absorbs all of this, like, obsessive, brusque, sometimes not nice behavior from Hillary Swank. she like does all of this like legal grunt work for her friend for free you know devotes all of this emotional energy to to swank's character or whatever and ultimately it's just like the forever sidekick and it's just like god damn like what a you know and all because we are ladies over 30 in the same space surrounded by young assholes right okay I have a question for you go for it because I do believe this is our first Hillary Swank I think you're right.

We'll get into it. We'll probably get into the ire that Hillary Swank has drawn over the decades from our particular circles of the internet. Right. But I don't mean to pour more salt on the wound. But would or would this movie not be 10 times better if they swapped roles? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, I know that Hillary Swank is the two-time Oscar winner at this point.

So, like, they wouldn't, like, that wouldn't have been part of whatever studio plans were. But, like, yeah. And Hillary Swank, I think, had a role in producing this, not producing it, but, like, she was one of the forces behind this. Here's what I will even offer you in greater detail is this movie is better if Mini Driver plays Hillary Swank's role. Clea Duval plays Minnie Driver's role. Hillary Swank plays Juliette Lewis's role And Juliette Lewis plays Cleodewel's role Yes, I like this version of musical chairs

Hillary Swank, this is actually our second Hillary Swank Hillary Swank though has already played that role in the gift, yes That is definitely fair I don't, I remember her mullet in the gift I don't think she had quite the teeth situation No, no, Hillary Swank's mullet is to the gift what Juliette Lewis's teeth are to conviction. I will say watching this movie the second time, I know Juliette Lewis got that absolutely bonkers Boston Society of Film Critics win

for this movie, which is like admirably goofy for a critics organization, and I do love that about them. But watching it again, I'm just like, Clea Duval is the better small performance in this movie. Yeah, Clea Duval is the better two-scene performance. Yes, I think she's so great. In that scene where she has to sort of fess up to falsifying the confession. I think she's fantastic. Yeah, Conviction is our third movie, not to, you know, derail this into minutiae, but it is our third movie for Juliet after The Evening Star and Natural Born Killers. It is our third movie for celebrated eyebrows actor Peter Gallagher after To Jillian on her 37th birthday and, of course, burlesque. And then this is our second swank. You mentioned.

after the gift. Our second Sam Rockwell, after the way, way back. Our second Clea Duval after her brief performance in Zodiac. And of course, famously, our second Bailey Madison film after her, frankly, scene stealing work in brothers. Mommy and Uncle Tommy have sex all the time. All the time. All the time. But once again, They call upon her to do her, like, amazing talent, which is crying and looking devastating while doing so. Like, she really is only in this movie for the very brief scene where she and her brother

as children, she's the young Betty Ann Waters, are separated by child services. And it's so harrowing. Like, that, for as much as this movie is flawed, those scenes really do lay the groundwork for what this movie needs, which is you have to understand that the bond between these two siblings is so desperately strong that, like, Betty cannot fail him because it will hurt her as much as it will hurt him. Do you know what I mean? And, like, that bond really has to get sold, and those kids really do sell it, particularly

I really wish that those scenes could be the scenes in this movie that could really get at class structures and class bias and like larger systemic issues which like this movie dances around but never puts like the button on it to make this like a bigger story than the one it presents because like otherwise they just seem like bad kids like I don't know I don't know if they seem like bad kids but they definitely seem like they have a bad mother you know what I mean and they seem like they're surrounded by by, like, for lack of a more sensitive term, white trash. Like, there's a lot of, like, poet, the painting and white trash tones in this movie,

whether it's from the bar scenes to the, you know, their mother to, you know, obviously revisiting Juliette Lewis by the end of this movie. Like, this movie really sort of marinates in that kind of stuff. Well, and you can imagine a version of this movie, because this isn't a very long movie. and I'm like, I bet that there's some cut of it that happened that was like over two hours, right? But like you can imagine or a version of the screenplay that really like hones in on the idea of bias towards lower class people. Right. That like I think makes for a better movie or like has some more level of significance you can hang on to.

That like it feels like it's on the fringes of this movie, but it never actually. says it, particularly with Sam Rockwell's character, who was a real person, who, like, feels like was targeted by this police department for this murder in that, like, he had all of these prior, like, small time instances dating back to his childhood that, like, is linked to, you know, larger systemic issues that we deal with in poverty here. And it just like, it never gets there. And it feels like the scenes of them as children is the most ready opportunity. Yeah, that's fair. I think the other thing with the police issue that, like, they definitely mention at one point where they talk about how Melissa Leo's character had said to one of the witnesses she was coercing where she's just like,

I get my suspect and I never let it go. And it's one of those things where it's just like, you know, cop problems there too, where it's just like it becomes more about when, and losses, and it becomes, well, I, I can't take an L on this. I have to, you know, by hook or by crook, like, make this prosecution stick, and that's something you see in a lot of, like, legal shows and stuff like that. This movie very often felt like, once again, we talked about last week with Reservation Road about a movie that feels like they would make a TV show out of it today, and, like,

this also feels that way, like, this would be a legal procedural that would be, you know, one or two seasons or whatever. and, you know, you would follow this woman's life and all this sort of stuff. But, yeah, it's not a bad movie, but it's not a great movie. Yeah, I think it's really never better than fine. Like, there's not really anything embarrassing or crunchy about, well, I mean, maybe it's a little, like, dated, but not, like, I don't know. I never felt myself looking askance at what I was watching. Right.

It's the typical, not typical, I guess, because Hillary Swank has incredible variance in her roles. She can be really good and really bad. And this is... She can punch things or not punch things. Right. This is sort of neither fish nor fowl for her. But, like, I don't think she ever really embarrasses herself. She's very sort of steady.

There are just, like, there are moments in this movie that are more interesting than others. and it makes you sort of wish that the movie had been able to, you know, go in the direction of those things that do work. A lot of things seem borrowed from other movies, obviously. We've seen the... I mean, that's like, you said typical, and you're like, well, maybe not typical. I was like, I'm pretty sure, so this is a pretty typical. No, I just meant in terms of, like, typical Hillary Swank performance. I'm just like, I don't know if there is a typical Hillary Swank performance because her performance quality does vary so wildly.

from film to film. No, there's a lot about this film that is typical in terms of its story and, you know, that kind of a thing. And obviously, it's one of those things that you can tell is based on a true story because certain things they seem really beholden to having to tell. Which is interesting because this movie got flack from as almost, I have to imagine, every movie that is about a real-life murder catches flack from the victim's families because a, like, you know, You can't imagine what they have gone through in their life. So, like, I would imagine that, like, nothing's ever going to be good enough. And I don't mean that as a criticism. Like, but a movie that is not about their loved one, but is about the person who was, you know, ultimately wrongfully accused of her murder is never going to give that victim the, you know, the prominence that they would want.

And that was sort of what they, they were mad that swank and the producers. never consulted them. And didn't, I think the quote that I had read was, like, didn't portray their loved one in a good enough light. And I'm just like, I think the problem... I mean, they don't portray the woman who was murdered, like, at all. Basically, the movie opens with a pretty harrowing tour through the crime scene. Yeah. And it's upsetting.

Yes. But I think in general, this movie, you can tell even with, like, Oh, clearly the mini-driver character is a real person, because they take pains to just be like, you're a great person. Like, thank you so much for helping me. You are a saint. And it's just like, oh, yeah, this movie really wants to sort of, you know, pay tribute to that person or, you know, Rockwell's character who, you know, again, based on a real person who went through something that people shouldn't have to go through. But also it's just- The Innocence Project, which is real, and there's other similar organization.

Peter Gallagher plays Barry Sheck, who is absolutely a real person. It's so funny in this movie where Barry Sheck in this movie is notable for having founded The Innocence Project, and he's sort of a lawyer that Hillary Swank's character knows of because of that. But, like, they bring him around with them to talk to Juliet Lewis. And in one of those, like, trashy signifiers, she goes like, oh, yeah, that Jew lawyer, I know you. and everybody's accent, and this sounds halfway between Boston and the Sopranos, which I think is very funny. Like, every once in a while, I thought that Minnie sounded like Edie Falco is Carmel's Soprano, but whatever. And it's not the accent they were going for.

But I was just like, it's so funny that like, oh, you, lawyer from TV that I know. And it's just like... I did just start watching The Sopranos, so you're right. Watching this movie between Sopranos episodes did feel like a side quest. Also, coming up in maybe... end of second season or I think it's second season Karen Young who plays

the mother of the kids in this movie shows up on the Sopranos as an FBI agent Also another performer we didn't mention who I wouldn't be surprised to see show up on the Sopranos who I love, I believe the first movie we've ever talked about this performer

Ari Grainor is in this movie Ari Grainor has a really great couple of scenes and I think this was just wait when was Nick and Nora that was 08. So I already definitely was like, I had already decided to stand Ari Greiner for life after Nick and Nora. It's before

for a good time call, which is so wonderful. My Ari Greiner thing is she should have been Golden Globe nominated for a good time call. She should have been Oscar nominated for Nick and Norris Infinite Playlist. She is so fucking funny in that movie. It's been like one of those nights,

you know. I was with my friend Nora, who you don't know but you really like her because everybody likes Nora and she left me tonight which is she never does that and then I was kidnapped and then she usually when I go home with her she she makes me a turkey sandwich and I get home but I might never get home you know I'm so tired I'll take you just the way you are. Is that a dirty sandwich?

She's just in general, wonderful, and I love her. But the thing I wanted to just get out about the Barry Sheck thing is it's funny that they had Juliette Lewis's character know him from TV, but not actually say, oh, you were one of OJ's lawyers? Because, like, that's what Barry Sheck is actually, that's what you. you would recognize him from if you were especially that character. But, like, nine times out of ten, you've maybe heard of the Innocence Project as, like, a thing. But, like, you don't recognize Barry Sheck from that. You recognize Barry Shek because he was one of OJ's lawyers. Like, that's the whole fucking thing.

Anyway, it's weird that, like, whenever they talk about these, the different OJ lawyers in a project that's not about the Simpson trial, nobody mentions that fact. And it's just like, no, that's the fact. That's the thing. Just say OJ, for God's sake. Don't bury the lead. But I think it would have been weird. probably to have this very famous in this movie, you know,

striving for justice for innocent people and mentioned that he has defended the most famously guilty person who's ever been tried for murder in America. So like, yeah, fine. But like the Juliette Lewis character, you could believe that she would know him from other things because, like, it's conceivable that all she does is watch TV all day from, like, what we see. Right, that's true. She watches, like, snapped all day on oxygen or whatever. the cast is wild because juliette lewis truly two scenes cleo deval two scenes it makes me wonder like are these people that tony goldwin is cool with

right got them into the movie him being an actor and like they did a favor for him or something right they were in some tv show episode together whatever but yeah you're right karen young who i mentioned who i had just recently seen in torch song trilogy i watched that for the first time over the uh summer or maybe the fall who knows what time is anymore. Lauren Dean shows up in this movie as Hillary Swank's husband and sort of is dissatisfied with being married to somebody who is singularly focused on a task that has nothing to do with him. The bartender from the bar at the beginning, I recognize because he's Rachel Griffith's husband

at the beginning of brothers and sisters. Yeah, there's a lot of, like, people just sort of like people popping up people showing up in this cast. It's going to be a fun one to talk about. Should we maybe move on to the IMDB game before we keep talking about too much more of the plot? Well, let's not go to the IMDB game. I feel like

that's getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. New Year, new me. We are teneting this episode. We are starting at the end. This is a elaborate pincher operation. We will give you your 60-second plot after we have done the entire episode.

