Deadline Hollywood - Awardsline - Oscar Nominees Part 1 - 02/08/17 by Deadline Hollywood

PRESENTS

FEBRUARY 8, 2017 OSCAR NOMINEES/PART 1

N o m i n ee s’ Gallery MAHERSHALA ALI NAOMIE HARRIS RUTH NEGGA CASEY AFFLECK MICHAEL SHANNON EMMA STONE NATALIE PORTMAN DEV PATEL DENZEL WASHINGTON MEL GIBSON

M O O N L I G H T The mag ic and master y of B ar r y Jenkins’ ode to the perse verance of love against the odds

DEADLINE.COM/AWARDSLINE

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A MASTERPIECE

“

WINNER

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW AWARDS I

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

WINNER NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS I

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

WINNER CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARDS I

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

” .

W I N N E R

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD ® D

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

“NO FILM THIS YEAR HAS MOVED ME MORE.” “TOGETHER CASEY AFFLECK AND KENNETH LONERGAN HAVE MADE A DRAMA OF RARE POWER. As an actor, Affleck is terrific at showing his characters’ inner workings without saying a line—you can always see the gears ticking behind his eyes.”

“CASEY AFFLECK JOINS THE RANKS OF GIANTS.” F O R

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Y O U R

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

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”

CASEY AFFLECK THE MOST HONORED PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTOR

BE B ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

SOUTHEASTERN FILM CRITICS ASSN.

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BE B ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

AT L A N TA F I L M C R I T I C S S O C I E TY

CASEY AFFLECK

HAWAII FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS ONLINE

DALLAS-FORT WORTH FILM CRITICS ASSN.

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLE ECK BOSTON ONLINE FILM CRITICS ASSS N .

C H I C AAGG O I N D E P E N D E N T F I L M C R I T I C S C I R C L E

BEST ACTOR

BES BE ST T ACT CTOR OR

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFL LECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BE B ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

LAS VEGAS FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CASEY AFFLECK

CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSN.

PHOENIX CRITICS CIRCLE

DETROIT FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

U TA H F I L M C R I T I C S A S S N .

AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF CINEMA & TELEVISION ARTS

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLE ECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BE B ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

VANCOUVER FILM CRITICS

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFL LECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST AC CT T TO OR OR

BEST BE ST AC CT TOR OR

ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

A U S T I N F I L M C R I T I C S A S S O C I ATT I O N

G EO R G I A F I L M C R I T I C S A S S O C I AT I O N

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTOR OR O R

BE B ES ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

BE B EST ST AC CT TOR OR

I N D I A N A F I L M J O U R N A L I S T S A S S O C I AT I O N

LONDON CRITICS’ CIRCLE

DENVER FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

I OWA F I L M C R I T I C S A SSO C I AT I O N

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFF FLECK OKLAHOMA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WAA S H I N G T O N D C A R E A F I L M C R I T I C S A S S N . W

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST AC CTO CT OR R

BEST BEST BE ST AC CT TO OR R

BE B E ES ST AC ST CT T TOR OR O R

GOTHAM AWARDS

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY Y AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST BE ST AC CT TO OR R

SAN DIEGO FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CASEY AFFLECK

S E AT T L E F I L M C R I T I C S SO C I E TY

NNOO RTH RRTT H CCAA RROO LI LINA N A F IL NA I M CRR IT I T ICC S AASS SSOO CI C IIAATI AATT IIOO N

BEST BE ST ACT CTOR O OR

BES BE ST T ACT CTOR OR

ST. LO U I S F I L M C R I T I C S A SS N .

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CASEY AFFLECK N AT I O N A L S O C I E TY O F F I L M C R I T I C S

CASEY AFFLECK

KANSAS CITY FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

CASEY AFFLECK

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

HOUSTON FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CASEY AFFLECK N E VA VADA FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

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CONTENTS

F E B RUA RY 8, 2 0 17 OSCA R NOMINE ES / PA RT 1

G EN ERAL M AN AG ER & C H IEF R EVEN UE OF F IC ER

7-11

ED ITOR

FIRST TAKE Octavia Spencer in Hidden Figures; Foreign Language endures a political shake-up

COVER STORY On the romance and craftsmanship of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight

THE DIALOGUE: NOMINEES’ GALLERY Mahershala Ali Naomie Harris Ruth Negga Casey Affleck Michael Shannon Emma Stone Natalie Portman Dev Patel Denzel Washington Mel Gibson

Stacey Farish Joe Utichi

C R EAT IVE D IR ECTOR

Craig Edwards

ASSISTAN T ED ITOR

Matt Grobar

D EAD L IN E CO- ED ITORS- IN - C H IEF

Nellie Andreeva Mike Fleming Jr.

AWAR D S ED ITOR & COLUM N IST

Pete Hammond

D EAD L IN E CON T R IB UTORS

Peter Bart Anita Busch Anthony D’Alessandro Lisa de Moraes Patrick Hipes David Lieberman Ross Lincoln Diana Lodderhose Amanda N’Duka Dominic Patten Erik Pedersen Denise Petski David Robb Nancy Tartaglione VID EO P ROD UC ER

David Janove

HANDICAPS Pete Hammond on Actor and Actress chances

C H AIR M AN & C EO

Jay Penske

VIC E C H AIR M AN

Gerry Byrne

C H IEF OP ERAT IN G OF F IC ER

George Grobar

SEN IOR VIC E P R ESID EN T, B USIN ESS D EVELOP M EN T

Craig Perreault

G EN ERAL COUN SEL & S.V. P. , H UM AN R ESOURC ES

Todd Greene

VIC E P R ESID EN T, C R EAT IVE

Nelson Anderson

VIC E P R ESID EN T, F IN AN C E

Ken DelAlcazar

VIC E P R ESID EN T, T V EN T ERTAIN M EN T SAL ES

Laura Lubrano

VIC E P R ESID EN T, F IL M

Carra Fenton

SEN IOR ACCOUN T EXEC UT IVES, T EL EVISION

Brianna Hamburger Tiffany Windju

AD SAL ES COOR D IN ATORS

ON THE COVER Alex Hibbert, Trevante Rhodes, Barry Jenkins & Ashton Sanders photographed for Deadline by Chris Chapman THIS PAGE Emma Stone photographed for Deadline by Chris Chapman

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Kristina Mazzeo Malik Simmons

P ROD UCT ION D IR ECTOR

Natalie Longman

D IST R IB UT ION D IR ECTOR

Michael Petre

ADVERT ISIN G IN QUIR IES

Stacey Farish 310-484-2553 sfarish@pmc.com

D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Cohen Media Group and Amazon Studios present

W I N N E R BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ASGHAR FARHADI ACADEMY AWARD® WINNING DIRECTOR OF ‘A SEPARATION’

2016

W I N N E R BEST SCREENPLAY BEST ACTOR

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2016

“ATTENTION, AS SOMEONE ONCE SAID, MUST BE PAID. A MARVEL...WITH EXQUISITE PATIENCE AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL, ASGHAR FARHADI BUILDS A SOLID AND SUSPENSEFUL PLOT OUT OF ORDINARY INCIDENTS, AND PACKS IT WITH RICH AND RESONANT IDEAS. MR. FARHADI’S CONTROL IS ASTONISHING, AS IS THE DISCIPLINE OF THE ACTORS.” –A.O. SCOTT,

“★★★★!

98% As of 2/2/17

FARHADI IS ON QUITE A ROLL... MAY BE THE BEST-WRITTEN AND PERFORMED THIRD ACT OF ANY FILM THIS DECADE.” –BOB STRAUSS,

“GRADE A. MAGNIFICENT.

PEOPLE OF EARTH: IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A MOVIE BY ASGHAR FARHADI, PLEASE, WHY NOT TREAT YOURSELF? FARHADI IS A GENIUS OF TENSION,

PLOT STRUCTURE, AND MYSTERIES.” –JOE MCGOVERN,

PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED

MATURE THEMATIC

ELEMENTS AND A PG-13 BRIEF BLOODY IMAGE Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13

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OFFICIAL AMPAS SCREENINGS

LOS ANGELES

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 8:50PM

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 6PM

NO RSVP REQUIRED

8949 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD, BEVERLY HILLS, CA 90212

4 WEST 54TH STREET BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH AVENUES, NEW YORK,NY 10019

SAMUEL GOLDWYN THEATER

NEW YORK CITY

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART CELESTE BARTOS THEATER

YOUR AMPAS CARD WILL ADMIT YOU AND A GUEST MONDAY-THURSDAY TO ANY SCREENING DURING THE FILM’S RUN, PENDING AVAILABILITY. CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.

