In Contention

Tag: Alexis Zegerman

  • INTERVIEW: Sally Hawkins

    Sally Hawkins“We didn’t necessarily set out to create someone as perpetually sunny as Poppy,” says Sally Hawkins of her radiant performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is currently making waves in the awards race. “But Mike was very dismissive of doing anything maudlin or moody with this project. So the optimism came early on for her. It’s like trying on different skins. And this skin just fit.”

    Spoken in a breezy, unassuming tone, it strikes me as a statement — equal parts pragmatic and eccentric — that could as easily have some from the mouth of Poppy herself, the cheery North London schoolteacher who forms the delightful center of Leigh’s latest perceptive study of British social mores.

    Indeed, when I first encounter Hawkins in the top-floor café of a West End bookshop, dressed in a somewhat Poppy-esque ensemble of emerald-green cardigan and flowing tie-dye skirt, it’s difficult not to be reminded at least a little of her character. Hawkins is certainly calmer and a little softer in person, but her easy-flowing conversation, accompanied by increasingly wild hand gestures, reveals something akin to Poppy’s humor and generosity of spirit.

    “I’m nothing like as extroverted as she is,” she says, smiling broadly.  “But how many people are?  If anyone says they see even a little of me in Poppy, or vice versa, I take that as the hugest compliment, because she just has life worked out. It’s not as if she’s negating that it’s hard. She just finds a way to deal with it, and finds a way to flow with people. She’s an extraordinary person. I think I learned a lot from her.”

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  • ‘Slumdog’ scores at BIFA Awards

    Thanks to bright-eyed, bushy-tailed commenter Silrone for pointing out that the winners of the British Independent Film Awards were announced while I was mired in technical problems.

    “Slumdog Millionaire” emerged as the evening’s big winner, taking Best British Film, Best Director and Best Newcomer for Dev Patel, though “Hunger” ran it close, also taking three prizes, including Best Actor for Michael Fassbender. I’m simultaneously surprised and unsurprised: “Slumdog” was certainly the obvious frontrunner, but the BIFAs have a history of not following the script.

    Such was the case in the Best Actress category, where “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s seemingly unbeatable Sally Hawkins lost out to Vera Farmiga for “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.” I’m disappointed for Hawkins, though she will have other opportunities this season. In any case, I’m quite pleased to see some credit for Farmiga, my admiration for whom I recently expressed on these pages.

    Meanwhile, “Happy-Go-Lucky” was rewarded with well-deserved victories for supporting stars Eddie Marsan and Alexis Zegerman, while my fellow “In Bruges” fans will be pleased to see Martin McDonagh took home some hardware for his writing.

    Incidentally, I scored 7/13 in my predictions. Poor form — hopefully it’s all up from here. Full list of winners below the cut.

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  • ‘Hunger,’ ‘Bruges’ lead British Independent nominees

    The British Independent Film Awards are an odd, under-the-radar institution that frequently like to avoid the obvious and champion the underdog. Last year, for example, they bypassed the starrier likes of “Eastern Promises” and “Notes on a Scandal” to award their top prize to Anton Corbijn’s magnificent, under-rewarded “Control.” The previous year, they were even more daring: Best Film justly went to “This Is England” over “The Queen,” while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — gasp — lost to the unknown leads of Andrea Arnold’s “Red Road.”

    So it is this year that the nominations feature one doozy of a snub: while the top prize, Best British Independent Film, features such obvious contenders as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Hunger,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” is nowhere to be found. Ditto Best Director and Best Screenplay — the omission particularly galling when the likes of (gack) “Son of Rambow” made the cut. Did Leigh run over the voters’ dogs or something? Sanity at least prevailed in the acting categories, where Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan and the wonderful Alexis Zegerman all made the cut.

    Zegerman’s category, Best Supporting Actress, is an indication of how slim the pickings were this year: nods for the mediocre likes of Hayley Atwell in “The Duchess” and Sienna Miller in “The Edge of Love” don’t suggest a very deep pool of nominees. Meanwhile, Kristin Scott Thomas’ mention for the fun but flimsy trifle “Easy Virtue,” which I saw this morning at the Festival, is clearly an indirect nomination for her ineligible awards-bound work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

    Still, there’s plenty to cheer about here, not least the impressive showing for Martin McDonagh’s superb “In Bruges,” which jointly leads the field with “Hunger,” both films receiving seven nominations. The inevitability of the nominations for “Hunger” and “Slumdog Millionaire” doesn’t make them any less deserving, and “Man on Wire” is a pleasingly left-field choice in the top category.

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