Joe and I will be fighting ourselves. Elizabeth Debicki will be tall. That's all you want out of our podcast, truly, yeah. And it'll be the worst episode we've ever done. It'll be secretly great. Just like it's Nolan's worst movie. Nope. Secretly, it's good.

Yeah, let's do the plot description, though. Let's do the 60-second plot description. Yeah. Once again, we are here talking about the film Conviction. Conwection. Berm, Berm, Bair, Bair, Bair, Bair, Bair. Conviction. Directed by Tony Goldwyn, written by Pamela Gray, starring Hillary Swank, Sam Rockwell,

Mini-Driver, Melissa Leo, we will get into it. Peter Gallagher, Juliet, Louis, Clea DeVall, Ari Greiner, and Lauren Dean. The movie premiered at Tiff and then opened Limited, October 15th of 2010. Indeed. Joe, do you think you could give us a 60-second plot description of Conwickian? Yes, I do. All right, cool. Then if you are ready for your 60-second plot description, your time starts now.

Hillary Swank is Betty Ann Waters, a law student who is very busy and has a side gig as a bartender. It has no time for friends except for when many drivers like hi and Betty tells her her whole life story, which is that her brother, Kenny, is in prison for murder. He didn't commit, but she's working to become a lawyer to overturn his conviction. We see flashbacks of Kenny getting arrested for the murder of a woman in their small Massachusetts town by Officer Melissa Leo, and eventually testimony from two ex-girlfriends gets him convicted. So Betty works and works and gets divorced and works and alienates her sons and works and eventually becomes a lawyer and takes Kenny's case to the Innocence Project who used DNA evidence to overturn wrongful convictions.

Betty thinks she's tracked down the evidence from Kenny's trial, but then is told it was destroyed. And she's able to find it, though, at a courthouse or something and there's a sweet old lady. And the evidence exonerates Kenny, but for political reasons, they want to keep him in prison as an accessory. instead of a murderer. So Betty has to convince Kenny's now grown-up daughter to convince her mother to admit that she was coerced into lying on her oath. And she does. And Kenny is freed, and it's an incredibly happy ending as long as you don't read anything about what happens to Kenny after this movie. The end.

And you got that in before your time. I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't know the appropriate time to mention it. The movie clearly doesn't because they don't say it at all. Not even in a postscript. Yeah. Sad. There's a postscript in the movie, and they don't mention it.

Right. Like a month after... Six months. Six months. Six months. After he was freed from... He had a traumatic head injury and died. It was...

Like, I want to get the wording on this right, because I... The way it's worded in IMDB is so fucking tragic where... It's six months after being released from prison, Kenny fell from a wall while taking a shortcut. does not elaborate what that means, suffered a brain injury and died. It's just a gut,

just a gut punch to think of just like... Well, especially after watching the movie, you feel for Betty Ann. Yes, right. All this time, like, putting your whole life into something, and then... So much sacrifice.

Right, and then six months later, it's just like, it's so tragic. But yeah. Yeah. This movie, by the way, I mentioned the name Betty N. Waters so many times because this movie was, the title of this movie was Betty N. Waters for like a long time, like up until, I think it might have even like had a release date and as Betty N. Waters. And it was changed to conviction before it premiered Tiff. But, yeah. Thematically, it's not a terrible title for the movie. Because it's, you know, it's conviction in the legal. but it's also conviction in like the

she steadfastly believes in his innocence exactly yes that's so much of that so much of a lot of the conflict of this movie we see it with her and her mother we see it with her and Minnie Driver at that one point where it's just like anytime anybody brings up the possibility that he might actually be guilty she gets so fucking pissed and she's it is the tethered of doubt

yeah it's true there is no there is no doubt in this but at the same time the bland title for the movie is exactly all of its problems and why it didn't register with audiences it didn't register with Oscar well and also the title Betty Ann Waters I thought when you saw that this was like Swank's upcoming movie

and by the way we should also mention well I do this all the time as I say something and then I move on to something and then we all lose the thread the title Betty Ann Waters is such a funny like actress going for Oscar title, because it's very much of just like, I'm playing a regular person. I am not playing a glamorous person like I am as an actress. This is a true story. This is a true story about a regular lady, and her name is Betty Ann Waters. And it's just like, okay, we get it, like very much so. But one of the narratives in this Oscar season that ultimately didn't

come to fruition was Annette Benning was in The Kids Are All Right over the summer, and it was a hit, And it was very well regarded. I mean, it was a modest indie hit. But, like, people liked it. People saw it. And people talked about it. And her performance was getting Oscar buzz by then. And it was just like, oh, my God, what if this is the year for Annette Benning?

And then literally, like, Jason Voorhe is in the woods, like, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Hillary Swank materialized the whole movie. Hillary Swank is playing a real person. Like, no, not again. We'll have other. We're going to talk about the Hollywood Reporter Roundtable later. We are. But Annette Benning in Hillary Swank in yet another Oscar race, it was like, oh.

The psychological warfare that happens in that roundtable is truly not to be underestimated. It is very formative. We're really going to get into it because you guys. Listen, guys. We're going all in on actress roundtables this episode. Anyway, let's talk about the Hank. the, Hank, the Hillary Swank, Annette Benning of it all. Okay, so American Beauty, Boys Don't Cry, Hillary Swank wins.

Yes. Being Julia, a million-dollar baby, Hillary Swank wins. Well, and it's funny, the thing that I find especially funny about that is Annette Benning is repping a Best Picture winner in American Beauty. She wins the Golden Globe. every third right she won the globe no she won the sag she won something no I think

I'll look this up but I am pretty sure that Hillary Swank got them all I think she won BAFTA look it up because I think she definitely won one of the major ones but anyway but like it was you talk about like the advantage of being in a Best Picture nominee

and it means that the voters already love your movie and this advantage and it's just like that didn't work for Annette in 99. And then here comes 2004. And Hillary is the one with the Best Picture nominee and is like, well, yeah, it worked for Hillary. And like, I know that in retrospect, being Julia isn't much of a movie. And it seems insane to think, like, that would have been to, if that was Annette Benning's Oscar movie from the perspective we have now of like 15 years later, we'd all be just

like, huh, that's an odd one. That's an odd movie for Annette Benning to be remembered for forever and ever. But, yeah, the fact that Benning gets bested both times, despite being, like, Hollywood royalty, married to Warren Beatty, like the grand dom of whatever, Hollywood. Also, we were both right. Oh, yeah, what? Yeah, we were both right. Annette Benning won Baxter and SAG. Okay, right.

And Hillary won the Globe and the Oscar. Yes, okay. And critics' choice. And critics' choice. Whatever, fuck Critics' choice. Although we will talk about it. At that point, they were more significant. Yes, true.

but it's just so the juxtaposition has always been funny about just like regal you know landmark actress Annette Benning, the Columbia statue herself and she loses twice

to like, it's Hillary Swank I'm playing, you know, my roles and you know I have a good movie once every five years I used to be in Beverly Hills 90210 just like not to discount her performance in those movies, because I actually think she's very good at both of those movies.

Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby. But, like, the optics of it, to me, is always very funny. Well, and Boys Don't Cry is a movie and a performance that, like, has a very complicated, like, relationship with it now. Even, like, Kimberly Pierce has talked about it. But, like, even if you just look at the Oscar level of it, had a net-bending one for American Beauty, Hillary Swank would still have won for a million. dollar baby. And Hillary Swank as a one-time Oscar winner makes a lot more sense than Hillary Swank is a two-time Oscar winner. For the only two nominations she has, she has won.

Not only, well, that's what, and conviction is the exception to this, but like with the exception of conviction, they're the only two roles that she could have conceivably ever been nominated for Oscar for. Really? Yes, we will maybe mention another, but like, still, I think.

But like, the whole, like, the show only lasted on Netflix for one season, even though reportedly it pulled good numbers. But, like, the Hillary Swank Astronaut Show, my joke at the time, I was like, the Hillary Swank being launched into space has an audience of one, and it is a net-bending. So true. It's so true. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's one of those narratives that delight us who follow the Oscars, because there's nothing heavy about. about it. You don't have to take like sides or anything, but it's just very funny that Annette Benning's, uh, uh, bet noir in this awards life is Hillary Swank. It's just very funny. It is interesting. Hillary Swank, who got a SAG nomination for this movie. Yes. She did. We've talked before about how SAG having these weird nominations that like make people second guess the race is really more so.

And sometimes Globe, but definitely SAG, is a little bit more prone to not only like SAG-specific screenings, but also where the race is at early on, you know, before we've seen everything. Ultimately at SAG in this year's race that we're talking about, she's nominated up against four women who ultimately went on to Oscar nominations, Natalie Portman, who won for Black Swan, Annette Benning, kids are all right. Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole, Jennifer Lawrence for her breakthrough in Winter's Bone, and then Swank gets the SAG nomination that eventually goes to Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine. And Blue Valentine is a movie that opened, correct me if I'm wrong, very late in the season. I think it was like the New Year's release, but it was a Sundance and Cannes movie. Right. It was a Weinstein co movie. They had to push that movie really hard.

Right. But yes, I remember it being like kind of a hard sell for people. Because it was the, it had gotten an NC-17, and because there were, like, the sex scenes were really graphic or whatever. It's so funny to think of, like, that movie feeling, like, dangerous in that way. I'm just like, oh, my God, NC-17. Right. That NC-17 was silly, and it was truly, it was because of the scene where he goes down on her. Right.

So it's, like, it really exposed their, like, double standards. But Weinstein was not ever shy about getting free publicity from things like that. But also, the thing about Michelle Williams. that year was that like and still even to this day it's kind of hard to extricate those two performances and at the time it felt like people were a little bit more gung-ho about Ryan Gosling in the movie right and she probably benefited from a not a slimmer field but like the fifth spot was more open than the best actor fifth spot was right yes although you look at who got the SAG nomination that didn't end up working out for best actor,

which was Robert Duval in Get Low. So that also... Again, that's like an early season contender that fell off. And that's like SAG is prone to do that. Right. But it also feels like a fairly weak contender. So like that was the year that Colin Firth won for the King's speech. Jesse Eisenberg was nominated for Social Network.