2/2/17 5:53 PM

CONSIDER THIS

LionsgateAwards.com

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14 BEST PICTURE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS Â®

INCLUDING

LionsgateAwards.com Untitled-18 2

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DISRUPT

alex

ORS2017 ARE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW A DISRUPTOR?

At the Cannes Film Festival 2016, Deadline presented its inaugural list of industry DISRUPTORS; individuals and organizations that have fundamentally shaped the landscape of film and television, past and present. They included Ted Sarandos, Ang Lee, Roy Price and Peter Jackson. The list will return for 2017, with Deadline choosing a total of 30 DISRUPTORS to represent the maverick spirit required to deliver fresh ways of thinking that empower the industry to evolve. And for the first time, we are welcoming submissions on behalf of creative individuals or companies that you believe deserve to be recognized as disruptive forces. Deadline co-editors-in-chief Mike Fleming Jr. and Nellie Andreeva will determine the final list of DISRUPTORS, which will be printed in Deadlineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cannes Film Festival special magazine in May. The list will include a profile about what the DISRUPTORS selected did to change the landscape of their industry. Each DISRUPTOR featured will receive an award and will be invited to a celebration at the Cannes Film Festival in May. One DISRUPTOR will be invited to join Deadlineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mike Fleming Jr. on stage at Cannes Lions in June 2017. S U B M I T N O M I N E E S F O R D E A D L I N E D I S R U P T O R S B E F O R E M A R C H 7 AT :

W W W. D E A D L I N E .CO M / D I S R U P T O R S 2 0 17

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LENSING LA LA LAND p. 9

KUBO’S VISUAL EFFECTS p. 9

FOREIGN TRAVEL WOES p. 10

INTO ORBIT

In Hidden Figures, Octavia Spencer plays one of the women responsible for catapulting humankind to the stars, and rights an urgent historical wrong. BY JO E U T I C H I

AS DOROTHY VAUGHAN in Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures, Octavia Spencer joins a cast of extraordinary characters working at NASA in the 1960s during the height of segregation and the struggle for civil rights. Along with Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and an entire team of gifted black women mathematicians, Vaughan was instrumental in helping perform the complex calculations necessary to launch astronauts into the cosmos. And yet Hidden Figures is the first movie to tell these women’s stories, based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, who extracted this real history from the NASA archives. As artists engage in an urgent discussion about the absence of diverse stories from the big screen, Hidden Figures reveals the remarkable resilience of a group of women whose voices demand to be heard.

PHOTOGRAPH BY

Mark Mann

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I SEE A VICTORY Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures. In the row behind, Taraji P. Henson (left) and Janelle Monáe.

films with people of color is not a reaction to #OscarsSoWhite. I know, and I don’t mean to say that. But when I see a movie like Hidden Figures, I hope that it’s a sign that these kinds of stories won’t be ignored anymore. I know that I have projects coming up, and I know that Viola [Davis] and Taraji [P. Henson] have projects coming up. I know Idris Elba is headlining a few things, and I hope Mahershala Ali and André Holland and David Oyelowo have things coming up. And also, you know, I’m taking a more active role in producing, and so is Viola. I can’t see

My first thought, on hearing about

women are, so that by the time I read

going on in our country. If you aren’t

this year being an isolated thing, but

this movie, was that these stories

that, and I started piecing together

inspired by that there’s something

then, I thought Hillary was going to be

were too essential to have never

the little information that I found, I felt

wrong with you. They knew what they

president, so I can’t tell you for sure.

been heard before. Did you have a

pretty secure in what I had to do to

were capable of, they knew what their

similar reaction?

bring her to life.

country was capable of, and they were

have a ways to go, because they still

at the forefront of something amazing.

aren’t inclined to greenlight a movie

I totally thought it was a work of

Her mathematical prowess is not

The tide has changed, but we still

fiction. When history obscured these

something that I have. Very few people

I don’t know if they really understood

that’s starring a person of color,

women’s contributions, they were

have it, actually. And what I did find is

what their impact would be, but they

without a long list of white box-office

completely occluded from everything.

that Dorothy and Katherine [Jackson]

were a part of something greater

people. Are we where we should be?

You could go to NASA and find

were considered polymaths, and

than themselves, and that is what’s

No. We have some ground still to

mentions in the archives, but Google

that their knowledge was extensive

inspiring.

cover, but I’m optimistic because of

it—which is what I did when I heard

in many fields of mathematics,

about it—and you didn’t find anything.

and their understanding and their

special about that time in our history,

I thought it was like The Help—

acumen and aptitude was across

aside from the upheaval that was

in Hollywood” they assume “black”,

historical fiction.

many mathematical fields. Those

going on in our society as the civil

but diversity is all shapes and sizes,

aren’t ordinary women; those are

rights movement was happening.

varying ages, varying backgrounds

extraordinary women to begin with.

What’s special about NASA, and

and socioeconomic levels, varying

about the character that Kevin

degrees of education, impoverished

And then I was a little angry when I realized it was true. I felt compelled to be a part of it, because it was an idea

There’s something really, really

the year we’re having. And when people say “diversity

whose time had come to be told. It

You add, onto the extraordinary

Costner played, is that he was focused

and elite. We see a lot of the elite, but

was disbelief, and then a great sense

work, the fact that they were living

on the science, and within his world,

very little of the impoverished that

of pride afterwards.

in an era of segregation.

it didn’t matter if you wore skirts, it

isn’t stereotypical. Moonlight is one of

And now you understand how I feel,

didn’t matter if your skin was black

the few stories that cover what it’s like

And no small amount of

and how people of color have felt

or white, it was what could you

for the black, gay experience. There

responsibility.

throughout time. For me to not go

contribute. And for those women,

are many, many meanings of diversity,

Whenever you play anyone who’s a

to the dark side of things, I have to

that had to be refreshing, when the

to me. I want to see more Latin stories

real person, you have to start with the

not judge, because you can’t play a

steps were made to integrate the

told. More Asian stories.

internet and Googling, and trying to

character that you judge, and you have

bathrooms, even though it was de

figure out every detail about their lives,

to deal with the circumstances of the

jure law to keep them segregated. But

that are underrepresented in the film

every morsel, and there is a dearth

time. Being a contemporary woman

not within NASA, and so there’s that

industry, I’ve got to tell you, if I look

of material, quite honestly. I found an

playing this extraordinary woman—

beautiful, refreshing moment that

down a list of characters on a film, and

obituary for Dorothy Vaughan and a

this visionary—dropped into the time

these women were seen as invaluable

it doesn’t have gay, African-American

couple of thumbnail photographs, and I

capsule of everyday segregation,

people because of their minds, and

or Latin characters, I’m probably not

started to have a panic attack, because

de facto misogyny, blatant racism,

the scope of their contributions.

going to spend my money on the

that is not enough. And I didn’t want to

and the fact that they hadn’t even

be an intrusion with the family.

obtained their right to vote, and were

So now you contrast that with the

you. I see enough of the homogeneity,

considered second-class citizens by

urgent conversation we’re having

and I don’t need to support it with my

society...

in the arts today. This year has

dollar. And when we stop supporting

offered an eclectic mix of movies

things with our dollars that don’t

Thank god for Ted Melfi and Margot Lee Shetterly’s book. Margot had already done all of this extensive

They didn’t consider themselves

I mean, when I look at the people

ticket. I’m going to be real honest with

research. Ted sent us the early

second-class citizens; they knew what

that some have argued addressed

represent all of us, then you’ll see an

chapters, and only the chapters that

and who they were, so in spite of all of

#OscarsSoWhite—

explosion of diversity. Art is about

corresponded with the characters.

that, they were able to take our men

I think that’s what you guys are

reaching people that you wouldn’t

Margot does this wonderful thing of

to space and back. That is what keeps

thinking, but when you know how

normally reach. It’s about bringing us

laying the groundwork of who these

me grounded at this hour, given what’s

movies are made, the explosion of

together. ★

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CHARTED TERRITORY

Gold Derby’s Oscar Odds At press time, here is how Gold Derby’s experts ranked the Oscar chances in the Actor and Actress races. Get up-to-date rankings and make your own predictions at GoldDerby.com

From

PTA to West LA

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Swedish DP Linus Sandgren details one visual inspiration behind La La Land’s opening freeway sequence.

