1998: Toni Collette in "Velvet Goldmine"
Friday, July 2, 2021 at 8:00PM We're revisiting the 1998 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternates to Oscar's ballot.
by Nick Taylor
We begin our dive into 1998 with one of two films to get lone nominations for Costume Design but deserved way more attention in other categories. I’ll have plenty to say about the treasure trove of supporting actressing in Beloved next week, but who could be a better starting point for a retrospective in this category than Toni Collette’s prismatic turn in Velvet Goldmine? Collette is a regular godsend to directors who need a smart actress to ground and humanize second-tier characters that might otherwise seem wan or uninteresting. The role of Mandy Slade, the storied wife of disgraced, long-missing glam superstar Brian Slade, is perhaps too fascinatingly written and too doted over by director Todd Haynes and his team of heroically imaginative collaborators to fit into a coterie of women like About a Boy’s Fiona Brewer or Krampus’ Sarah Engel. On top of that, the demands Haynes places on the role call upon a very different skill set than Collette is normally asked to use. And yet, what makes her work in Velvet Goldmine so exhilarating is how different her approach to this role is, giving what might be her most dissimilar performance in a career full of film-elevating work...
1998, Todd Haynes, Toni Collette, Velvet Goldmine 