That was never not going to happen. Jeff Bridges for True Grit was probably never not going to happen. James Franco for 127 hours, who I really loved probably would have been my winner that year, actually. But it was sort of just like, I guess that sort of like became sort of solidified as the season went along, although I remember feeling kind of iffy about that one, because it didn't seem like a whole ton of people loved that movie. 127 hours? Yeah. Yeah, I hated it.

I really liked it. But I know a lot of people were, like, very, like, mixed. Well, and it was just off of Danny Boyle running the season with Slumdog Millionaire. So, like, there's not a whole lot of enthusiasm there for that. Right. It was a lot of, like, residual slumdog stuff, down to, like, the A.R. Rockmon score and that kind of a thing. Exactly. And it was shot by the same people.

It was, like, the same team. Yeah. James Franco. Minus, obviously, all the actors. This spot goes to Javier Bardem for Beautiful, which my recollection of that race was they were doing specifically like targeted to the acting branch for that movie where you have like Julia Roberts specifically like hosting screenings of the movie to campaign for Javier Bardem for that movie. Which is so funny. That always felt like a thing that was bound to happen to me. Beautiful is maybe the most recent major acting nominee that I've never seen.

And it's because the reputation for Beautiful is just like great Javier Bardem performance. That movie is bleak as fuck. And it's just like, well, great. If you've seen other Inuri 2 movies, you've seen bleaker ones. Oh, interesting. Okay. What is bleaker than beautiful in the Inuri 2 thing? I don't know.

Just like 21 grams watching like Naomi Watts. dream her grief. Right. And that's a pretty bleak movie. Amoris Peros is pretty bleak. It has dogfighting in it. Like, and this is like a family disintegration. He's dying of cancer.

Yeah. I think it's cancer. But my point being that just like the reasons that people gave for why you should watch beautiful, I was always just like, yeah, that kind of makes me not want to watch beautiful. I just like, I have so many other things that aren't going to be. make me feel like garbage, and it sounds like beautiful. I'm pretty sure my most recent nomination I haven't seen is Deval for the judge, which is never going to happen.

Oh, I sure saw the judge. I sure did see the judge. Yeah. Yeah, I think I have better things to do with my time. So, yeah, Hillary Swank's career from the second Oscar to this is kind of hilarious. is for lack of a better term. Oh, my God. We started the episode saying

we're not going to be mean to Hillary Swank. Did we say that? Oh, I don't recall saying that. I mean vaguely. No, I don't want to be mean to Hillary Snank, but just like, I'll read you the titles, okay, right? So, like, 2006, the Black Dahlia, Brian DePaul was the Black Dahlia,

which is like, not, it's respectable, but it's also, like, been manners. And, like, she's not the, good thing about that movie um there's not from my memory there weren't a lot of good things about that there was it has its fans and they are people people really loved fiona shaw in it people sort of like loved the depalmaness of it and whatever yeah it wasn't not my favorite thing either um is that heartnet and erin echart are the two men it's definitely josh hartnett because i remember thinking why is he in this movie yes um yeah that's also an odd scarlet johansson

performance in that as far as... Who actually plays the Black Dahlia? I believe our friend Jesse Knight is really into her performance. Is it Mia Kirshner? I think it's Mia Kirshner. Yes, Mia Kirshner, who is really good. Yeah, yes, she is. She's an actress who...

I'm trying to remember what project I knew her from first, but she's very notable for being on the L-word. And what would I... She was in the Crow City of Angels, of course. She was the Not Another Teen Movie. She's the Sarah Michelle Geller in Cruel Intentions of Not Another Teen Movie. But I feel like I knew her from a TV show. And now, oh, God, she was in an episode of Rota Avonle.

Oh, you know what it is? God, I'm such a trash. There was a TV show on CBS in the very early 2000s called Wolf Lake. That was this very sort of Twin Peaks-esque, like, The show that Jacob Trambley watches in John F. Donovan. Sort of, but like it's less of like a, it's more of this like, isn't this like weird small town? Supernatural things are happening. Spoiler, they're all werewolves.

And it's like Lou Diamond Phillips and Sharon Lawrence and Mary Elizabeth Winstead was in this. But like Mia Kirchner was sort of the kind of the Laura Palmer of that show, if I'm not mistaken. So that's what I know. She only play people who die. Kind of. Yeah, maybe that was her thing for a while. But anyway, so Black Dahlia, like, whatever. And then 2007, her triptych of films are The Reaping, which is a horror movie. Which is a terrible horror movie that I can still fuck with. Sure. One of those Dark Castle horror movies. Freedom writers. Freedom writers, which was essentially this like Richard Legravonais, who did a script polish on Aaron Brockovich, also did a script polish on conviction. and it feels like, because conviction originally was a universal film before it went to Fox Searchlight, and it feels like Richard LaGravenace is like Universal's in-house guy to just, like, go up polished scripts of true life stories.

For Hilary Swink. For female screenwriters, whatever that says about Universalists. Freedom writers, which is like, for people who didn't think dangerous minds was white savior enough, there's freedom rights. Right. Yes, that's basically the thing. but produced by all of the Aaron Brockovich people also written and directed by Richard LaGravonais And then the third movie from 2007 is P.S. I Love You

Which is like widely derided also Richard the Gravonais With her and Gerard Butler And he He dies, right? He dies at the beginning of that And like writes her letters or I think she has letters from him From like that were written before he died.

I've never actually seen P.S. I love you. Also, wait, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in that. Maybe he's the one who dies. Because wasn't there a thing where, like, Jeffrey Dean Morgan died and everything? Where it was, like, Grey's Anatomy and then the pilot of weeds and maybe also this. But then why is Gerard Butler on the poster? Like, creepily behind her, like, he's the ghost. Right, right.

Now I'm trying to, like, read this plot description as we go along. But anyway, anyway, anyway. a terrible trio of films for a two-time Oscar winner at this point Amelia is her next major movie in 2009 which is a Oscar buzz disaster of the highest order

Mira Nair's Amelia that like that was one year ahead of time it was just like here comes Hillary Swank playing a very very famous woman and it came to nothing and then conviction here but like there was it was a you know a tough middle

portion for this. Also, her character, not to belabor the point of her characters being named Betty Ann Waters, because I know that was a real person, but it always dovetails very well with her role in the Homesman as Mary B. Cuddy, where it's just like, oh,

like this is like the Salt of the Earth names or whatever. I don't know. But so then here comes conviction and she's getting the Oscar buzz for it. So they plug her in to that year's Hollywood reporter around Actress Roundtable with five other women

who did get Oscar nominations. Yes, it's true. We're going to get into the history of the Roundtable, but it is the only year where only one person is nominated. It's the classic trailer where it's like Academy Award nominee X,

Academy Award winner Y, and then just like, regular person name. Like, it's just, it's, you know, It's the harshest cut. So we've talked about this roundtable before. It's a really good one. It's the one where Portman mentions Mules Foreman telling her to stop acting like she's in a bad movie.

She's in a good movie. Right. And she wasn't in a good movie. It was Goya's Ghost, another movie with some teeth stuff going on. Yes. But, like, it's the first time it was on the cover. It wasn't the first one. The first one, at least from what has been put online still, is 2000.

it's amazing because like now they are very heavily produced and like very glossy last year they are in gowns the whole time right I was like they're probably so uncomfortable right but this is like they're in business casual attire they're wearing like jewelry from chikos Helena Bonham Carter is there and like if she they're in the back room of a restaurant yeah yeah it's like it looks like it's some dorm attic where it's like you can see a cord hanging in the background. You can see a door to an exit that looks like there's stairs going into a basement. See, I was just like they're upstairs at a pub somewhere like planning the Le Miserob protests or whatever, right? Like that was the

vibe that I got. But like they're a little bit more off the cuff than they are now, but it's still Like, the energy in the room is so, like, delicious to watch. Like, Annette Benning is the chaos agent. She doesn't really acknowledge Hillary Swank except to, like, I mentioned this before. Like, Hillary Swank mentions this role that she wanted to get, and it turns out it was people like us, and Amy Adams at the time was supposed to have the role, and Annette Benning's like, oh, Amy, didn't you get that role? And that is very much like Queen Bee, but just like.

throwing poison darts in every direction as much as possible, but she's, yes, she's very much... And that Benning kind of walks away with that roundtable in a way that is so good. Oh, for sure, for sure. Also, underrated moment, because I've brought up the people like us thing before on this podcast, one in rewatching it now that I loved. Hillary Swank's talking, he's like, it's a first time director, but he's written before and he's like known. And, like, you can tell Hillary Swank is, like, trying to not say what the movie is. And because they keep asking and digging, it's like, oh, shit, I brought up this movie that someone else in the room got cast for. But, like, people keep digging.

And she brings up that it's Alex Kurtzman who does the Transformer movies. And, like, she's talking directly to Nicole Kidman. And she's like, I've never heard of him before. That made me very happy. Well, even better. So, like, Transformers are. My, yes. So, like, watching it, the experience of watching it is just like, you're right.

Is Swank is trying not to get specific on the movie because she doesn't want to tell tales. But also, I think she realizes halfway through the story that she's going to end up feeling, uh, embarrassed by the fact that she got so into the script by Alex Kirtzman and Robert Orsey, who made like, Transformers and whatever. And so she's trying to talk it up, but then the second she says, uh, they made Star Trek and Transformers. And then Nicole Kidman's face. She's like, I saw Star Trek.

I bought a ticket. But she has that book on her face, like when she and Ellen were bullying Jada de Laurentius. Do you remember? Where she just like her eyebrows raised and she's just like, oh, like, and she can't help her snobbery. And like, so her Nicole Kidman's vibe, Nicole Kidman was there because she was in rabbit hole.

Yes. But Nicole Kidman's vibe threw out this whole thing is she keeps like, she's very much like the auteur girl in this one, right? Where she's talking about working with these very sort of like difficult. She's the one who, when Helena Bonham Carter brings up that she had turned down breaking the waves, essentially because my favorite part about that is Helena says without saying it, like, I didn't realize that Lars von Trier was a visionary. And what she doesn't say but implies is I just thought he was an asshole.

And that's why she didn't do breaking the waves. And Kidman is the one who's like making the case for, because she had worked. worked with Lars on Dogville, and she's just like, oh, he's, you know, I know he, like, and she says, oh, I can't remember, I should have written down the word. It's not domineering. She says something about just like he can be vindictive. Vindictive. Vindictive is the word.

