• Melissa Leo tells a different story on Adgate: She was doing what Parmount told her to do. [Daily Beast]
• Telecast hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway in their first interview on the upcoming festivities. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Meanwhile, Tom Sherak tells Susan Wloszczyna we’ll like the style of the show. [USA Today]
• Carter Burwell on a new score from old, familiar tunes in”True Grit.” [NBR]
• Oscar picks from Kristen Schaal, the voice of Trixie from “Toy Story 3.” [The Carpetbagger]
• Peter Weir talks “The Way Back” Down Under (i.e., back home). [Australian]
• “Tom Hooper’s film will be a legend, with or without the Oscars, because it is about the political leadership we crave.” [The Guardian]
[Photo: Paramount Pictures]
Comments
11 responses to “2/23 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Leo speaks again on Adgate, hosts speak out on show, Burwell on ‘Grit’ score”
Where in that Daily Beast article is Melissa Leo saying that Paramount came up with the ads? She’s described as, “Leo adds that she conceived the ads before she was nominated.”
Also, noting that she was too old to play Christian Bale’s and Mark Wahlberg’s mother isn’t news. She’s said it before.
“I’ve been busting my ass, trying to get the movie sold and seen, and now I show up where they ask, get put into hair and makeup that they pay for, so I can promote this thing [and campaign]. So I’m a little confused. I thought this is what we’re doing. This is what all the girls are doing.”
She’s not talking about the ads there. She’s talking about doing interviews, luncheons, other press stuff. (“This is what all the girls [actresses] are doing.”)
Again, she says she “conceived” the personal ads, not Paramount. But she’s worked for them on behalf of the movie.
That’s my take on it. I don’t think she’s backtracking.
Yeah, I had the same reaction, I don’t think she was saying the ads were Paramount’s idea at all.
I’m on the same side as San FranCinema. Its so misleading. I wish people would just lay off Melissa Leo , she’s just not a natural in the pr thing and is stumbling here and there, but that is what makes her genuine and real. And I dun think she did anything wrong with those ads thought they seemed tacky,
In fairness, I was largely responding via this Huffington Post item, but I suppose it is misleading on my part and I should have read it in context.
Although now that I look at it in context, come on, it leads in with:
“And as for that ad campaign that Hollywood isn’t sure what to think about? Truth be told, Leo said, she’s mystified.”
And then her quote. So…
That Huffington Post article is tabloid gossip at its worst. In the Daily Beast article Leo explains that she was reluctant to play Wahlberg’s mother at first because she was only 11 years older than he was. After meeting with Russell, the article reads, “Leo quickly overcame her misgivings. ‘David is like a magical child,’ she said. ‘His excitement is contagious and palpable and he was quite convinced that I should be his Alice.’. . . .By the end of two hours, Leo was sold. ‘I left and called my people and said, ‘I really want to do this film.’’”
The anonymous Huffington Post writer interpreted her benign comments as such: “She also talked about the indignity of having to play the mother of Mark Wahlberg, who at 39 is only 11 years her junior.” Indignity??
The viciousness with which the blogosphere has attacked Leo for her lack of media savvy over the course of this Oscar season has been disheartening, to say the least. Why is this even a story?
I agree with you on the Huff Post article, trent, and already removed the bit about her comments on playing Wahlberg’s mother. I do think the comment about the studio supposedly spear-heading the ads is worth noting, however.
Damn Melissa, smh. If she loses, she probably won’t forgive herself or Paramount (depending on which story you believe) for the rest of her life. This is Oscar politics gone incredibly wrong.
I love that the hymn from “True Grit” was the same as the hymn in “Night of the Hunter” all those years ago.