In Contention

Tag: Hope Davis

  • The Great Performances: 2003

    Sean Penn in Mystic RiverThere is little doubt in my mind I am going to take some heat this week, so let’s kick it off right away with my belief that Sean Penn deserved his Best Actor Oscar for “Mystic River,” a performance of overwhelming ferocity and staggering emotional power.

    Yes, I too loved Bill Murray in “Lost in Translation,” and would have loved to have seen him win, but he didn’t, and frankly he lost to a stronger performance (in my opinion). I know it is a cliche to say the nomination is the reward, but I would hope that Murray would be happy with that.

    But there were so many great male performances in 2003!

    Robert Duvall was superb in “Open Range” as the wily old rancher who ends up in a gunfight for his life with his friend, played by the also fantastic Kevin Costner, by his side. Tom Cruise gave a great performance in “The Last Samurai” for director Edward Zwick, while Russell Crowe was again brilliant in “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” adding to his string of stunning performances.

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  • The Great Performances: 2002

    Chris Cooper in Adaptation2002 was probably one of the greatest years for performance excellence in film history, from leading actor right through all the supporting players. They could have easily nominated 10 actors in each of the four acting categories, and still missed some.

    Though Adrien Brody won the Oscar for “The Pianist,” which was a huge shock, I have always felt that Jack Nicholson gave one of his finest performances in “About Schmidt.” I suspect he and Daniel Day-Lewis in “Gangs of New York” may have split the vote in some way, allowing for Brody’s win.

    Michael Caine was up for “The Quiet American” after that film scored with critics at many precursor fests, and Nicolas Cage was the fifth nominee in “Adaptation.” Great performances all, deserving performances all, but there were so many other noteworthy turns.  Like Robin Williams’s chilling performance in “One Hour Photo” as a deranged photo lab worker obsessed with a family. Equally brilliant was Leonardo DiCaprio as the young fraudster in “Catch Me If You Can” while Tom Cruise gave one of his very best performances in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report.”

    One of the year’s very best films, “Road to Perdition,” contained one of the year’s best leading performances from Tom Hanks, as a lethal killer on the run from his own mob.  And though I loathe the work of Richard Gere, I must confess he did some of his finest work in “Chicago,” winning a Golden Globe for his performance, but no Oscar nod.

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  • Hope Davis is Hillary Clinton

    Hope DavisYou may recall, a few months ago, Kris confessing his undying love for one Ms. Hope Davis, a crush I fully understand even if I don’t entirely share in it. (My heart is still yours, Ms. Keener.) Bottom line: quirky-beautiful woman, wonderful actress, all-round fox.

    So I’m curious to know how Kris feels about the news of his would-be paramour replacing Julianne Moore to play Hillary Clinton in Peter Morgan’s third Tony Blair project “The Special Relationship.”

    I’m quite pleased with the development: great actress that Moore is, she doesn’t quite strike me as a strident enough screen presence for Clinton. I find it easier to imagine Davis walking the walk with tongue ever-so-slightly in cheek, and to be honest, I find her a moderately closer physical match too. (No offence meant, Kris.)

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  • Hope Davis lands a Tony nomination for ‘God of Carnage’

    Hope Davis in God of CarnageBack in March I expressed some slight irritation over the fact that Marcia Gay Harden was pulling attention away from my new crush Hope Davis for her admittedly brilliant turn on Broadway in “God of Carnage.”  It’s not like I have it in for Harden or anything, mind you.  All four principles in the cast deserve awards recognition for their work in the superlative play.  But Davis, I felt, stood out from the rest of the pack.

    Well it seems the Tony gods have smiled down on Davis today.  The actress landed a nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, right alongside Harden.  Co-stars Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini also wracked up nominations for lead actor and the production also popped up in the Best Play and Direction (Matthew Warchus) fields, bringing the tally to six.  Bravo to all involved.

    I haven’t caught anything else that’s current so I can’t comment on the rest of the field, but it’s nice to see that Scott Rudin’s double-dip with “Carnage” and Eugene Ionesco’s “Exit the King” (four nominations) stuck the landing.

  • Angry/sexy

    And Hope Davis… well… I have always liked watching Hope Davis’ work, but I haven’t always understood how directors saw her in some of the roles she’s played. Something like American Splendor is character work… terrific. But there has always been a kind of angry, sexy blond thing that I could see that directors saw in her, but I never really got it. To see her throw herself around the stage here… fearless… and showing herself to have a body that you would expect to see gracing the pages of Maxim. After years of watching her work, a serious actress, I must admit that it came as a real surprise to me.

    From David Poland’s recent comments on the New York stage production of “God of Carnage,” which I touched briefly upon two weeks ago.  I’m glad someone else recognized this fireball.

  • Older and wiser

    Hope Davis’s recent complaint about the issue of Hollywood ageism, prompted by being offered characters well over her actual age, seems to have struck a bit of a chord this week. The Guardian’s discussion of the matter was also recently picked up on in the New York Times, while Cinematical contributed to the discussion by celebrating Julia Roberts’ willingness to acknowledge her over-40 status in “Duplicity.”

    Coincidentally enough, the issue also crops up in a recent Guardian interview with the delicious Catherine Keener. Ostensibly to publicise Michael Winterbottom’s “Genova” (a sadly rather negligible work, though Keener is stellar is always), it’s more of a reflective career profile, opening with the staggering (to me, anyway) revelation that she is 50 years old. (Seriously?!) Here, she describes the pleasures of ageing as a character actress rather than as a movie star:

    “Interesting characters are pretty rare if you really want to be the lead. That’s the usual complaint of actresses my age, and they’re not wrong. They depend on you being beautiful. Since I’m not cast for my physicality, I’m not that interested in those parts. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to stay in the moment.”