And I'm just like, you don't understand how terrible of a descriptor that is, do you? Where she's just like, oh, but I loved him. But, like, that's her vibe on this. That's her vibe on this. She still has that very reserved energy, whereas, like, she does these things now, and she's way more like loose and like I guess probably figured out a way to um like dodge certain conversation points maybe because in this one she like references times of her life being very dark but not mentioning what it is and we're like oh Scientology um yes and she also also mentions that like

while you're making a movie she mentions like getting injured on the set of Mulan Rouge she talks about, like, sort of essentially, like, accepting whatever kind of domineering treatment from directors or anything, which I always think, like, she's talking about Stanley Kubrick on Eyes WideShat. But just, like, she's very much just like, oh, I'm just, like, there for whatever, essentially. Just, like, I'm not there to question it. She does have a railing moment where she's, like, all of this behind-the-scenes things and how much access there is to it.

I was like, oh, okay, so Nicole Kimman really doesn't like the IMDB trivia page. Well, also, like, and that's obviously, that's an offshoot. But she brings stuff up, too. Like, she mentions that they almost had a bigger director for Rabbit Hole than John Cameron Mitchell. Yes. And I'm like, but, girl, you're giving these details away. Right, right. And she also talks about, and I was, the best things about these, especially old actress roundtables, is trying to guess the movies they're talking about where they don't mention it, where she's talking about, I'm working on a project.

And if we can't find a director for it, I might direct it myself. and obviously she never ended up directing anything herself. But I'm wondering what project that might have been. I wonder if it was like fur. Well, fir was before that. Fur, I think, was 2006. I can't remember. But I think it was before.

One interesting thing is Nicole Kidman is the one in this roundtable that sticks up for TV telling interesting stories. She says she's addicted to a boardwalk empire, which really threw me in this conversation. But, like, she eventually has become a prestige TV actress and, like, this is something from a decade ago. But, yes. But Hillary Swank's vibe throughout this whole roundtable. It's so unfortunate. She's always sort of budding into conversations. She's kind of, like, dominating the talking time.

And she doesn't quite understand how to read a room when everybody else is either, A, disinterested in what she's saying, or be, like, a little off-foot. She's on her phone half of the time that Hillary Slankton. Swank is speaking. Right. And she always sort of like is like halfway putting her foot in her mouth about like saying something that is like unintentionally sliding everybody else in the room. And it's so weird. She spends half of her time being like, yeah, I know.

Isn't that so great where it's like I think of the Fred Armisen shift where he's in drag and like putting his face forward and looking around the room. That's Hillary Swank's vibe. Oh, she also, she goes on this one. tangent about how she thinks that critics have so much sway and if critics don't like a movie, a movie won't do well, which I think is so funny

when you think about it. Okay, but her main point about it is like, I would understand like a larger conversation that like, critic, she kind of talks out of both sides of her mouth because she's like, critics destroy movies, but people don't listen to critics anymore. But if you realize the movies she's

coming off of, though, as saying that, is she's coming off of Amelia and Freedom Writers and P.S. I love you. And it's like, Well, yes, I understand how you would think that critics are the reason why those movies didn't do that. But her, like, main sticking point that she goes all in on that I'm like, okay, maybe this is where we can be a little mean to Hillary Swank. Yes.

What are you talking about is that she says critics don't like linear storytelling? Right. She gets very defensive about the majesty of linear storytelling. And that's the point where all I want to do is look at Annette Penning's reactions to her. And Nicole Kidman, especially. Nicole Kidman, who's like... Nicole is on her dream girl at this point. She is on her Blackberry.

But you could tell, like, that's the moment where they all realize that just like, all right, like she's basic and we're not basic. Hillary Swank is there to campaign for a movie that doesn't use linear storytelling. So true. Meanwhile, across the table, Helen Abonham Carter is an anthropomorphized series of jangly bracelets. Her bracelets are so loud the whole time. She literally reaches across the table to grab some altoids at one moment. And the crinkly altoid paper is so loud. It's so loud.

I was like, what the fuck is happening? Oh, she's just reaching for an altoid. But that is also like the low budge, low-fi nature of these things where it's just like, they were just operating off of like one boom mic or whatever. Now they give them a table too large for them to reach across. I do think Helena Bonham Carter and this is like maybe one of my top three actress roundtable appearances. She's very fun. She gives so much good gossip. She gives gossip about Tim Burton. Yes. She talks about their process on set that I think is very revealing and

very fun. But she's the quintessential one British woman on a roundtable of Americans and then one Australian. But she's very much just like... And she genuinely does not get a fuck. Right. But not in an aggressive way, just in this very sort of like blase way where she's just like, where when Nicole goes in on and just like, you know, or one of them was just like, oh, it was was Amy, when Amy's just like, well, now it all has to be a fashion show and you have to get dressed up for this and dressed up for that. And Helena Bonham Carter is just like, or you could not. She's just like, whatever. She's just like, oh, what's going to happen? I'm going to end up on a worst dress list. Okay. Yeah, she does not care. Okay. A few other things that are like surprising energy aside from Annette Benning is the chaos agent. Wouldn't have expected that.

one, Amy Adams who does these things all the time and like gets slack for being boring on them like she's never more conversational than in this one and it's great and like she's talking about where she is as a mother and like the type of roles that she wants to take so that she doesn't have to lose

the time with her daughter that she'll never get back Nicole Kidman doesn't say a word until 15 minutes in but the quietest person who like if you consider in the context at the time makes sense is Natalie Portman. She doesn't really pipe up that much, and it's because she's pregnant

as hell and probably miserable. Yeah, and also, like, she was the frontrunner, like, that year, so, like, she doesn't really have to, like, she's a little less desperate to, like, sell it than I think. Okay, but at this point, she wasn't the front runner. This is before any of the

actual, like, prizes were going out at this point, it was probably Annette Benning, who was the front runner. Yeah, that's probably true. Because Black Swan, it took that movie making money, for, I think, that to happen because it was still a horror movie, there's lesbian sex, there's gore. That's a good point. That's a good point.

Amy also in this one, and I'm pretty sure it's a story she maybe tells it some other ones other, but like, this is where you really get the, like, foundational thing for me about Amy Adams, which is that she was, like, she was just like a work-a-day actress for so long, and she really didn't think it was going to happen

for her, and then Junebug happened and, like, this unexpected career spark happened for her, and she really, really sort of like it's into that. And she talks like, she, she's just like, yeah, I thought about, you know, changing my career. And she kind of like, quickly is just like, she very quickly is just like, oh, I, not seriously. But it's just like, you get the sense that, like, yeah, she was like questioning whether she was going to be able to make a, you know, a life out of this. And I always think about that when I think of Amy. So, Joseph, we've gone into detail about

this Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. Yes. It's a good one. We'll put it on the Tumblr for you guys to watch. And maybe I'll put some other clips in there because Joseph, we are also here to celebrate the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtables. There's many other places that do it now. Variety does the Actors on Actors. That is very good. The LA Times has been doing their own roundtables.

But it's like the Hollywood Reporter one is the big one, right? And we always get excited to see who's going to be in the actress one. Yes. Probably don't even watch the actor one because it is boring. without fail. We watch the actor one while we're doing other things, while we're, you know, writing articles and making lists and whatnot. It is background.

Like the writer one, the director one is even more interesting than the actor one. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. More like thoughtfully curated, I would say, and who they get in there. And we as, you know, actress obsessives like to get into the minutia of what happens in these roundtables, who's chosen for them. Manusia, such as when people reach for altoids, like, yes. Manusia, like Catherine Hahn and Rachel Weiss, basically fucking, in our minds, at least.

Yes. They flirt throughout their entire roundtable together. It's wonderful. It's great. People who will take random screenshots of actresses in these roundtables not speaking and trying to project what their thoughts are onto them. Always love seeing people. get mad about that online, but it's fun.

Yes. I, myself, may have, like, studied every moment of Isabel Hooper on her roundtable. You! Can't imagine. Couldn't be you. The reaction of her saying, no, shaking her head, favorite shift of mine, I also love this one that I found of her, like, pointing and nodding at something like, yeah, that's right. I love that Anyway Because we obsess over these things

Naturally the only thing we can do Is make a quiz about it Joseph I have a game for you I'm so excited for this We're going to dig into the lore Of the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable We're going to look at who was there What were they there for

Who else was with them who's been there how many times. It's going to be a time. Okay. To give you a little bit of preface on this, because I know we're talking about a lot of Oscar races, there are, to my count, a total of 55 actresses who have participated in these things since 2008.

The first one I can at least find that's online. So that's a little bit of background for you. I have a couple questions. We're going to end it with a lightning round. Oh, my God. I love a lightning. Are you ready? Yes. Very much so.

Okay, Joseph. First question, you're well primed for this, is about Amy Adams. Okay, so Amy Adams gets the most flack for these things because she, like, has probably never turned down the offer to appear in one. And she's always buzzed for something. And she's always buzzed for something. Now people are like, why is she there? She's here all the time, and now she's boring.

Not true for 2010. So Amy Adams has appeared in six actress roundtables, the most of any actress. Can you name what years she was there for of those six and what movie she was campaigning? All right. Well, 2010 for The Fighter. Correct. Was she there 2014 for Big Eyes? She was. Okay.

Two out of the six. And there's some years where you could say there's multiple movies, so, like, I will take one or the other. Okay. 2012 for the master? Yes, also trouble with the curve. Beautiful. We'll do trouble with the curve sometimes. All right, three more.

I don't think she was at the 2018 one for Vice. Because that was the one where they were all in red, and I don't remember seeing her. That was the Catherine Hahn, Rachel Weiss, Glenn Close, Lady Gaga, one. Correct. Okay. Other Amy Adams, this is 2016 for arrival? Yes, and nocturnal animals. Oh, sure.

Sure, nocturnal animals. They tried it, honey. They sure did. All right, two more. Two more. Was she there in 08 for doubt? She was. The very first one.

The very first one. So I'm only missing one. Um Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy. Hustle. 2013 for Hustle. Yes, also for the movie Her. Her. Yes. Okay.

Next question. So Amy Adams has appeared in the most roundtables with six. Who is the actress that has appeared the second most number of times in the THR actress roundtable? How many times and can you name the movies? Oh, gosh. is it four times is the second most time four times no five three three oh only three emma stone no damn it jennifer lawrence no damn it um um uh viola davis no oh well i'm just getting worse and worse It's an actress that we've talked about recently on this podcast.

Like on this episode? Not on this episode. All right. Last week? No. Okay. Damn. Can I get the years?

You can get the years. It is 2009, 2011. 2015 2009 2011 Carrie Mulligan Carrie Mulligan Really?

That is so She has appeared on Actress Roundtables three times She's the second most Maybe she'll show up again this year And solidify her place in second place In 2009 An education shame in 2011

And Suffrage at in 2015 Correct. Shame could have also been there for drive. Right, right, yes. I'd prepped the next question, guessing that you would have guessed a certain actress who you didn't guess. I was expecting you to guess Nicole Kidman as a second time, or the second place person. Nicole Kidman has only appeared twice, though. After 2010 in Rabbit Hole, what other year did she participate in what were the film or films that she was campaigning for?

