by Murtada
In this new weekly feature we will follow the Oscar contenders and examine how their many interviews and appearances impact their chances.
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone
As Silence continues to screen and Hacksaw Ridge continues to do well with award bodies, Garfield is making the rounds including the Hollywood Reporter Roundtable. When asked which actor he’d have with him if he was stranded on a desert island, he said:
Emma Stone. I love Emma. She's all right. She can come.
This comes after Emma casually mentioned in her Vogue 73 questions video that the best gift she received was a hand-made rocking chair. Guess what Andrew told THR in that roundtable? Yes you guessed it. He learned how to make a rocking chair as part of his preparation for Silence. Oh these two and their amicable breakup.
Meanwhile Emma is everywhere. La La Land finally hits theaters today and Emma continues her non stop press tour which started in Venice, back in August. She and Ryan Gosling were Hollywood immortalized together with the famous hand and footprint celebration. Emma being ever the effervescent charmer mixed gratitude with just the right amount of humility in her remarks:
This is embarrassing. I thought this was maybe the kind of a thing where you come and put your hand prints in cement and then they take them away and put them up somewhere. I was told they're going to stay here, so I cried a little bit inside."
Amy Adams
Another actor who’s tirelessly campaigning this season is Adams, pictured with Spike Jonze at an Arrival screening he hosted for her in NY. In an interview with the NYTimes, Adams shed a light on why she continues to campaign even after 5 previous nominations:
"It’s easy to get caught up, not in the nominations — not in the reward-award aspect of it, but just in everything that it becomes. []. For me, it definitely at times is overwhelming, that whole process. But I’m always grateful because the nomination for “Junebug” and campaigning launched what is my current career. So I can’t poo-poo the process."
Ruth Negga
Stone is not the only best actress hopeful to get a Vogue cover this year. Negga is Vogue's January star. This is a huge get for a rising star. Alicia Vikander, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman were all on the cover of Vogue’s January issue the year they won their Oscars. Sienna Miller was also on that cover the year of American Sniper and Foxcatcher, so it doesn’t always correlate.
What caught our attention in the accompaying interview is how Ruth, as someone of mixed race heritage, relates to the message of the movie:
It does annoy Joel and me when people say it’s a quiet film. Because it doesn’t feel very quiet to us. It feels really loud.
It seems that perception is hurting the movie’s chances at a nomination. It missed the AFI Top 10 list of the year, which is especially strange for such a quintessentially American story. The 10 movies that AFI chose were Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Silence, Sully and Zootopia.
Casey Affleck
Last week Casey Affleck’s won his first and definitely not last best actor award at the Gothams, for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. His speech started well with shoutouts to his writer / director Kenneth “Kenny” Lonergan and his co-stars. But then he rambled on. And on. With unnecessary digs at Nick Kroll and Joel Edgerton. Affleck has other troubles that might impede a win but a coach or some preparation can certainly help with the speeches. He’ll have at least 2 more chances to practice in January, having won both NBR and NYFCC, before the televised awards start and a bad speech becomes something that might actually have an impact.