KNOWN FOR AUDACIOUS collaborations with

on his sleeve, naming Jacques Demy as a key

David O. Russell and Lasse Hallström, Swedish

inspiration from the early days of the project’s

cinematographer Linus Sandgren was inspired

development. With these influences in mind,

by wunderkind Damien Chazelle to shoot a

there is one major influence on Chazelle’s film

musical for the first time, netting him his first

that might surprise you—that being Paul Thomas

Oscar nomination.

Anderson’s classic Boogie Nights, which incorpo-

Make no mistake: The task in mounting La

rates the very same crane-steadicam combi-

La Land was as grand as the city of Los Angeles

nation to seamless, “magic” effect, giving the

itself—as captured by Sandgren, in all its twilight

feeling of being “Someone in the Crowd”.

wonder. The effort put into the film’s chore-

“Things like Boogie Nights have that play-

ography is obvious from the very first freeway

ful lift of the camera. Just the opening number,

sequence, which Sandgren broke down in great

when you go through the bar and introduce

detail with his director and an iPhone, orches-

people, and it never cuts, and you get a sense

trating careful movements between steadicam

you’re really there,” Sandgren explains. “I think it

and a crane, which would have to be kept out of

really was just that the camera should be free to

the film’s long, fluid takes.

express, be emotional, whatever it wants in the

With La La Land, Chazelle wore his influences

moment.”

CHIP OFF THE WOODBLOCK Visual effects supervisor Steve Emerson gives a glimpse into the process on Kubo and the Two Strings IN SCOOPING A VISUAL EFFECTS

have actors that we shoot on green

Oscar nomination, Travis Knight’s

screens. Those actors just happen to

Kubo and the Two Strings became

be very small, and they happen to be

the first animated film to do so since

brought to life one frame at a time.”

1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. With Knight’s Oregon-based

it to say that every little detail mat-

LAIKA for almost ten years—since

ters. Working alongside Knight on

the Coraline days—visual effects

Kubo, the key visual influence that

supervisor Steve Emerson says that

permeated the process—for every

that’s created by the woodblock

his department is integrated into the

department—was Japanese print-

printing process. It came down to us

making artist Kyoshi Saito, known

trying to figure out ways of getting

widely for his woodblock art.

woodblock patterning into each and

process from day one. “Even though it’s an animated film, our processes here are very

“There’s an economy of visual

Casey Affleck Manchester by the Sea

8/11

Denzel Washington Fences

13/8

Ryan Gosling La La Land

50/1

Andrew Garfield Hacksaw Ridge

66/1

Viggo Mortensen Captain Fantastic

100/1

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

every raindrop in the storm system,”

much rooted in a live-action visual

information, elegantly simplified

the visual effects supervisor recalls,

effects workflow,” Emerson says. “We

shapes, and then there’s the texture

laughing.

ODDS

Emma Stone La La Land

4/9

Natalie Portman Jackie

6/1

Isabelle Huppert Elle

6/1

Meryl Streep Florence Foster Jenkins

66/1

Ruth Negga Loving

80/1

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

ODDS

Mahershala Ali Moonlight

2/11

Jeff Bridges Hell or High Water

14/1

Michael Shannon Nocturnal Animals

18/1

Dev Patel Lion

50/1

Lucas Hedges Manchester by the Sea

66/1

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

At LAIKA’s Oregon facility, suffice

ODDS

Viola Davis Fences

1/10

Michelle Williams Manchester by the Sea

33/1

Naomie Harris Moonlight

50/1

Octavia Spencer Hidden Figures

66/1

Nicole Kidman Lion

80/1

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FO REI G N SPOTLI G HT

A NEW WORLD This page: director Asghar Farhadi. Opposite page, from top: A Man Called Ove; Farhadi directs The Salesman.

FOREIGN DISSERVICE

those impacted, and those involved

not attend even if exceptions for his

with the movies have largely told me

trip were to be made.

they stand in solidarity. An Oscar winner for A Separation,

Farhadi said he had fully intended to attend the ceremony, and share

How the policies of the new U.S. President have had a seismic effect on the Foreign Language Oscar race.

Iran’s Asghar Farhadi is nominated

his “opinions about these circum-

this year for psychological drama

stances” with the local press. He did

BY NA N C Y TA RTAG L I O N E

The Salesman. The film is about a

not want to “boycott the event as a

young couple forced to move into

show of objection” but his presence

THE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE

final nominations were announced

a new apartment after their old flat

had become accompanied “by ifs

FILM OSCAR RACE has its share

they came peacefully and without

becomes damaged. Once relocated,

and buts” which were “in no way

of passionate supporters each year,

surprise. Enter Donald Trump.

a sudden eruption of violence linked

acceptable,” he said.

and has certainly also had its fair

On January 27, the new Presi-

to the previous tenant changes the

Filmmakers and talent support

share of controversy. The one-

dent of the United States signed an

couple’s life. In the film, they are also

Farhadi’s decision, though some with

two punch of 2007’s 4 Months, 3

executive order titled “Protecting

starring in a production of Death of a

nuance.

Weeks and 2 Days not making the

the Nation From Foreign Terror-

Salesman.

shortlist springs easily to mind, as

ist Entry.” This barred people from

does the disqualification of The

seven countries travelling to the U.S.,

was signed, star Taraneh Alidoosti

stars in Hannes Holm’s nominee A

Band’s Visit over its use of English

and threw into question the status

said she would not attend the

Man Called Ove hoped to, but was

from that same year. This year, we

of at least one nominated director,

Oscars in protest, calling the ban

unsure she would be able to attend

got off to a rollicking start as Paul

while also affecting talent from other

“racist”. Over the next few days, word

the Oscars. Still, she told me she

Verhoeven’s Elle was snubbed by

films—in a category designed to

spread that the travel ban would

respected Farhadi’s choice. “I under-

the folks who select the shortlist.

celebrate the world’s different points

impact Farhadi. Sure enough, the

stand him totally and he lives in Iran.

That furor calmed as the movie won

of view. The Academy, the guilds and

director released a powerful state-

He’s much more Iranian. I can under-

two Golden Globes, and when the

Hollywood in general rallied behind

ment on January 29 saying he would

stand you don’t want somewhere

Even before the executive order

Bahar Pars, a fellow Iranian who also carries a Swedish passport and

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movie also is the first feature from

is nevertheless pensive about this

Dean and Martin Butler and the

moment in time, particularly regard-

first shot in the nation of Vanuatu.

ing Farhadi. “It’s difficult because I

It stars non-actors who had never

totally understand he doesn’t want

even watched a film, and it was

to come. But I also think that it’s

made with no electricity—every-

important that we’re together to use

thing was solar-powered, including

the freedom of speech. Six direc-

the editing bay.

tors might be stronger than staying

Set on the titular volcanic South Pacific island, it’s a story of starcrossed lovers that’s been compared

away… We should not let politics rule and win.” Zandvliet says he feels it’s the

to Romeo and Juliet. Wawa, being

job of filmmakers from all over the

readied for the ceremony that will

world to “tell and show and say

recognize her as a grown woman, is

what we feel. Whether it grows

in love with the handsome grandson

while you’re doing the movie, you

of the tribal chief. When, as part of

have to be present and see how the

an effort to prevent a war, Wawa is

world is going. It’s important we look

betrothed to a man from another

back and see what has happened

tribe, she must choose between loy-

and treat each other with respect

alty to her clan and her own heart.

and dignity.”

Dean and Butler worked up the

He didn’t set out to make a politi-

story with the local community over

cal film. “The way I see it, unfortu-

several months and were amazed

nately the movie becomes more

at the tribe’s capacity for change.

and more about how history almost

They were also the first people in

repeats itself, almost like if the past

the world to see the finished film.

was forgotten. It’s scary. It’s scar-

Bentley went in with a digital projec-

ing me that people don’t learn from

tor and “queen-sized sheets I sewed

what happened not too long ago in

together and strung them from a

Europe. People need to wake up.”

Bunyan tree.” It was a “magical expe-

Zandvliet added, “I hope the

rience” with the tribe’s chiefs saying

movie industry and artists in general

they formally considered it their film.

will not lay down, will not give up.