2015 for Lion? No. Okay. All right. All right. After 2010. Was it something that she was eventually Oscar nominated for? No.

No, couldn't have been. Not Boy Erased. Boy erased? Boy erased and Destroyer. And Destroyer, yes. She's in the Glenn Close, Lady Gaga. She's in the Ladies and Red one. Okay, all right.

Yes. All right. Okay. Besides Hillary Swank, Hillary Swank has appeared twice both for movies she wasn't nominated for, including conviction. Besides Hillary Swank, who is the one actress to appear on multiple actress roundtables to not be nominated for any of the films they were campaigning for, I'm going to give you options.

Your options are Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, or Michelle Williams. Well, Emma Stone, I'm pretty sure, was on a roundtable of the when she was nominated for one of her nominations, I'm pretty sure. Octavia Spencer, I can't think, I mean, she might have been on the one for the year she was in Fruitvale Station, but I think she's been not. nominated so many other times that I feel like going 0 for two would have been tough for her. I want to say it's Emma Thompson for saving Mr. Banks and something else, but I can't think of what the other one might be unless it was like last chance Harvey or something like that. But like that's my guess is Emma Thompson. That is correct. Emma Thompson has appeared twice. Neither time was she eventually nominated. Okay, so those four actresses I gave you, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Emma

Thompson, Michelle Williams, have all appeared in two Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtables. Can you name both of the movies that they were in? We will start, Octavia Spencer. What was she campaigning for? Probably The Help. Correct.

And Hidden Figures. No. Damn. Was it Fruitvale Station? It was Fruitvale Station. Okay. All right.

She was a very big contender early on in that season. And it just like, didn't she win National Border Review? I think she did. And then nothing after that. Yeah. Emma Stone's two would be probably Birdman. No. La La Land.

Yes. And the help? No. Okay. The favorite. No. No. Shit.

Um You're not far off From the favorite Not far off Um It was 2017 It was 2017 Oh um Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes Another early season contender That's the thing That's one of the helpful thing about trying to guess THR ones is like, who was really, really buzzed at the time when they started reaching out to publicists, which would have been like

early fall? Also, uh... If not late summer. Well, if she hadn't won for La La Land, she probably would have been nominated for Battle of the X's. I agree. Um, your next one is Emma Thompson. So Emma Thompson was definitely on the one for saving Mr. Banks.

Correct. I don't think she would have been considered supporting contender for an education. And I wonder if 2008 was slim enough that they would have had her on for Last Chance Harvey. So that is my guess. It is 2008 Last Chance Harvey, but also Brideshead Revisited.

She's great in Brideshead Revisited. Nobody talks about that movie anymore, and I really enjoyed it. And then the final one for this question, Michelle Williams. What two roundtables was she on? Okay. Now

So one of my things while I was watching the 2010 one was I had such a hard time envisioning who would have been at the 2011 one because so many of the major contenders that year, I'm like, well, Merrill didn't do it. Merrill's never done it, I don't think. Or maybe she has like once. Anyway, I'm sure that's a thing. But anyway, I think she was there in 2011 for my week with Marilyn. Michelle Lee. Correct. What was the other one?

Well, not 2010 for Blue Valentine. Was it 2016 for Manchester? No. Damn. All right. Michelle, Michelle Williams. Well, broke back was too early. This one, I would say maybe is a tiny bit of a reach,

but it makes sense why she would be there for this one. A lead performance? Uh, yes. And maybe no. Maybe there's multiple movies. Okay. Shell Williams. Not Oscar nominated for either of these things.

No. Right. Okay. Um, God, now I'm just, all I can think of is Fossi Verton. God damn it, get out of my head. Get out of my head, Fossi Verdin. Get out of your head. You're doing the, you're doing the hand.

thing above your head to get Fosse Verdon out of your head. Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. Um, you know me so well. Okay. Um, I don't know. I need a hint. It's 2008, the first year of the roundtable.

Well, God, so 2008, she's in Synecdochie, New York. Yes. And she's in something else. Wendy and Lucy. Yes, of course, Wendy and Lucy. She's great in both of those movies. And it's like, Like, well, they got her. They got her for the roundtable.

Listen, they got her for good performances at least. So good for that. Exactly. Okay. So next question. I'm going to give you three of these of this question. Of the four actresses I am about to list for you, who is the only one to ever participate in an actress roundtable? Okay.

Patricia Clarkson, Kira Knightley, Melissa McCarthy, or Jackie Weaver. Okay. Only one of them has ever done an actress, uh, Hollywood Reporter actress roundtable. I feel like I would remember a Melissa McCarthy roundtable. I don't think Jackie Weaver. Who are the other two? Patricia Clarkson and Kira Knightley. I'm trying to think of what movie Patricia Clarkson would have been there for, so I'm going to guess

Kira Knightley. It is Patricia Clarkson. For what so? She was there for Cairo time and whatever works. That's funny. Is that what, 2011? Nine, 2009. That is genuinely awesome.

Good friend. No, it's a, we'll get, well, I want to talk about the 2009 one. We'll get it to it. Okay. For a specific reason. Which of these four actresses is the only one to participate in an actress, in a Hollywood reporter, actress roundtable. Kathy Bates, Sally Hawkins, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Margot Robbie.

Again, I feel like I would remember a Julia Louis-Dreyfus one. I feel like she would have had some moments. Kathy Bates, I think her most recent buzzy ones would have predated the roundtables. Who are the other two?

Sally Hawkins and Margot Robbie. So both of them were obviously nominated for actress in 2017, so you would think that roll that dice that one of them would have been. I'm gonna say Sally Hawkins. Sally Hawkins was there for Happy Go Lucky.

Oh, the Happy Go Lucky year. Okay. Last one of these questions. Which of these four actresses is the only one to ever participate in an actress roundtable? Bernice Bejot, Holly Hunter, Marissa Tomei, or Robin Wright. Wow. All right. Well, again, the 2011 one is such a black hole in my mind that it could have been Berenice Bejo, although I don't remember ever seeing even, like, a photo of her. Robin Wright, what would that have even been for? Like, the Congress? Like, honestly, I'm having trouble picturing that one. Who are the other two? Holly Hunter and Marissa Tomei Huh Marissa Tome

Could have been 2008 I'm going to guess Marissa Tome It is Robin Wright for the Secret Lives of Pippily Get out of here What year was that? It was 09 We're going to talk about O'9 O'9 sounds chaotic as hell

Also I sent the 09 line up to both friends of the podcast Katie Rich and Nick and Katie went the same route that you did and said, was Robin right there for that C.G.I. It's like, no, it's pippily. Oh, my God. Okay, next question, which kind of a pivot from the other question,

which of these actresses has only participated, or which of these actresses have participated in more than one actress roundtable? So they've done it multiple times. Is it Kate Blanchette, Viola Davis, Helen Mirren or Rachel Weiss Kate Blanchett Viola Davis Helen Mirren

Rachel Weiss The funny thing is I all remember one I remember one for all of these women I remember Kate Blanchett being like kind of mean in hers I'm trying to

I can't think she was mean she was like she was uh we'll talk about the 2015 okay well i just gave you an answer whatever um kate viola helen miran and who rachel vice well obviously we remember rachel vice flirting up a storm with katherine hon in 2018 um she might have been there for deep blue sea also but i'm going to guess miran and i don't know why it is incorrect it is Rachel vice It is for Deep Blue C and The Favorite. Yes. That's your answer for that one, because your next question is what films were each of those actresses campaigning for?

You have Kate Blanchett. I already gave you that. It's 2015. It's Carol. And I guess truth. Viola Davis, Helen Mirren, and Rachel Weiss. Wait, but I didn't get both of Kate Blanchett. I guess the second one is Blue Jasmine?

No, Kate Blanchett's only been in one. Oh, only one of them was in two of them. Okay. I guess you get you. Okay. Helen Mirren was there for the last station? No. Damn.

Was it eye in the sky? Yes and no? Because I think that is a 2015 movie and she was there for 2015. Trumbo. And woman in gold. You have Rachel Weiss. Which one did Viola Davis participate in? I mean, I

I'm coming, again, I'm coming up MT for 2011, so I'm going to just keep guessing 2011. So the help, 2011? The help, correct. Okay. Okay. When Rachel Weiss was there for the Deep Blue C, she was one of two performers in her roundtable to not be nominated, who was the other actress. Deep Blue C is 2012? Yes.

So she was one of two who were not nominated that year. Correct. 2012, who wasn't nominated? Let me double check that it is 2012. Okay. Yes, 2012. Okay. All right.

So, let's see. What are the big movies that didn't get? That was Jennifer Lawrence won, Jessica Chastain. Naomi did get nominated. Nicole Kid. No, no, we'd said Nicole Kidman. Not Nicole Kidman for the paper boy. No.

No, okay. God, what if Emmanuel Riva... What if Emmanuel Riva and Kavanaugh-Wallis were both on that roundtable? That would be amazing. That would be amazing. Emmanuel Riva couldn't do anything. She, like, only could show up to the Oscars because she was so old and wasn't allowed to travel. Right. No, I do recall that.

Helen Hunt was nominated. This is probably the sixth place. best actress contender. I was going to say because, like, Kavanchinay Wallace and Emmanuel Riva were both considered like fringe possibilities before those nominations came out. Even though I remember

being like very steadfast about like no, they're definitely going to happen. Same. Same. I need another hint. I'm sorry. This surprisingly is this actress's only appearance on a round table.

She previously had already won an Oscar. Okay. All right. A best actress Oscar? Best actress Oscar. Hellie Berry? No. Possibly a, uh, the joke is that she is a 9-11 truth. Oh God. Marion Cotillard for Rustin Bone. Correct. Yeah. Um, um, the, uh, next, uh, group of actresses for actresses appearing in two roundtables, which of these actresses did not get nominated for both of the years they appeared? So they're campaigning

for two separate years. Only one of them didn't get the nomination the year, one of the years they appeared. Is it Glenn Close, Laura Dern, Jennifer Lawrence, or Natalie Portman? Glenn Close, Laura Dern. So, sorry,

give me the parameters. All of these women were on multiples. They appeared twice. Three of them got nominated both of those years. One of them only got nominated one of the years. So Laura Dern has had two nominations within that window. Who are the other women? Sorry, I have... Glenn Close, Jennifer Lawrence, or Natalie Portman.

Glenn Close, Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence is one of those ones where I'm struggling to come up with a movie that she would have been buzzed for that she wasn't nominated for because she did just keep getting those nominations. And then at some point she just like stopped campaigning. Natalie Portman. Jennifer Lawrence. Was it?