    She says she feels sisterly towards other women actors her age, and would concur that Hollywood remains ageist and sexist, especially when it comes to big-budget material. Somehow, she has found a niche that avoids these traps. She despairs a bit of the new generation of women coming up: “Everyone seems so frigging young and naive. They had some survey of younger women and they asked them what they aspired to be. The most popular answer was to be the assistant to a movie star – not the movie star, but the assistant!”

    Yeah, as if Catherine Keener isn’t sexy. Anyway, she’s a really smart, engaging interviewee; read the rest here. Meanwhile, with Michelle Pfeiffer shortly to appear on our screens as Rupert Friend’s decades-older seductress in “Cheri,” something tells me this isn’t the last we’ll hear on the “older women in Hollywood” issue in the months to come.

  • Dog years

    Given that Kris’ recently declared love for the 45-year-old-and-still-sexy-thank-you-very-much actress Hope Davis seems to be shared by a few of you out there, you may be tickled by this extract from a Guardian piece, in which Hadley Freeman tackles the eternal issue of Hollywood’s double standards of gender and age:

    It is all too easy for a female actor to find herself cast as the mother of someone who once played her boyfriend as soon as she blows out the candles on her 35th birthday cake. This has long been an accepted fact of Hollywood life, and one that most women keep schtum about as they know they should be grateful to get any roles at all in their decrepit post-30s.

    But last weekend, Hope Davis finally broke ranks to admit she was somewhat “peeved” when she was recently offered a role playing the mother of Johnny Depp, a concept that would have tested the skills of the most talented special effects department, seeing as Davis was actually born the year after Depp.

    Heh. I have no idea what film Freeman is referring to, but that’s a pretty hilarious tidbit. Suggesting that Hollywood views the man-to-woman age ratio as roughly akin to that of man-to-dog, Freeman goes on to list other familiar examples of the trend, such as Glenn Close playing Gertrude to Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, and the bizarre spectacle of seeing Angelina Jolie mother Colin Farrell in “Alexander.” By comparison, Taraji P. Henson’s playing opposite a shrunken, digitised version of Brad Pitt seems positively conventional.

  • Davis flies under the radar

    (from left) Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis in the Broadway production of God of CarnageFrom AP drama critic Michael Kuchwara on the Broadway production of “God of Carnage”:

    The real revelation of the evening, though, is Harden, usually seen in much more somber roles such as her Oscar-winning performance as Lee Krasner in the film “Pollack.” In “Carnage,” she undergoes the play’s most startling transformation — from quiet, considerate woman concerned about such tragedies as Darfur to a bellowing harridan who’s not above throwing a punch or two. It’s one of those swell, showy comic portraits that has Tony nomination (and probably the prize, too) written all over it.

    Don’t get me wrong.  I pretty much agree with every word written here.  But I just wish Hope Davis’s slow burn (which simmers a bit more than Harden’s fireworks display) had garnered more than broad priase like “delicious self-effacement that hides a simmering rage” and an aside about one moment of showmanship that really says less about the character than most everything that precedes it.

    But, like I said…I’m in love.  Perhaps I’m biased.  There’s also this great Arts & Leisure piece on Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini, worth a look.

    Anyway, with theater on the mind, I’ve been shamed by the fact that “August: Osage County” has eluded me since it debuted in Chicago and New York two years ago, but I finally caught up with it this afternoon…and it makes me want to put down my pen, take up a different line of work.  Depressingly brilliant piece.

  • Crush

    Hope DavisAlright, I’ve got to confess an undying love here and now, a lingering sort of obsessive interest, both cerebral and, of course, physical, in an actress that can do no wrong.  Ever.  I’m talking to you, Hope Davis.

    There, I said it.  Sure, you’re 45 (as of Monday, so Happy Birthday) and I’m 27, plus, you’re married with children.  So running off with some silly blogger is probably not your cup of tea.  I get it.  But now you know.  Just consider it.

    In all seriousness, though, I thought Davis and her trademark comedic timing pitch-perfect in the New York production of “God of Carnage,” which I saw earlier this evening after missing the Ralph Fiennes-starring London leg last summer.  Marcia Gay Harden was equally entertaining and James Gandolfini really sold the money lines in an intriguing performance.  Jeff Daniels was perhaps a tad histrionic, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Davis.  And even though I’ve always been something of a fan of her decidedly accomplished work, it didn’t quite hit me until tonight’s show just how much of an under-appreciated talent she continues to be.

    And to circle it back, am I alone in thinking she’s a total fox?  Maybe it’s just a crush.

  • 10/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    Philip Seymour Hoffman and Hope Davis in Synecdoche, New York• Tom Tapp rallies behind Kristin Scott Thomas’s work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.” [The Daily Beast]

    • Anne Thompson, meanwhile, thinks the actress leads the field.  (Sorry — the film just didn’t speak to me.) [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • After Spielberg and Greengrass bowed out, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” might end up in the hands of…Ben Stiller?  WTF? [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Michael Ordoñachats it up with Hope Davis, probably the least interesting female component of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • John Horn, meanwhile, writes a love letter to Clint Eastwood with “Changeling” set to bow nationwide. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Anthony Breznican gets some quality “Gran Torino” time with Clint Eastwood, plus some exclusive looks at the film’s first materials. [USA Today]

    • Missing the boat on so much of the subtle brilliance to be found in “W,” Christopher Rosen thinks Oliver Stone has simply gotten old. [New York Observer]

    • The director, meanwhile, takes part in an esteemed panel discussing the marks to be left by the current administration. [Slate]

    • Peter Bart makes the completely wrong-headed decision to chalk slumping ad sales revenue up to studios displaying a lack of talent support. [Peter Bart]