“For Martin and I, we will never get a

It’s important for even the millions

better review than that.” They’ll be

of viewers who watch the [Oscar]

strolling the red carpet with two of

show to see that life goes on and

the film’s local actors.

there is beauty in the world.”

somebody to tell you, ‘We don’t

biggest statement we can do.”

want you here.’ I totally understand

From the other side of the world,

Zandvliet is nominated for his post-

Toni Erdmann, which wowed audi-

and respect his decision. It is more

Bentley Dean, a co-director of

WWII drama Land of Mine. The Sony

ences at Cannes and has been on

important for me to stand there and

Australian Oscar nominee Tanna,

Pictures Classics title focuses on

an awards-and-adulation run since,

support the Iranian team.”

says he thinks the Foreign Language

the story of German POWs forced

says she has enjoyed the season but

category “is just wonderful. It says

to remove land mines from Dan-

“in the end it’s only about the films.

and is based on the bestselling book

the Academy is serious about diver-

ish beaches. Zandvliet was led to

I mean, the film is what I wanted to

by Fredrik Backman, whose wife

sity in cinema. It’s a celebration of

the story by certain family issues

send out to the world, hoping that it

also happens to be Iranian and was

the medium and it’s directly saying

but also because Denmark has “a

transforms in each [viewer’s] head.”

facing a similar situation to Pars’. The

that it doesn’t have to be spoken in

way of portraying ourselves as the

story centers on a grumpy retiree

English. A President effectively say-

good, helping nation. In all the mov-

she says, “I think we are all affected

who is still mourning his wife and

ing no, you cannot participate in this

ies we make, we’re always helping

by this and for me it’s not relevant

forms an unlikely friendship with the

medium, in the celebration of this

the Jews flee to Sweden and I just

which countries Donald Trump has

Iranian woman (Pars) who moves in

medium, is the antithesis of what

think its bullshit. We’re just as evil

banned. It’s racist and inhuman

next door. It’s about love and chang-

should be.”

as any other country. We have the

politics he is doing, from the very

same dark chapters and I think it’s

beginning.”

Ove was a smash hit in Sweden

ing stereotypes, messages which are certainly timely today. Pars says of Trump’s travel ban,

Of Farhadi specifically, Dean says,

Heading back to Europe, Martin

“My heart goes out to the filmmaker,

my responsibility as a director to tell

and all people affected by this… It’s

those stories.”

Maren Ade, director of the lauded

With regard to recent events,

For her, Farhadi “made a very good and clear statement and I

“It’s so crazy, but I’m not so sur-

a slap in the face. I hope that all of

prised. The world is burning, things

Hollywood does rally around this ter-

in early December. In early Febru-

“political person” who is “interested

are happening. Families can’t see

rible injustice.”

ary he says, “It’s different than

in cinema where there is someone

a few weeks ago. The world has

with a strong opinion behind [it],

each other, so my own problem

Tanna is the first film to score a

He spoke those words to me

agree with him.” Ade says she is a

seems very small. But if I’m stand-

nomination for Australia, which has

changed and brought more fear to

which doesn’t mean that the films

ing there on the red carpet, it’s the

submitted 10 titles since 1996. The

it.” Thrilled about the nomination, he

need to be purely polictical.” ★

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Frank Bruni,

8B E S T P I C T U R E A C A D E M Y AWA R D N O M I N AT I O N S Â®

INCLUDING

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As Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight earns eight Oscar nominations, JOE UTICHI attempts to convince its director that he has created one of the most romantic, hopeful movies of the year.

IN MOONLIGHT BLACK BOYS LOOK BLUE Alex Hibbert stars as the youngest Chiron in Moonlight, Barry Jenkins' adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney's play.

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His declaration “I am a craftsman,” he insists. comes a little while after I wonder whether he considers Chiron—the young hero of Jenkins’ Moonlight, who suffers through many injustices of life on the streets of urban Miami as he grapples with his sexuality—to be, at heart, a romantic. After all, people keep talking about the hope of possibility offered by Moonlight's touching final scenes. “Man, nah,” Jenkins insists. “He’s someone who’s very curious and open about the world, but that’s slowly beaten out of him by the reaction of the world around him. In love we expand, and in fear we retract. He’s a character that wants to love But, I ask, isn’t that elaboration and be loved.” in itself evidence of Chiron’s romanticism? “Undoubtedly, yes. But those things are taken away from him.” Jenkins considers his position for a moment, and then describes a scene in that final act of his unusual three-part coming-of-age story, that runs completely contrary to what he has just said. The now-grown-up Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) shares a look with the object of his earlier desires, Kevin (André Holland), with whom he has just reunited. DP James Laxton’s camera catches the look they share from each perspective, straight down the lens. “The romanticism comes back,” Jenkins says, “and we have André Holland smoking a cigarette right into the lens, right into the audience’s heart.”

At this point, as the two of us eat lunch on the rooftop of the Ace Hotel in Downtown LA, a waiter comes over to gush about Moonlight, and to thank Jenkins for making it. This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, the director insists (though it will happen twice in the short time we spend together) but it prompts him to ask himself, “What is it about this movie that I could show up here and a straight white guy, working on the roof of a fancy hotel bar, is beside himself? Someone who could not be further removed from the world of these characters, and when I saw his face it was exactly what I remember seeing in Trevante’s face, and in André’s face, in that moment.” A beat passes, and he laughs. “And now you’ve made me sound like a fucking romantic, and I’m a craftsman. I am a craftsman, I am a craftsman.” What is it about Moonlight? For the answer to that, we must go back to the moment Jenkins’ friend and Florida State University classmate, Adele Romanski, sat him down to tell him they should make a movie together, years after his debut feature, 2008’s Medicine for Melancholy, sparked briefly and then fizzled out, never developing into the career he had longed for. “We would just slog through ideas and, initially, there were no ideas,” Romanski remembers. “Eventually it became a fine process, where there was a list of ideas and we just talked through them.” One idea on that list, that Romanski liked and wanted to produce, was intensely personal to Jenkins’ own life—a mother-son story set in the Miami projects. But Jenkins dismissed it quickly because he didn’t feel ready to tell such a personal story. “It was basically like a biography of my mom’s life pretty much until the point that I was conceived,” Jenkins recalls. “But then he agreed with me about Moonlight, and didn’t see the personal in it,” Romanski laughs. “I was like, ‘That’s strange, Barry. You don’t see the…? OK. Alright.’ It tricked him into making him think it was someone else’s story, not his story.” After all, Jenkins is straight, and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unproduced play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, is more autobiographically McCraney’s story, about a young boy growing up in those same projects, but struggling with homosexuality in a world determined to reject him. “I think it snuck up on Barry,” Romanski says. “But some of us, myself included, saw that coming. I think he’s really put his heart out there for everyone.” “With Tarell’s piece, I saw the notion that the character Naomie Harris had to play, Paula, was very close to my mom,” Jenkins says, by way of

A BEAT PASSES, AND HE LAUGHS. “AND NOW Y U’VE MADE ME SOUND LIKE A FUCKING R MANTIC, AND I’M A CRAFTSMAN. I AM A CRAFTSMAN, I AM A CRAFTSMAN.” 16

P HOTO G RAP H BY CH R IS CH AP M A N /BAC K D ROP BY CAI T L IN D OH E RT Y/ WW W. P 1 M .CA

Barry Jenkins does not want me to call him a romantic.

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P HOTO G RAP H BY CH R IS CH AP M A N

THE THREE CHIRONS Shot exclusively for Deadline, actors Alex Hibbert, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders represent the three ages of Chiron.

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THE CRAFTSMAN DIrector Barry Jenkins. Right, from top: Hibbert with Supporting Actor nominee Mahershala Ali; Supporting Actress nominee Naomie Harris; Rhodes with AndrĂŠ Holland.