For what was the... That's your next question. The years that Jennifer Lawrence was campaigning that she participated in the THR Actress Roundtables, what was the one she was nominated for and what was the one she wasn't nominated for it wasn't Wintersbow Um

Silver Linings Playbook was obviously nominated for you're saying that's what she was there for her round table for No No

because I thought she had stopped campaigning by even by American Hustle but it's got to be American Hustle because she was not there for joy no she was there for joy she was there for joy

fuck what was she there for that she wasn't nominated for Is it passengers? No. Okay, good. I mean, what year was passengers? 2016, wasn't it?

She was not there for passengers. So it was before joy? No. It was after joy. It's after joy. We've maybe talked about it on this podcast, at length. Oh, God. Not Serena.

No. Serena is before joy. Yes, it is. in every sense of the term. A landmark episode for this podcast. Mother! She was there in 2017 for Mother. I forgot that.

You're totally right because she's on the Isabel Hooperone. Yes. Okay. This next question, what year had the most actresses on the THR roundtable? How many were there and can you name all of them? Was it 2018? No.

Was it 2019? No. I know that, like, there's been more of them recently. I'm just going to keep going back. Was it 2017? No. Damn it. Am I close? You're two off. It was 2015.

2015. How many were on the 2015 one? Well, we said Jennifer Lawrence for joy. Yes. We said Helen Mirren for Trumbo and Women in Gold. Yes. we said Kate Blanchett for Carol Yes All right

So we've already got a little bit of a head start there I don't think Alicia Vicander Was there I will give you that With this unwell number of actresses in 2015 For Alicia Vincander to not be among them is hilarious It is kind of hilarious Not Charlotte Rambling, right?

Incorrect. No, she was there? Yes. Oh, wow. I'll give you the number. It is eight actresses. All right, so that's four of them. It's eight actresses.

This is also the year of Oscar So White, and they are all white actresses. And it is embarrassing that they had the most amount of actresses they've ever had on the Hollywood Reporter Roundtable. Eight actresses, and they are all lily white. Sersha? No. Sertia's the other one that it's like, you got eight actresses and you didn't get Sersia. Oh, my goodness.

Okay. Not Winslet for Steve Jobs, right? Incorrect. Winslet for Steve Jobs? Yes, you're still waiting on three actresses, one of which we've already mentioned. 2015. Recently did an episode on this movie.

Oh, Carrie and Suffragette. Carrie Mulligan for Suffragette. You're missing an Oscar winner and someone who wasn't nominated. Okay. Oscar winner that won that year. That won that year? Yes. Brie Larson was there.

Okay. Breerison was there in a red suit. Right. That was a thing. It was like the photographs from this one were like probably my favorite round table table photographs, but it was like, They're all fucking white, man. Yeah. Okay, so the, um, the one who wasn't nominated that participated in this roundtable

definitely had the, like, there's always a living legend in each of these roundtable spots. Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda for, for youth. For fucking youth, man. Yep. Uh, that's a movie that slapsed Jane Fonda in the face. All right. So how many years have neither the supporting actress or lead actress winner participated in the actress roundtable.

Okay. All right. Neither of that. Right. So. This is kind of easy. This is a gimmy. Well, let's go through them methodically, shall we? 2008, Winslet and Cruz.

I don't remember 2008 at all. 2009, Bullock and Monique, I think that's, wait, Bullock probably would have been there. 2010, definitely not. 2011, we said Octavius, no. Octavia was for Now I can't remember my own answers.

God damn it! I'm just going to give it to you because you've already gotten there. It's only one time. It's 2008. 2008. 0-08 is very like they, 2010 is when they really like form what it is. And 2009, I honestly think, is like, I was going to say this for later, but like, Monique is there for 2009,

which is like, A, amazing. She shows up looking fucking. amazing and everybody else is still like business casual. Her whole thing was I'm not campaigning that year. Exactly. That is my point where it's like anybody who still wants to talk shit about Monique saying that she didn't

campaign and was whatever about it. It is incorrect. She was at the actress roundtable and she fucking rules in it. I'll post a clip to the Tumblr where she is at the actress round table fakes an orgasm with everybody and like

it's truly like these things were still The roundtable was still gestating, and I truly think that Monique is the one who was like, we're going to, we have something here. Let's do this in a big way. And then next year's 2010, which we started talking about. Anyway. Opposite question next. How many years have both the supporting actress and lead actress winners been included in the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable? All right.

I'm again let me let me talk my way through this I can get there all right so Monique was there at the 09 one again the Sandra Bullock of it all is a mystery to me but I'm just going to move on not 2010 I don't think Merrill was there for the Iron Lady and it's still up in it I can't now my mind is trying to remember if Merrill ever was there but anyway 2012 you said Lawrence wasn't there for Silver Lining's playbook. 2013. No. 2014, Julianne and Patricia Arquette. Patricia Arquette was probably there.

2015. You said Brie was there, but not Alicia. 2016 Emma was not there for La La Land I can't remember No we said Emma was there for La La Land and we also said Viola Davis was only there for the help

Right okay 2017 Not Francis I don't think Francis is not going to do that Maybe she would do it this year but Right 2018 Regina King and

Olivia Coleman, but I don't think Olivia Coleman was at a roundtable. And then last year Renee was, right? Mm-hmm. And I'm pretty sure

Laura Dern was. I'm going to say two years. Correct. Two years, you are right about 2019. You kind of glossed past the other year. 2014.

2014. Julianne Moore and Patty Arquette. Yes. Okay. Okay. Last question. Oh, no, that was our last question before the lightning round.

Okay, so the Lightning Round. These are all actresses who have only ever appeared in one of the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. I'm going to give you four movies. You have to tell me the movie that they were campaigning for when they appeared. Okay. Your first actress, Reese Witherspoon. Your options are, how do you know, mud, rendition, and wild. Well, rendition's too early.

Glad you caught that. That was a trick question. Very good. I want to say it's mud. Incorrect. It is wild. It's wild. Okay.

I went for the non-obvious. Okay. Julia Roberts. Is it August Osage County? Ben is back. Eat, pray, love, or the secret in their eyes? Wow. What if it's the secret in their eyes?

Ben is back. Incorrected. August Osage County, God damn. The August Osage County one is, like, that's the, that feels like a real heavy hitter, actress roundtable. Lupita's there for 12 years of slave. Oprah is there for Lady Daniels the Butler. That one was like, whoa, they got all the big names. Plus, I have to remember that, like, Julia kind of became the promotional lead for that movie, where, like, she did the most press stuff for it.

Yes. By far. Yes. Okay, your next actress is Felicity Jones. Is it the invisible woman a monster calls on the basis of sex or the theory of everything? Once again, the theory of everything would seem to be the obvious one. I'm going to say, so not the aeronauts is what you're saying. No, I did not put the aeronauts in there.

I'm going to say on the basis of sex. It is the theory of everything. Fuck! I hate you. So much. Okay. Sertia Ronan, shockingly, only there once. Is it Lady Bird, Little Women, the Lovely Bones, or Mary Queen of Scots? Fuck. Oh, God. What if... These are designed to get progressively harder, so I threw you some softballs and you didn't catch the softball.

Well, because I thought you were playing hardball at first. I didn't realize they were getting progressively harder. All right. They're somewhat progressively harder. Well, you talk about how chaotic 2009 was, and now I'm wondering if it's partially chaotic because Sertia was there for the lovely bones. What were the other ones? Lady Bird, Mary Queen of Scots. Lady Bird, Little Women, the Lovely Bones, and Mary Queen of Scots.

All right. It's either Lady Bird or Little Women. And I'm going to guess it's Little Women. It is Lady Bird. Fuck. Next actress, Jessica Chastain. Is it Miss Sloan, Molly's Game, A Most Violent Year, or Zero Dark 30? A Most Violent Year.

Incorrected is Molly's Game. Damn it! I wanted to say Molly's Game. I always want to say Molly's Game. We've got to get one of these. We'll get you one. No. Okay.

Next actress, Charlize Theron. Is it bombshell? Mad Max Fury Road. Tully or young adult Bombshell Mad Max Fury Road Tully or a young adult Why is my brain saying Tully

even though that's the least likely of the four of them? Do I trust my brain? Or do I once again revisit the fact that like... Rachel Weiss was there for the deep blue sea. I don't know what unlikely looks like. in this. What year was Tully?

Can you at least tell me that? Tully was 2017? No, it was 2018. All right. So that was the red year, and I don't remember her being there in red, so I'm going to say young adult. It is young adult.

You got one. You got one. Yes, she was in the 2011 one. Next actress, beloved here on this had Oscar buzz. The one and only, Naomi Watts. She was there

For either fair game, the impossible, J. Edgar, or St. Vincent. One more time? Fair game, the impossible, J. Edgar, or St. Vincent. St. Vincent. Incorrect. It was The Impossible. A movie she was nominated. Good for her. Good for her. Your last actress in the lightning round is none other than Merrill Streep.

Yeah. Was she there for August Osage County, Florence Foster Jenkins, into the woods, or the Iron Lady? Okay. So lots to consider here. One of which is part of me feels like she and Oprah were on the same one. But part of me also feels like the Florence Foster Jenkins publicity push was like a lot. But then she would have been there the same year as Isabel Hubert, and I feel like there would be a lot more made about that. So I'm going to say August Ossage County.

Trick question, Merrill has never participated in a Hollywood reporter actress rat table. I hate you so much. I'm going to murder you. I'm just going to come to Ohio. and absolutely murder you. That was, that was my psycho drama throughout this entire thing was, I don't think Merrill has ever been in one of these, but was she?

She hasn't. I mean, I have a hard time believing that Merrill is going to hop on a Zoom for that, like, she did it for Sondheim. I was going to say she did it for Sondheim. Yeah. I feel like I could see her doing it finally this year,

but we'll see. I'm curious to see who will be on the lineup. I bet Carrie Mulligan, does it again. I bet Kate Winslett does it again. Oh, all right. Who's to say? Just to give you the 2009 lineup because I think I taunted you with this yesterday. It is Emily Blunt for the Young Victoria.

The aforementioned Patricia Clarkson for Cairo Time and Whatever Works. Vera Farmiga for up in the air. Right. Monique for Precious. Right. Carrie Mulligan for an education. and Robin Wright for the Secret Lives of Pippily. Yeah, that's wild and crazy.

That's insane. That's totally insane. I love it. I love it so much. You guys, we love the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. Maybe by the time this episode comes out, we will have this year's. I don't know what it's going to look like, but like timing-wise, it would probably be... We might not get it for another month or two, honestly.

