PART OF THE IN CROWD
Some are still cutting their teeth on celluloid, others have been at it for decades, celebrated but not yet loaded down with shiny hardware. In the case of first-time nominees, it’s not your age that decides when Oscar calls, it’s the role of a year, or of a lifetime. Especially in the case of actors, their chances are as good as -- if not better than -- those who’ve been nominated previously. At the 2005 awards, newbie actor nominees swept the field. Here’s a look at the actresses and actors -- on the next page -- who received their first nod from the academy last week, where you may have seen them and how they’re taking it.
-- Lisa Rosen
--
ACTRESSES
Viola Davis
Age: 43
Role nominated: Mrs. Miller, the beleaguered mother in “Doubt”
Best known previously for: Eva May, the damaged mother in “Antwone Fisher” (2002)
How does it feel to get that first nomination? “I couldn’t think of a better role to have gotten it for because it’s my kind of role. I like black characters who are humanized, black women who are atypical, more subtle in their approach. This would be the role that I would want to be remembered for.”
What was the key to playing Mrs. Miller? “It culminated in one line that Sister Aloysius says: ‘What kind of mother are you?’ That’s the key to my character. She is a woman who is trying to be a good mother. That’s it. Whenever you get a character, I don’t care how complicated the character is, they are driven by a basic human need. And the key to this woman’s need is to just be a good mother. And the obstacles in her path are placed there by society.”
Anne Hathaway
Age: 26
Role nominated: Kym, the damaged wrecking ball in “Rachel Getting Married”
Best known previously for: Andy the assistant in “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006)
How does it feel? We’re not sure because Hathaway was not available for comment. But when her early Oscar buzz began, she said: “It’s delightful and flattering.”
What was the key to the character? Only she could say and, well, she didn’t. But in an earlier interview, she spoke of the film this way: “It was such a breakthrough for me in terms of my character, a breakthrough in terms of my acting. . . . It was a big thing!”
Taraji P. Henson
Age: 38
Role nominated: Queenie, Brad Pitt’s loving adoptive mother in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Best known previously for: Shug, the sweet-natured hooker in “Hustle & Flow” (2005); also sang on the soundtrack
How does it feel to get your first Oscar nomination? “In 2005, when Three 6 Mafia won for ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,’ I made it on that stage [to perform], and something inside of me was like, ‘Hmm, wonder if I’ll ever come back on this stage?’ But just being nominated is such an honor, with the amazing women in the category.”
What was the key into Queenie’s character for you? “She understood love and how you can’t put conditions on love. Initially when I read the script, that’s what leapt off the page. How this black woman in the early 1900s was able to look past the color of his skin and his exterior features and she was able to take him in and give him life and love, as he deserved. He’s a human.”
Melissa Leo
Age: 48
Role nominated: Ray, the reluctant smuggler of illegal immigrants in “Frozen River”
Best known previously for: Benicio Del Toro’s long-suffering wife in the feature “21 Grams” (2003), Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the NBC series “Homicide: Life on the Street”
How does it feel to get that first nomination? “I feel like my life has changed. I am delighted to be so honored.”
What about how the character and film spoke to audiences? “While this tells a tale of bleak proportions, it is also full of hope and human strength. It shows how the better part of a human being [comes out] in the most dire of circumstances.”
--
ACTORS
Josh Brolin
Age: 40
Role nominated: Troubled San Francisco Supervisor Dan White in “Milk”
Best known previously for: The unlucky Llewelyn Moss in last year’s winning picture “No Country for Old Men”
What was the key to your character? “Allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to feel like an exposed nerve. On set, everyone else was having a gay, old time. I show up as the guy who creates the monstrous insanity. Making this guy human was what I set out to do. Why did a decent guy like this resort to the most monstrous thing a person can do?”
Richard Jenkins
Age: 61
Role nominated: Walter Vale, a quietly lonely professor who finds joy and heartbreak in equal measure in “The Visitor”
Best known previously for: Nathaniel Fisher, the ghostly patriarch in the HBO series “Six Feet Under” (2001-05)
How does it feel to get your first Oscar nomination? “I was stunned and humbled, that’s the truth. There are so many great performances this year. It is terrific to be nominated. It’s not something that was ever on my radar.”
What was the key to the character for you? “To trust that the story would unfold without trying to help it. [As Walter] I always felt like I wanted to try to get out of the funk, try to find something interesting. So I never felt like I was half-dead. I was, but I was trying to get out of it. He was looking for different answers in the same places and not finding them. And that’s why, when he saw this opportunity with this kid, he took it.”
Frank Langella
Age: 71
Role nominated: Disgraced former president Richard Nixon in “Frost/Nixon”
Best known previously for: He’s Frank Langella. Seriously, who doesn’t know him? OK, Count Dracula in “Dracula” (1979)
How does it feel to get that first nomination? “I feel it’s a validation of the work from the people who most understand what is required.”
Is it different from other awards? “Yes, very different. The Oscar is the Everest of acting awards.”
What do you think it was about that film -- and your role in particular -- that spoke to audiences? “I hope audiences feel a sense of compassion for a man who, after all, was the architect of his own downfall -- and perhaps see that that tendency exists in all of us.”
Mickey Rourke
Age: 52
Role nominated: Randy “the Ram” Robinson, a beaten man looking for redemption in “The Wrestler”
Best known previously for: Memorable roles in the ‘80s films “9 1/2 Weeks,” “Body Heat” and “Diner”
How does it feel to get your first nomination? In a statement: “I’m so grateful and appreciative of this incredible honor. I’m tickled pink!”
Michael Shannon
Age: 34
Role nominated: John Givings, the unstable son who sounds oddly sane in “Revolutionary Road”
Best known previously for: The paranoid vet Peter Evans in the play and film “Bug” (2007)
Why do you think audiences connected with your character? “I’ve heard a lot of people refer to him as a truth teller. He’s the guy in the room who calls it like he sees it. We’d like to imagine ourselves like that guy, to be totally honest every moment of the day. It’s a hard way to live. It’s something we kind of strive for. So I think people get excited to see that in this character.”
--
--
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Past rookies
Acting Oscars sometimes go to first-time nominees -- Julie Andrews for “Mary Poppins,” Barbra Streisand for “Funny Girl” -- but in each of the last 10 years, at least one first-timer has been honored.
1999
Actor: Roberto Benigni, “Life Is Beautiful”
Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow, “Shakespeare in Love”
Supporting actor: James Coburn, “Affliction”
2000
Actress: Hilary Swank, “Boys Don’t Cry”
Supporting actress: Angelina Jolie, “Girl, Interrupted”
2001
Supporting actor: Benicio Del Toro, “Traffic”
Supporting actress: Marcia Gay Harden, “Pollock”
2002
Actress: Halle Berry, “Monster’s Ball”
Supporting actor: Jim Broadbent, “Iris”
Supporting actress: Jennifer Connelly, “A Beautiful Mind”
2003
Actor: Adrien Brody, “The Pianist”
Supporting actor: Chris Cooper, “Adaptation”
Supporting actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones, “Chicago”
2004
Actress: Charlize Theron, “Monster”
2005
Actor: Jamie Foxx, “Ray”
2006
Actress: Reese Witherspoon, “Walk the Line”
Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Capote”
Supporting actor: George Clooney, “Syriana”
Supporting actress: Rachel Weisz, “The Constant Gardener”
2007
Actor: Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”
Supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”
2008
Actress: Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en Rose”
Supporting actress: Tilda Swinton, “Michael Clayton”
-- Lisa Rosen