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explanation. “Everything tracked. But because of the distance—because it wasn’t my story—I thought I’d get to the point where I would be watching this kid, Chiron, and I wouldn’t be watching myself. Maybe it was good it came about that way, because it allowed me to remove this block I’d had, that I didn’t want to make a movie about myself.” Making something personal, Jenkins thought, would muddy his love of cinema and become too much like therapy. He wanted to craft something precise, not wrench it out of himself. “I kept trying to find a way to not turn the making of this film into something ‘important’. I wanted it to be a really strong piece of art, and it seemed like there needed to be a bit of distance in order for that to happen. I kind of tricked myself into believing in that distance, because of course it wasn’t there.” Jenkins reorganized the play a little, stripping back some of the dialogue to allow Chiron’s interior life to be suggested rather than stated. He also shaped it into the three-act structure of the movie, in which we meet Chiron separately as a child (Alex Hibbert), a teenager (Ashton Sanders) and an adult (Rhodes). A decade divides each chapter, and by the time we catch up with the grown-up Chiron, now going by the nickname “Black”, he has been firmly boxed in by his situation, dealing drugs and projecting an image of stereotypical masculinity. That wasn’t Jenkins’ destiny; he went to FSU and immersed himself in his love of the cinema. But “there’s an inevitability to the life that Chiron is leading,” Jenkins reflects. “For a lot of young men who grow up in the world Chiron grows up in, that inevitability is built into everyday life. So to me it felt organic that his life tracked that way.” Going against the grain of artificial cinematic narratives that seem to favor tales of clean breaks from life in the projects—often tied to financial success or fame—Moonlight, then, seems to end on a dour note… Until Chiron and Kevin share that look. “What happens over the last 30 minutes is so intense I can’t even describe it,” Jenkins says. “There is a sadness there, but I do love that people feel like it’s this way of opening up. I do think the way Trevante and André navigate those moments makes it hopeful, ultimately.” The film ends then. “And maybe when the story continues, Black takes a creative writing course at a community college, and then he writes Moonlight. Maybe there’s a road where that happens, you know. In a Barry Jenkins kind of way, it’s hopeful. It’s not butterflies and rainbows; it isn’t shooting stars.”

“THERE’S AN INEVITABILITY TO THE LIFE THAT CHIRON IS LEADING,” JENKINS REFLECTS. “FOR A LOT OF Y UNG MEN WH GROW UP IN THE WORLD CHIRON GROWS UP IN, THAT INEVITABILITY IS BUILT INT EVERYDAY LIFE.” D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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It’s real life. Says producer Jeremy Kleiner, at Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, who boarded the project, “There are people who will see the film and feel somehow less alone than they were when it began. I feel that way, and I don’t have much in common with the literal experience of Chiron. But I feel like I’m watching the most specific human experience and, through that, I access the importance of love and what its absence can do.” So much of Moonlight’s success is owed to its casting of the three Chirons and the three Kevins. Jenkins and his producers (Romanski, Kleiner and Dede Gardner) all credit Yesi Ramirez for running with the director’s instinct that the 10-year gaps separating each iteration of the characters would make them very different from one another. “I wasn’t trying to drive each of the guys through the same thing,” Jenkins says. “I honestly wanted them to do their own thing, and we had this faith that the process we had built would yield results. It wasn’t engineered to be any kind of mathematical equa-

THE MOOD

Cinematographer James Laxton on moments almost too real to film

tion. It was much more like poetry, I guess.” Much has been made of Jenkins keeping the three Chirons apart. He likens the effect to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. “Richard wasn’t spending time with that kid in between the shoots. That kid was off living his life and becoming a different person. I

“I’M NOT SURE IF WE’RE STUNTED OR WHAT,” says James Laxton, with

love that you get to see—in that film embodied by

a chuckle. “But there are influences back from our very early beginnings

one actor—how the world has reshaped him over

that I think still come through in Moonlight.”

In Moonlight, “Alex, Ashton and Trevante were all

school with director Barry Jenkins and they

at three very different stages of their lives, and while

made three shorts together, as well as their mutual feature debut—as cinematographer and director respectively—2008’s Medicine

they may be a bit more seasoned now, they were each pretty green as performers.” Kleiner chuckles at the challenge Jenkins made

For Melancholy. Inspirations then and now

for himself in wrangling those differences. “On a

include Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, “In

degree of difficulty meter, you’ve got $1.5 million,

addition to, maybe more applicably, Spike

you’ve got 25 days, one camera, three non-profes-

Lee and specifically Clockers, for example.”

sional actors,” he says. “For people that make films,

Regardless of the long gap between

when you say, ‘We’re going to cast three people that

features, the pair remained friends and Laxton

don’t physically resemble each other and then deny

didn’t need any persuading when the script for

them access to one another so that you’re the only

Moonlight was handed to him in spring 2015. “Barry

point of connection between them.’ That is insane.”

has never needed to pitch me on something, you know what I mean?”

Kleiner and Gardner first heard about the project

For Laxton, Moonlight’s clear three acts were a challenge to ensure they

at Telluride Film Festival, when Jenkins moderated a

didn’t feel, visually speaking, like separate stories. Doing enough to differ-

Q&A for Plan B’s film 12 Years a Slave. After Medicine

entiate and evolve, but not so much that each section would feel discon-

for Melancholy, Jenkins and Plan B had kicked

nected. “So we tended to use Steadicam in the first act, then handheld in

around ideas together, but nothing had come to

the second, and then more dolly, sticks in the third. That being said, we

fruition. “We started talking again, and eventu-

absolutely broke those rules.”

ally he sent me the script for Moonlight,” Kleiner

Their process is layered. They are visually inspired by locations—in this case Miami’s Liberty City projects—rather than imposing on them,

remembers. Partnering with Plan B offered the wind under

but then plan carefully, before allowing space for the moments that make

which the Moonlight ship could sail. “They’re a

emotion almost tangible. “I remember when we were filming the diner

unique species,” says Romanski. “They’re unicorns.

scene in the third act, it was just a close-up of André Holland talking

They’re a prestige company that can greenlight

across at Trevante Rhodes in the booth. And I remember having this

projects that other companies wouldn’t be able to

feeling that what was happening in front of the lens was just so special

greenlight, and they are very aware of that position,

that I ended up taking my eye off the eyepiece—when you look through

and the responsibility it entails.”

the lens you’re sort of, on some level, slightly removed. And that moment

those 12 years.”

Laxton went to Florida State University film

When Kleiner read Moonlight, “it was one of the

felt so right I had to peek around the camera just to sort of pinch myself,

most astonishing things I’d ever read,” he says. “I

remind myself: this is a real thing happening.” —NEV PIERCE

thought it was so complete. Dede and I talk about

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MAGIC IN MOONLIGHT This image: Ashton Sanders as the teenage Chiron. Right, from top: André Holland; Janelle Monáe.

SAYS PRODUCER JEREMY KLEINER, “THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THIS FILM IS THAT, THR UGH THE DEEP INDIVIDUALITY OF THIS PERSON, MAYBE THERE’S SOME WAY TO THINK ABOUT ALL PEOPLE BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH YOU COME T FEEL WHAT THIS PERSON IS FEELING.” D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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how it didn’t feel like a broken script. It was probably going to be a lower-budget film than we’d ever worked on, but when you feel that way about something, you try it and follow through. It was something Brad had always taught us. The company’s most essential function is that there are stories that need to be told, and you do what you can to enable, support, facilitate those.” Kleiner draws a connection with Moonlight to his experience interning for Errol Morris. “I think, as a documentarian, he felt that if he could create proximity with people, a natural empathy emerges,” he says. “I think this film creates that proximity, and in that empathetic response is something very hopeful and very beautiful. It’s the emotional truth of life, and it does it in a way that is so different than we’re used to seeing. It’s not polemical at all. I’m a different person after this experience.” So, too, is Jenkins, though Romanski says she believes the emotional impact has yet to fully reach

THE MUSIC

Nicholas Britell on composing for a poem

him. “Barry hasn’t stopped working on this movie since August 2015. He hasn’t had time to decompress and process where he is now as a man, but professionally, I think it has been seismic.” “It has had an effect on all of us,” Jenkins considers. “There was a point Ashton Sanders pulled me

SIMPLE PASSION LED TO MOONLIGHT FOR Nicholas Britell. He was scor-

aside and said, ‘I just want you to know, this is really

ing The Big Short in 2015 when producer Jeremy Kleiner started waxing

intense. I never told you this, but I went through

lyrical about this “incredibly profound and beautiful” screenplay he’d just

some of this stuff with my mom, too.’ I had no clue.

read. He passed it on. “And I was just completely blown away.”