Who knows? Can you just give me the 2011 lineup, though, because it really was wrecking my brain, trying to remember who would have been at that one? 2011 is, that's not the Oprah year. No, Oprah year is 2013. 2011, we just said Charlie's there on for young adult. 2013 is Amy Adams, Lupita Nyungo, Julia Roberts, Octavia, Spencer, Emma Thompson, and Oprah. Right.

That's like BFD. 2011, though, is Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Carrie Mulligan, Octavia Spencer, Charlize Theron, and Michelle Williams. All right. Okay. All right. My major takeaway is that with all those white actresses in 2015, it is still bananas to me that Alicia V. Candor is in there.

Yeah, it's very funny. It's very funny. All right. So, Hillary Swank, legend among the actress Roundtable. There for a conviction. Let's bring it back to conviction. We didn't really talk about Sam Rockwell. Yeah, let's do that a little bit. He got a Critics Choice nomination for this. He got a Critics Choice nomination. The only Oscar nominee who wasn't nominated was John Hawks. Critics Choice also nominated Andrew Garfield, who I feel like Andrew Garfield was probably the actual sixth place with Oscar. Yeah, very, very likely. So I was kind of, that was a pretty big surprise, I remember. Who was the one who nipped him? Was it Jeremy Renner in the town or was it John Hawks in Wintersbone? It was John Hawks. It was John Hawks. Okay.

Because John Hawks wasn't nominated at Critics Choice. Right, right. And then SAG that year, he was, Hawks was, yeah, SAG and Oscar matched up exactly. So that was sort of the warning sign for Garfield when he didn't show up at SAG that year. I mean, Hawks is great in Winter's Bone. Hawks should have been nominated two years in a row. That's my big thing, was should have been nominated for Winter's Bone in 2010 and then Martha Marcy May Marlene in 2011.

Two performances that got really kind of lumped together. Right. as very like similar things because it's like it's an emerging actress some of it takes place in the woods like they're very different characters one is very heroic and one is not yeah and he couldn't be bringing more different energy and then he goes and does it again in the sessions where it's like these three really great performances that are all incredibly different from each other yeah yeah he had like what a great era for him it's sort of a bummer that he like is now officially back to his pre-Winter's Bone sort of status as like, you know, character actor who

pops up in things. But Sam Rockwell at this point, like, we talked about this a little bit with the way, way back, where it's like he's the, like, it's no surprise. I think that if, of the major precursors, he shows up at critics' choice, because at this point he's still, like, the critics are rallying around, like, when is Sam Rockwell going to get his due now? I was, yeah. It's like, we might want to take that back a little bit. Like, not like this. Not like this. I was looking at his filmography, and I was trying to think of, like, when did sort of

the justice for Sam Rockwell thing emerge? And so I feel like, like, 99... It's got to be a dangerous mind, right? Well, but I think it was slightly earlier than that, because I feel like the 1999-2000 thing where he's in Galaxy Quest and Charlie's Angels, and it's one of those things where you might not even know who what his name is, but it's just like, oh, that guy in that movie, like, I remember watching Charlie's Angels and being like, oh, this guy's got something. And I don't, like, I don't know what his deal is, but like, he's very charming, but in a very, like,

intriguing kind of a way. And then, yeah, I think after that, uh, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in 2002 was when, like, the critics really started singling him out for things for that performance. He's really, really great in that. And then 2003 matchstick men. 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy He's in the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford and then Frost Nixon back to back in 2007-2008 So he's starting to now be in things

that are getting Oscar nominations for other elements and for other actors So it's like getting there And then Moon in 2009 is another sort of like peak where people are just like Obviously Moon was never going to be an Oscar movie but people like really flipped out for his performance in that film and then 2010's a really big year for him because he's the villain in Iron Man 2 the best thing and maybe the only really good thing

about Iron Man 2. He's so much fun to watch in that film like he's really really having a great time just like smarming it up with the best of them and then that's the same year as conviction and so I think a lot of people thought if conviction were better received or maybe a little bit better of a movie that he might have had a shot for it. And it's funny that it's another seven years before his first Oscar nomination from that. Because it really did feel like around that time that he was maybe on the precipice. Well, and it also makes complete sense because Three Billboard's was his first nomination. He's that type of actor that it's like as soon as they're nominated, they're going to win. Right. You look at his films from conviction onward, and it's just like, they're odd genre choices, right?

Where it's like seven psychopaths, the other Martin McDonough movie he does, laggies, the way, way back. These things that are kind of like on the fringe of like best of the year conversation, but like never really serious Oscar contenders. But people really like him and all of those things. Again, yeah, he's building up all this goodwill, but three billboards was the first time in a long time that he was in something that you could have plausibly considered, like, a long lead Oscar buzz thing, right? Mm-hmm. I like him so much as an actor. It's a bummer that there's so much ill will surrounding the film that he got his Oscar for. Yeah.

Well, and I mean, then he was immediately nominated in, like, kind of. of a very small role as George W. Bush in a movie that was reviled. Right. Well, yeah, he's made really, like, he keeps sort of ending up. And again, it's one of these things where, like, when the discourse has labeled you problematic adjacent, everything you do going forward gets interpreted through that lens a little bit. So, like... Well, and then he even had that movie that we thought would be an Oscar movie,

but then it got pushed to the next year with Taraji where he was playing a Klansman. The Best of Enemies, yep. Yeah, where it's like, even at this point, it might have even been the roundtable where he was there for Vice, I think, where they were asking some type of question about, like, versatility. And he's like, I think I'm done playing racists. I can't do this anymore. But it's so funny to look at his, like, three billboards, best of enemies. as we mentioned, Weiss, which got a lot of political flack for, like,

why are you making a movie about Dick Cheney, yada, yada, yada. Jojo Rabbit, which, like, inherited all of this, like, bad, like, people don't like Scarlet Johansson, and also people are like, why are you making light of Nazis or whatever? A lot of things that I thought were pretty unfair to Jojo Rabbit. And then Richard Jewell, which had this, like, ton of bad vibes coming from it for the Eastwood thing, for the... Richard Jewell, which I commonly refer to as Dick Diamond. God damn it.

You're the worst. I hate that movie. That movie's the worst. But so, like, yeah, he keeps sort of ending up. So I feel like Sam Rockwell is one of those actors that, like, all that goodwill has now sort of turned into, like, he is... Like, not film Twitter, because there's a lot of people on film Twitter who really stick up for him. But there's, like, I don't know, like, casual movie. fans who like interpret movies strictly through

cultural political lenses. Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't want, I'm trying to not say woke Twitter. It's this like period of three or four years where it's like that's all you can associate this actor to is him playing Nazis, white supremacists, racists, like. But I think that's also, you know, it's, I think it's, he's right to say I got to take a break from playing roles like this because it's also hard on the audience. Like, I who like Sam Rockwell, like, these years have just, like, kind of, you know, burned me. He's not, like, someone who's known for playing villains or something or puts a unique stamp on villains.

And I also don't think those performances speak to what he's good at, you know, even, like, aside from the content of the character. I think he's pretty good in Richard Jewell, though, is the thing. Like, I think he's been good in movies that maybe I didn't really, like, but also, but the other thing is, is you have this base of experience with Sam Rockwell's performances from before Three Billboards that I think a lot of more casual observers who made a big deal about how much, who sort of piled on the whole like Three Billboards Sucks thing didn't necessarily have. Do you know what I mean? We're like, yeah, no, I get that.

Like, I even felt it with this movie conviction where it's like, I feel like it's maybe a stretch to say he should be nominated for this movie. I agree. I think he's mostly fine. Right. But, like, this is also a movie that I think has that three billboards thing where it's like, it's trying really hard to be like, but he's a good person for someone who's like, you know. Like, not to say something about a living person, but it's like, it does a lot to be like, oh, but he's so charming. after he's like been violent and like you know it's not necessarily it's the human behavior it's the movie working so hard yeah to like sell me on something I rather than let me think what I think about a character who has been wronged and like I can say that something wrong was done to this person without you having to be like yeah but all those bad things who cares um yeah I've decided I like Sam Rockwell best in a movie that doesn't have incredibly high stakes.

Right. Maybe not like, like internal stakes. Yes, sure. But like, like, give me him in like a hangout movie or just like something like something that doesn't have sort of these like real world implications so much. I don't know. I feel like. Yeah. He's good at playing skumbags.

He is. But like, yeah, this like charming way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we like him. We should also mention Melissa Leo in this movie because this is the year that she won her Oscar for. I, it's, oh boy, I definitely thought this whole year that I was like, Melissa Leo is in possession of Amy Adams Oscar. Yes, Amy Adams should have won for the fighter.

That's what she should have her Oscar for. Yeah. I mean, Amy Adams should maybe have two Oscars. What would your other one be, Junebug? Probably June bug, but, like, you know, conquer and divide from, like, she could have one for other performances, too. She could have one. We just talked about this in our mailbag. She never would have, but, like, she could have one for arrival.

I'm kinder to her American Hustle performance than some people. I love her performance in American Hustle is the best performance in American Hustle. I don't. Oh, by a mile. I think there are bad performances in that movie, and I think ultimately that movie is a mess, but she kicks out. ass in that film. Yeah, yeah. She, like, the reason that that movie has, like, a foundation of thematic substance is her performance. Yeah. But Melissa Leo this year, who it's like, what critics prizes did she win for the fighter? But, like, it's funny to me that, like, critics will

still, like, lump performances together in one prize and nobody did it for this movie. And for a good reason, because this is like the start of Melissa Leo being like, not to put it like everything in drag race terms, but you know when the judges are like, you know, when are we going to not see this thing that you do all the time? Melissa Leo loves to hide behind a pair of glasses. Melissa Leo won the National Society of Film Critics Award in 2010. For the fighter, not with this tied together. Yeah. Um, But, like, this is very much of the class of, like, her performance in prisoners, where it's like you are just in a different movie.

Wait, it's funny. Okay, I should take that back. Now I want, now I need to go and look into this. It says, no, she won. I was looking at, sorry, I'm really bogging this down in minutia. Her Wikipedia page tab says she won National Society of Film Critics, best supporting actress for the fighter. But now, as I look into it,

Olivia Williams won Best Supporting Actress from National Society of Film Critics for the Ghost Writer that year, and Melissa Leo was a runner-up. So what I'm saying is Melissa Leo's Wikipedia page is a damn liar. Maybe somebody should consider. Yeah. Melissa Leo and the Fighter, I get why. I take that back.

Oh, well, she won the Boston Film Festival Prize for this, the fighter, and welcome to the Rylies. Yeah. Yeah, some people sort of like lumped in other things. It's ultimately not a surprise to me that she won for the fighter. She's the more bombastic performance. I think it's right after she was like the underdog story for Frozen River. Right.