At this point I’d been working with the guy off and

A meeting with director Barry Jenkins soon followed, a coffee that stretched to a two-hour talk about, “music, films, life, everything.” The

It was, he says, “this fresh, open wound of an

conversation never really stopped, stretching through the shoot and into

experience. It took us to places that I guess we

four months of post where they were “very immersed together”. On read-

should have seen coming, but none of us realized

ing the script, Britell says, “The first word that came to mind was ‘poetry’.

how intensely personal it was going to be in the

As a composer, so much of what I do is trying to translate feelings and

making of it.”

emotions into sound and I was sort of imagining: what’s the musical

Perhaps the magic, then, of Moonlight is in how its extreme specificity somehow coexists with true

analog of poetry?” Early on, inspired, he wrote a piece that explicitly referenced that idea in its title: “Piano and Violin Poem”. “I was trying to get into that mindset.” He sent it to Jenkins, who embraced it, and it made it through the whole process, emerging in the film as “Little’s Theme”. As well as being inspired by and exploring theme—poetry, intimacy, tenderness—Britell

universality. Even Naomie Harris, a British teetotaler playing a crack-addicted mother in the Miami projects, talked to me about how personal Moonlight became to her. Its emotional impact is undeniable, regardless of personal circumstances. “I think it’s a story that feels extremely vital right now,” says Kleiner. “There’s such an active debate

was influenced by one of Jenkins’ musical

about how we define the value of people. Are there

touchstones. “He told me how much he

people who are the truth, and other people who

loved 'chopped and screwed' music.” In this

don’t belong in that? Aren’t those other people

southern hip-hop style you take tracks, slow

coming from a very specific place, like Barry, like

them down, lowering the pitch, “So you get

Tarell, like Chiron, with their own pain, their own

these tracks which sound transformed. The textures get altered. So we said, totally in the idea stage, what if I wrote music, fully recorded them with real instruments, then there was this second stage of the process?” It’s this that helps each segment of the film feel distinct yet interlinked. “So as you proceed from chapter one to two to three, in addition to the

complexity, their own history? We treat them like abstractions, and the achievement of this film is that, through the deep individuality of this person, maybe there’s some way to think about all people, because of how much you come to feel what this person is feeling.” Certainly it worked on A24, the young upstart

orchestrations changing, we’re also chopping and screwing the sound, so

distributor founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and

there’s an evolution of the sonic texture as you go on.”

John Hodges, who had been making waves with

“That’s what comes from openness, from continuing the conversation. The excitement of collaboration.” —NEV PIERCE

on through auditions for like two and a half months.”

smart acquisitions like Room, Ex Machina and Spring Breakers. Moonlight is their first production. “They

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THE MIX

Editors Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders on cutting a life in three parts “BARRY IS A VERY PRIVATE PERSON,” says Joi McMillion. “So when he first told us about Moonlight it was like, ‘Oh yeah, I wrote this script based off a play by this guy.’ Then we read the script and you’re like, ‘It’s not just a script Barry! It’s one of the best scripts we’ve ever read.’” McMillion and fellow editor Nat Sanders have known Jenkins since FSU film school and speak of him warmly, laughing that they were finding out new things about the film even as they finished editing. “Only near the very end,” says Sanders, “did we find out the play [by Tarell Alvin McCraney] was actually only the first two acts of the movie and Barry wrote the whole third act by himself.” McMillon laughs. “Sometimes we find out stuff when we read articles about it. Like, ‘Oh, that’s cool!’” For McMillon and Sanders, Moonlight was the culmination of a long friendship. They’d previously worked together on HBO’s Girls and Togetherness, but this was their first feature together. In fact, it is Sanders’ first feature period, having perhaps spent longer in the TV trenches as an assistant editor than might have felt necessary. But she took the shot when it came. She is now the first AfricanAmerican woman to be nominated for an Oscar for editing. “I just wanted to make a good show of it; I just wanted people to hire me afterward,” she says. “So to receive an Oscar nomination totally blew my mind. Just for people to see our work and say we did a good job—that means a lot to both Nat and I. That’s the highest achievement.” The rapport the pair share—there’s a lot of laughter and warm mutual appreciation—makes the conversation feel as familial as it is filmic. It’s a connection they share with Jenkins, too. And a shorthand that helped the whole process—a shared history. “We have this inside phrase, going back to film school,” says Sanders, “that if Barry watches the first cut of one of our scenes and says, ‘We need to make it more bandry,’ we know exactly what he means— he means he wants us to push the style further, to make bolder choices in our work.” The choices have paid off. —NEV PIERCE

said yes, they didn’t ask questions about the movie.

it’s also just the start of another journey. There is

They didn’t ask who the audience was for it,” Kleiner

another film in the offing, Romanski reveals, that

notes. “There was no trauma; they just supported

will reunite them. One, she hopes, of many. “I think

we must hold ourselves to going forward,” says

us. It was like, ‘What do you need?’”

not everything we do will be as incredibly specific,”

Romanski. “Sometimes we will fail—it’s a very high

she says. “But I do think they will all share the same

standard, I think—but it has helped us better under-

Arts and Sciences responded to Jenkins’ ode to

deep compassion for humanity. I think there will be

stand what our responsibility is in terms of our art.”

the perseverance of love with eight Oscar nomina-

a way to cinematically link them in that regard, even

tions. For him and his FSU classmates Romanski

though they will be different stories.”

On January 24th, the Academy of Motion Picture

and James Laxton, all first-time nominees, it is the

As for Jenkins, he won’t be pressed on any

getting this film made was a miracle.” “Moonlight is now the bar and the standard that

“Adele and I had coffee this morning,” Jenkins says, as a smile crosses his face. “We were just like, ‘What a fucking ride this has been.’ Because I

culmination of dreams that were started all those

details. But, he says, “there was a point where I was

remember those 25 days in Miami, during which we

years ago at college.

pretty sure I wasn’t going to make another movie

had no expectations, and now here we are…”

And yet, like the defiantly hopeful note on which we leave Chiron’s story at the end of Moonlight,

[after Medicine for Melancholy]. The first film I made was $13k, and not a lot of people saw it. So even just

He laughs. “I’m not a fucking romantic, alright. Don’t call me a romantic.” ★ D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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D THE DIALOGUE

OSCA R N O M I N E ES /PA RT 1

MAHERSHALA

ALI

Best Supporting Actor Moonlight Juan has quite a conflict to face within himself, shepherding Little through the world, all the while enabling the addiction of the boy’s mother. It is! You know what, though? I don’t even think Juan thought of it that way. It’s really when Little confronts him about it. He actually has to process and come to the realization that he is indirectly responsible for Chiron’s circumstances, but up until that point, he felt he was a positive influence on this young man. And I think Chiron is a positive influence on Juan, and I believe Juan is aware of that. Bearing in mind the film’s universality, what do you think it reflects or means for the African-American community, specifically? If you look at the circumstances for so many African-American people in this country, we haven’t traditionally had access to therapy, we haven’t traditionally had access to rehab, right? You’ve got to figure it out—those resources just aren’t prevalent in our communities. I think we are a people who are dealing with surviving, and in some ways, just aspiring to go beyond existing just to survive. We want to live, too. I think that’s part of it. —Matt Grobar

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL BUCKNER

2/3/17 3:01 PM

NAOMIE

HARRIS

Best Supporting Actress Moonlight There’s something romantic and beautiful about Moonlight, even as Chiron’s life is fraught with complication. It’s very rare you get a script like that and you get as deeply affected. It made me cry three or four times just reading it, and I thought it would make an extraordinary film. And then I watched Barry Jenkins’ previous film, Medicine for Melancholy. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and it’s so beautiful. It’s another movie that just gets under your skin. I thought, if this filmmaker can make a film like that for $13k, what is he going to do with a better budget and an amazing script like this? Even with the script, did you have any hesitation about taking on a character like this? You feel an extra responsibility because it’s an amalgamation of Barry’s story, and also [playwright] Tarell McCraney’s story. You’ve got to represent their mothers, and they know especially well what living under those circumstances is like. They know their mothers’ moods and behavior swings. It wasn’t the kind of role you could phone in. There was no fooling them. —Joe Utichi

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL BUCKNER

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2/3/17 3:01 PM

RUTH

NEGGA

Best Actress Loving

Had you heard the Lovings’ story before? No, and the majority of people I met hadn’t ever heard of them. I don’t think it was a huge conspiracy to keep Richard and Mildred out of the civil rights canon. I just think that happened to a lot of people that contributed to the movement; they got forgotten in the melee. I’m still surprised that there wasn’t a bigger deal made of them, considering they changed the constitution of the United States. They also clearly didn’t court the limelight. They lacked the need to be in the spotlight; the desire to be in the spotlight. I think there was a purity to Mildred that people recognize and are attracted to. It’s a complete lack of cynicism, and she carried a lot of hope. She was very much the rock of her family, and for Richard. —Joe Utichi

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHAPMAN

26 C H R I S

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PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIEL GOLDBERG

2/3/17 3:02 PM

CASEY

AFFLECK

Best Actor Manchester by the Sea

Describe your first read of this script. What kind of effect did it have on you? It’s funny, it was one of those reads where you stop analyzing. Sometimes you read something and there’s a part of you that remains in an analytical, actor place. Am I going to do this movie? Is this a good part for me? Is it not? Can I bring something to this? Almost immediately I was just absorbing it like it was some piece of nonfiction; some complete piece of writing that was, in and of itself, a thing. Not a blueprint to be built upon. It was complete. Do you come out the other end feeling your tools have been sharpened all the more for having done it? Yes, I think I became better because I got to work with good material, and I got to work with a director who challenged me and had better ideas. That’s happened a few times in my life, and that is gold. That is the thing I look for. In this case, it was scary, but whether it was scary or not, I was going to do it because I love Kenny’s writing. He’s a great old friend of mine. I would do anything that he wants me to do, and I’d only say that about a few people in my life. —Joe Utichi

P H O T O G RA P H BY DA N D OPE RA L SK I

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D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

2/3/17 3:03 PM

MICHAEL

SHANNON

Best Supporting Actor Nocturnal Animals

How did you prepare to play Sheriff Bobby Andes? I’m absolutely nothing like Bobby Andes. I listened to a lot of Hank Williams. That’s how I got into character. Every day, we’d have a 45 minute to an hour drive to the set. I had a three-disc set of Hank Williams and the poor driver had to listen to it. I didn’t meet with any cops to prepare. They’re such a prevalent part of culture and consciousness. We’re inundated with them in police shows and movies. It doesn’t feel like an incredibly foreign thing to play a policeman. How did the role speak to you? You wear him so well. I love Bobby’s point of view, and his perspective can really see through the smoke and mirrors and to the truth. It’s a point of view that he earned in a couple of years. He’s had a hard life and he’s been a detective for a long time. He’s seen a lot of gruesome stuff and the notion that his career is ending and that this is his last case, he’s bound and determined to get justice no matter what. Bobby is an angel, and he’s someone we all wish we had in life. —Anthony D’Alessandro

D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS CHAPMAN

2/3/17 2:12 PM

EMMA

STONE

Best Actress La La Land

What was the most challenging scene in La La Land? The fight sequence with Ryan at the dinner table. We improvised a lot, for a long time in this small apartment. It was about finding the right moment. Here’s a scene where eventually the record scratches and the music stops playing between us. Ryan and I had to get to that point and it was painful. What do you get from Ryan as an actor? What does he give back to you? In our very first audition seven years ago for Crazy, Stupid, Love we were asked to improvise and find stuff. There are some actors that are ‘island actors’—their performance isn’t going to change no matter what you do. They’re working on their side of things. They don’t move fluidly. Ryan isn’t that way and nor am I, and that openness to the way of working is the mutual respect between us. It’s kind of a lucky thing. —Anthony D’Alessandro

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS CHAPMAN

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D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

2/3/17 2:12 PM

NATALIE

PORTMAN

Best Actress Jackie

Playing the iconic Jackie Kennedy was a little bit different for you in your career. Absolutely. It wasn’t anything in my comfort zone, for sure. I was pretty terrified; to have someone people know so well, you have to achieve such a level of closeness to the real person for them to even go with you on the emotional journey. Right away, you have to buy people’s belief—within the first 10 seconds of them seeing you—or they’re going to just not go on the journey. So it’s pretty terrifying, and she’s a fascinating character. How do you prepare for a role like this? I actually had quite a short period of time to prepare. It was a very long process to find the right director. Once the idea of Pablo [Larraín] directing it sort of came to fruition, all of a sudden we were making the movie, so I had like a month to prepare. I worked with this great dialogue coach—I was living in Paris at the time—her name’s Tanya Blumstein, and she worked with me. Every day, we would work for several hours, just listening to the tapes and watching the White House tour. —Pete Hammond

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS CHAPMAN

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2/3/17 2:12 PM

DEV

PATEL

Best Supporting Actor Lion Saroo’s story is sadly not uncommon in India. Did you feel a responsibility to get it right, for India’s huge number of street children? Yes, and Saroo is one of the lucky ones. There’s hundreds of thousands of children in India that are lost or homeless, and that don’t have families. This is one of the stories of triumph, really. Not only did he get adopted to a beautiful, loving family, but also he was able, through his incredible brain and perseverance, to reconnect with his birth mother as well. That’s what makes it so incredible. Did you meet with Saroo? We met during production. It was a nerve-wracking moment for me. I worried he’d judge me or see right through me. But he was so warm and informative. What we spoke about was very microcosmic moments and feelings. How were you feeling when you were on that laptop, finding your home? What was coursing through your veins? I don’t think he gets asked that stuff normally, but for me it was important to know. —Joe Utichi

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK MANN

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D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

2/3/17 2:13 PM

DENZEL

WASHINGTON

Best Actor, Best Picture Fences

Fences started when Scott Rudin sent you the movie script that August Wilson adapted from his play. When did you decide to direct, and why first perform the stage play on Broadway? When he first called me, he sent my agent August Wilson’s screenplay and asked that I read it. “Do you want to act in it? Do you want to produce it? Do you want to direct it?” I said I wanted to read it first. Let me try that. When I read it, I realized I had never read the play. I’d seen it in the ’80s with James Earl Jones and Courtney Vance, when I was in my 20s. And there’s Troy Maxson, age 53. I’m 55 and thinking, I’d better hurry up. I’ll be too old. So, I call Scott and I said, “You know, I want to do the play.” He’s like, “You want to do the play?” He said, “Let me go raise the money.” You are bringing the first work of August Wilson’s to the screen, but it sounds like it won’t be the last. Will you direct all of them? All 10 of them. The other nine, I did a deal to make those films at HBO. They put that out, that I was going to be in them and direct them. No. I’m just producing them. We’ll hire the right directors. In fact, I’ve got the first version of a screenplay for Ma Rainey, which we’ll do first. —Mike Fleming Jr.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL BUCKNER

2/3/17 2:13 PM

MEL

GIBSON

Best Director Hacksaw Ridge

The movies you’ve directed featured protagonists who engage in violence. Desmond Doss was the exact opposite. Why did you spark to this guy’s story? That’s what was amazing for me, and what impressed me more than anything. The guy didn’t carry a weapon, never fired a bullet, was a conscientious objector who thought it was wrong to kill under any circumstances. But he had the guts to go into the worst place you can imagine and stick to his convictions, armed with nothing else but sheer faith. Walk in and just do the impossible, which is courage under fire unparalleled because he didn’t do it in a split second or decision or moment. He did it again and again and again. That to me is the ultimate superhero. He stuck to his principles, his convictions about not bearing arms, even in the face of terrible persecution. It was worse in real life than I portrayed it in the film. He was persecuted very solidly for two years in the Army. —Mike Fleming Jr.

P H O T O G RA P H BY DA N D OPE RA L SK I

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D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

2/3/17 2:13 PM

OSCAR H AN DICAPS / BY P ETE H A M M O N D

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE Casey Affleck

Manchester by the Sea

The Best Actor category is, usually, impossibly crowded. In recent years we have seen contests where a couple of actors who very well might have won didn’t even manage to get nominated. This year, for whatever reason, the field is not nearly as crowded as the Best Actress race, an odd switch of fortune. That is not to say there weren’t a lot of great performances dotting the landscape for actors this year; it is just that fewer managed to break through. In the run up to Oscar nominations, there also was a clear favorite in this category, as Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea had been running the table at most critics’ awards, as well as winning a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Award. Suddenly a surprise win by Denzel Washington at SAG may have changed the whole trajectory. It is certainly a race now. Here’s the handicap of the nominees.

Affleck—previously nominated for The Assassination of Jesse James—got the “role of a lifetime”, as Ben Kingsley described it in presenting his Actor of the Year award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The plum role of Lee Chandler, a man torn apart by personal tragedy, almost didn’t come his way. Matt Damon (a producer on the film) was originally going to play it but had to drop out. Casey came in and ran with it. The result has been dominance through nearly all of the precursor critics’ awards and frontrunner status—at least until that snag at SAG.