But it's funny to watch how her reputation shifted in just the two years from Frozen River to the fighter. Because I think winning for the fighter and the kind of performance that was, I think, suddenly her performances slash her roles start becoming a lot more grotesque a little bit. Hammy? Yes. Well, yeah. It's that thing where like, I say it's like she exists in a movie that's

not like she's in a whole other movie with the performances that she give. It's not. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes I enjoy that like in oblivion. I love that she's just like so extra. Even something like prisoners, right? We're like, she's just such a peculiar person. The worst thing about prisoners. I forgot she played Laura Poitris and like she's doing that in the fighter, too.

I don't think it's a good performance. But she makes sense for the world of the movie. Like the performance that like the tenor, the pitch of her performance makes sense with everything else around her. Whereas like prisoners, it's like, you really. are like showing up for this in a way that is like drawing attention that's like I felt that way in flight when she was she was in flight as the uh essentially kind of the similar kind of a character as she is in conviction which is an authority figure who is out to get the main character for no good reason um but uh wait Melissa Leo what I was going to say oh the fighter so I'm somebody who loves the fighter just in general I think it's a great movie one of my favorite David O Russell movies if not my favorite David O Russell movies. movie. And I think if you love the fighter, one of the things you love is like the depiction of that family, all of the sisters, like that whole thing, I think is a real sort of like crowd-pleasing element of that movie. And she's sort of the queen of that portion of the

film, right? So it does not surprise me that like people who responded to the fighter really responded to her. Amy's getting, giving a much more grounded. It's not like her performance is small or, like, uh, receding in any way, but comparatively, it's quieter. It's more sort of, you know, emotional in a way that recognizes as human emotion. And she's just great in it. But like, Melissa's the bigger performance. I mean, everybody was so, like, um, wowed by Christian Bale. And I think of their scene on the porch together where she just like knocks his ass off the screen. It's so, that scene is like, maybe the best scene she's ever done.

Yeah, it is. To the point where it's like I have made a meme for myself of, I like my life, Dickie. Yeah, no, you say that all the time. Whenever people are like talking shit about something that I like, like, I think I even said I like Avatar, Dickie. You did, you maniac. I want to talk about Tony. I mean, we can say why this movie didn't end up, like, going all the way. And I think it's because, I mean, A, it was so mildly received.

positive on, or it's fresh on rotten tomatoes, but barely. It's like a 61 on Metacritic. Yeah. It's a middling movie. Fuck Searchlight had other priorities. They had 127 hours in Black Swan that year.

They also had never let me go, which I excited to talk about at some point. Yeah. Tony Goldman directed this movie. Tony Goldwyn, a notable actor. He's the bad guy in Ghost. He's the president's evil flunky and the Pelican Brief. He is, of course, sexy but good for nothing, as far as I'm concerned,

president of the United States and scandal for many, many years. He's directed four films, first of which was very well received, actually, a walk on the moon, the one about Vigo Mortensen and Diane Lane going to Woodstock or meeting at Woodstock or something with Woodstock. Diane Lane got critics prizes for that. And also written by the writer of conviction, Pamela Gray. So this is sort of a re-teaming of them. is the last, he hasn't directed a feature film since Conviction. Other films, though, he directed the very anonymous romantic comedy, someone like you, where Ashley Judd plays a woman named Jane Goodall for some reason,

but not the famous chimp researcher. And she and Hugh Jackman are like antagonists to each other, but then they fall in love, like that kind. She has a whole philosophy about. about relationships, and he challenges that, and they end up, like, whatever, whatever. And then the other film he directed is the terrible Paul Haggis scripted Zach Braff starring The Last Kiss, which shows up on our IMD game, weirdly a lot.

All the time. And we mention it because it is, of course, a Jacinda Barrett movie, and we will always mention a Jacinda Barrett movie. But, like, incredibly well-cast film about the most annoying 20s. 20-something jerks people. It's just, it was the movie that, like, after the people had their buyer's remorse against, about Garden State, that, like, they all really took it out on the last kiss, because the last kiss was all of the bad things about Garden State with none of the charming

things. I do think there are plenty of charming things about Garden State, but we don't have to get into that. That's a whole other conversation. Yeah, Tony Goldman's an interesting director in that way, and that, like, he doesn't seem to have a directorial stamp or style, but he's such a. a notable character actor that it's always

interesting to see that he's directed for feature films in this way. Indeed. I'm just going through my notes right now. I didn't mention that Talia Balsam shows up for a scene in this movie. I always like when Taliah Balsam shows up

because is George Clooney's ex-wife or ex-girlfriend? Yes. Ex-wife, right? They were married. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

Always notable to to... And she's a great character actress, too. I wrote down the way Hillary Swank says torts exam. That was my only note. It was just like I wrote it. But she says it. It was funny enough that I wanted to write it down towards exam.

Again, Sopranos. Oh, we didn't mention, I just want to mention very quickly. Martha Coakley, the real-life, Massachusetts politician, Martha Coakley, is a character who was name-checked in this movie, although she never actually appears. she famously was the one who the Democrat who ran to fill Ted Kennedy's seat after he died and she lost to Scott Brown who that like, remember how that like fucked up the balance of the Senate in Obama's first term and also Scott Brown is the father of former American Idol semi-finalist, Aela Brown, that's the only thing I really know about Scott Brown. and then she also lost, like, the governor race in Massachusetts as a Democrat.

Basically, like, prominent Democrat who lost two races to Republicans in fucking Massachusetts. So, like, thank you. But I was reading, just, like, clicked out of her Wikipedia page really quickly. And I just want to read this one graph where it just says she was the Democratic nominee in the 2010 special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. She lost to Scott Brown in what was widely considered an upset. that she won re-election as Attorney General in 2010. That's why she's mentioned in this movie because she's the Attorney General of Massachusetts.

She was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014, but lost to Republican Charlie Baker. Coakley is now a lobbyist for the e-cigarette company Jewel. Oh, God. Right? Right. Comes out of nowhere. Truly an 11th hour number, to be sure. She said, follow your heart, your intuition.

Let's vape. Oh, God. That should be Jules' tagline, shouldn't it? Follow your heart, your intuition, let's vape. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, Martha Coakley, the villain of this movie, even though she never shows up. Oh, boy. Should we move on to the IMDB game? Let's do it.

All right, can you tell our listeners what the IMDB game is? Hey, sure, why not? Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMD says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that is not enough, it becomes a free-for-all of hints.

That's the IMDB game. Joseph, would you like to give or guess first? I'll give first. Why not? All right. Hoomst do you have for me? So I just mentioned Tony Goldwyn, a famous actor and director. He was on the entire run of ABC's scandal, a show that was messy as hell, but I very much enjoyed it. it, classic Shonda Rhymes TV sopiness.

And his romantic counterpart in that show, also the lead of that show, is the great Carrie Washington. Spectacular. So I'm going to have you guess. Carrie Washington's known for one. Okay. How much TV's on there? Just the one.

Just the one. The one television is going to be scandal. It is indeed scandal. Scandal. Ray. Incorrect. Wow. Really?

Okay. Surprising. This is shitty, but Django Unchained is probably there. It is. She says like two words. Yeah. If that. Yep.

What about Save the Last Dance? Save the Last Dance. Yes, correct. Cool. Is she his sister in that? She is, yes, she is the love interest, uh, Julia Stiles' best friend and then starts dating the brother um right what is his act that actor sean patrick thomas uh yes cruel intentions is

sean patrick thomas um it is not okay from here because it's not little fires everywhere gonna have to doubt that it is the prom where she is homophobically cast as a homophob Uh, refused to believe in any world where, uh, Carrie Washington is how buffabic. Um, um, see, she's played wives in things. She has. That she deserves better than being wives. She was in that, um, was it Neil? It's not Neil Aute, is it where Samuel L. Jackson is the cop?

I believe that is Neil Abute. It is. I don't know if he wrote it, but he definitely doesn't. directed it. I don't think it's that because I don't remember the name of it. It's something generic. I can remember. I will just tell you that.

She is in the Chris Rock movie. I think I love my wife. So I think it's I think I love my wife because she's probably second build in it. She is in that, but it is not that film. So that is your second strike. That film was from 2007. Your missing film is from 2006. 2006.

So it's after Ray. Correct. It's, maybe it is that Samuel Jackson Cop movie. Lord knows when that came out. Well, wait, 2006, she is in the Last King of Scotland, which is Boris Whitaker's Oscar. Is it the Last King of Scotland? She does play a wife in The Last King of Scotland. It is correct, yes.

Yeah, she has a sex scene with James. A super hot sex scene with James McAvoy, I will say. A plus thumbs up to that sex. A lot of his butt in that movie. Yep. Yeah, well done. Good job. Thank you. For you, I maybe went a little easy on you because I gave you a very difficult quiz, but relating back to the quiz, how could I not give you the actress that has appeared in the most THR actress roundtables? It's one, Miss Amy Adams. Have we never done Amy? Andy Adams? On like one of the earliest episodes, we did it on the Shop Girl episode when we had Pam as a guest, but that was like two years ago. Okay. All right. And I've forgotten it probably changed since then. All right. Amy Adams is one of them Junebug. No. Off to a roaring start, Joe. Okay. Junebug is the one you guessed from her Oscar nominations? Yeah. It's, it feels like, it feels like it feels like. a great movie, but like... I don't even know where you can watch that movie. Fine. Listen, you just gave me a very humiliating quiz that I did very poorly at, so you can

stop... You did very well. You can stop shading me for my incorrect answers. I gave you a very easy person for your IMDB. Yeah, except that she's got a billion roles that she's notable for. All right. Arrival. Arrival, yes. Enchanted.

Enchanted, yes. Um, see, for some reason, I don't think it's the fighter, which means that it probably is the fighter. The master. No, not the master. Okay. So your years are 2008 and 2013. American hustle. American hustle. And doubt. And doubt. Correct. Well done. Thank God. Thank God. There is no DC Cinematic Universe movies on here, which I do believe has not always been the case. And that's why I was like, okay, I'm pretty sure, like, Man of Steel was on here before. Yeah, yeah.

Justice League God. The, yeah, the Amy Adams cut. Where is the, where is the Amy Adams cut of that film? I ask you. Put that on HBO Max instead of movies that deserve to be in theaters. Anyway, good episode. Yeah, that's our episode. If you guys want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out our Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tomler.com.

You should also check out our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joseph, where can the listeners find more of you and your thoughts? Oh, you know, I'm at Twitter at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I am on letterboxed, trying very hard to plow through the films of 2020. Joe Reed, read spelled the exact same way. And I am also on Twitter at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L, also on Letterboxed under the same name. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and

Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and wherever else you get your podcast, now including Spotify. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility, so please devote yourselves to our cause so much that you have to... What, fuck. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, so please devote yourselves to our cause so much they have to give you that law degree.

That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Guess what? Next week is Katzisode. Everyone's a winner, baby. That's no lie. You never fail to satisfy. It's no. Yeah, yeah.