Andrew Garfield

Ryan Gosling

Viggo Mortensen

Denzel Washington

Garfield, one of the best actors of his young generation, finally landed an Oscar nomination for his role as Desmond Doss, the first ever conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor for saving 75 men at a crucial battle in World War II. The emotional prowess, and sheer determination against all odds, that he brings to the story is awesome. It doesn’t hurt that he is also excellent in another year-end contender, Martin Scorsese’s Silence. After two such wrenchingly difficult roles maybe he’ll try a romantic comedy next.

It probably surprises Ryan Gosling more than anyone else that he managed to get his second Best Actor Oscar nomination for a musical in which he sings and dances. Considering that Gene Kelly was never nominated in this category for La La inspirations Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris, and Fred Astaire was never nominated for any of his musical roles, it is a tall achievement indeed. Add the fact that Gosling had to learn jazz piano for the part and you have all the reason you need for him to be included in this company.

Considering that Captain Fantastic debuted a year ago at Sundance, played Cannes in May and then opened in July, it is a tribute to Mortensen’s terrific work as an unorthodox dad of six, just trying to keep his brood together after the death of his wife, that it wasn’t forgotten when the Oscar nominations were announced. Mortensen nailed the heart, soul and eccentricity of this man without ever hitting a false note. Voters remembered and took notice, delivering him his second nomination in the category.

Already a two-time winner for Glory and Training Day, this is Washington’s seventh Oscar nomination for acting, and it comes for a role for which he won a Tony on Broadway, and in a film he directed himself. As Troy Maxson, Washington is full of fury and regret, a true tour de force performance that has already made him the surprise winner of the SAG Award and the first actor to direct himself to that honor since Roberto Begnini in 1999. If he wins the Oscar he will be the third self-director to claim Best Actor, after Begnini and Laurence Olivier, who did it in 1948 for Hamlet.

Hacksaw Ridge

La La Land

Captain Fantastic

Fences

One Oscar-winning veteran on his seventh nomination against four virtual newcomers to this category colors the race for this year’s Supporting Actor prize. This is a category where upsets can and do happen—most recently last year when Bridge of Spies’ Mark Rylance pulled off the feat against favored Sylvester Stallone. Considering the number of prizes he has already won this year including SAG, Mahershala Ali’s quietly powerful performance in Moonlight as Juan, a drug dealer who finds his heart, would be the prohibitive favorite over other first timers like Lion’s Dev Patel, in a remarkable true story about a man in search of his birth mother on the other side of the world, and young Lucas Hedges, pulling off a nomination as a confused and conflicted teen in Manchester by the Sea. After seeing his Nocturnal Animals co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson take the Golden Globe and nab a BAFTA nomination, Michael Shannon might have been right to feel he didn’t have much of a chance at an Oscar nod, but it turns out his grizzled veteran detective was just the ticket for Oscar voters. A win might be a longer shot. Shannon was once previously nominated here eight years ago for Revolutionary Road, and like that film, this one reps the film’s only recognition. Finally there is that vet, Jeff Bridges, who like Shannon is playing another sort of burnt out veteran lawman on one last big case in Hell or High Water. It may be hard to believe, but this year marks the 45th anniversary of his first nomination in this category for The Last Picture Show, and even though he won the Best Actor Oscar for Crazy Heart just seven years ago, he may be the sentimental favorite to nab a second Oscar this time around.

D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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2/3/17 2:36 PM

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE Isabelle Huppert Elle

Voters are generally hard-pressed each year to come up with a list of just five actresses to fill out this category. Certainly it is no fault in the stars themselves, but rather the lack of great roles for women in movies. That definitely was not the case this year. Consider the likes of four-time nominee Annette Bening in a career-best performance in 20th Century Women; five-time nominee Amy Adams nominated for every precursor award for stirring work in Arrival; two-time nominee Jessica Chastain tearing up the screen as Miss Sloane; Taraji P. Henson wonderful in Hidden Figures; and so on. And those are just the ones that didn’t get nominated. Actually, it was heartbreaking to see the Solomon–like choice actors' branch voters had to make this year. Who do you leave out? Who gets put in? It was a tough decision, but here is the handicap of the five who made it.

With over 100 films to her credit, it seems incredible that this French star is enjoying only her first Oscar nod in a career that has made her one of the most revered by her peers and public alike. Huppert has swept through awards season, winning LA and NY Critics’ Awards, a Globe and more for a role turned down by a lot of A-List stars who felt the story of a woman who sought her own brand of revenge after being raped was just too risky. The French-language movie was going to be an American production for director Paul Verhoeven until Huppert agreed to play the role. It worked out.

Ruth Negga

Natalie Portman

Emma Stone

Meryl Streep

Ethiopian-born Negga, who grew up in Ireland, is probably the least known of this impressive list of nominees. But as Mildred Loving, the soft-spoken African-American who married a white man in 1950s Virginia where interracial marriage was banned, she brought a common decency and quiet dignity to a woman whose case changed everything when it went all the way to the Supreme Court. She won a Golden Globe and Critics' Choice nomination and proved that authentic and real can be a path to an Oscar nomination.

Taking on an iconic American figure like Jacqueline Kennedy is daunting for any actress, but doing it in a unique movie set around the harrowing days following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is a true challenge. Portman, who won an Oscar six years ago for Black Swan, proved then that she was up for a challenge, and proves it again now nailing the accent, the look, but most importantly the essence of perhaps the most intriguingly admired and mysterious woman of the 20th Century.

Stone had already made two films with Ryan Gosling, so they knew they had the chemistry, but what they didn’t know was if it would endure through singing, dancing and taking to the skies of the Griffith Observatory. But Stone simply enchants as an aspiring actress chasing her dreams in the city of stars, and won Globe and SAG Awards. This is her second Oscar nomination after a Supporting nod for Birdman. In between she starred on Broadway in Cabaret, which was not a bad warm up for this rarest of birds, an original screen musical.

What can you say about Meryl Streep? This represents her incredible 20th nomination. That is eight—count ‘em—eight more than any other actor has ever had. She just keeps breaking her own record, and for this role it’s appropriate since a lot of people would love to break the records made by Jenkins, a pretty bad singer who couldn’t quite hit the right notes but loved music anyway. Streep invests her with touches of humor, pathos, heart and, yes, those tunes. It is a delicious comic performance that never drifts into parody or over the top silliness. As always Streep keeps it right on key.

Loving

Jackie

La La Land

Florence Foster Jenkins

Whether it is just coincidence, the copycat syndrome or simply that these were the only five actresses voters could agree were the best candidates for Supporting Actress this year, the five Oscar nominees in this category match exactly what both the Golden Globes and SAG came up with. If the results from those two contests are any indication then Fences star Viola Davis, recreating her 2010 Tony winning performance as Rose, has this in the bag. Winner of SAG, the Globe, Critics' Choice and other critics' prizes, this appears to be now three-time Oscar nominee Davis’s year. If there is a spoiler it will obviously have to come from the strong group of four other women she has been spending awards season with. Two of them already have an Oscar on their mantle and might be considered long shots to add another one this year, though both are superb. The Hours Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman is enormously touching as the adoptive mother in Lion, while Davis’s Oscar winning co-star in The Help, Octavia Spencer, is a key part of the terrific trio of math geniuses in the crowd pleaser Hidden Figures. On just her first nomination, Naomie Harris as the crack addicted mother in Moonlight is the third Black actress up for Supporting Actress this year, a record breaker for one category in the year #OscarsSoWhite is, well, so last year. Rounding out the fivesome is Michelle Williams, who manages to do so much in so little screen time as a grieving mother in Manchester by the Sea.

D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E

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2/3/17 2:37 PM

“A MASTERPIECE. MEL GIBSON DIRECTS

LIKE A MASTER COMPOSER.”

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ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE BEST ACTOR ANDREW GARFIELD BEST DIRECTOR MEL GIBSON

“MEL GIBSON

“A STIRRING DRAMA. ANDREW GARFIELD

HAS ABSOLUTELY

GIVES A FIERCELY

HIT ‘HACKSAW RIDGE’

DRIVEN PERFORMANCE...

OUT OF THE PARK.

EXTRAORDINARY.”

A DEEPLY MOVING PORTRAIT OF FEARLESS, SELFLESS HEROISM.

HE IS THE FILM’S

ANCHOR, ITS

“ANDREW GARFIELD’S BEST PERFORMANCE

MORAL COMPASS AND

OF HIS CAREER TO DATE.”

ITS CONSIDERABLE HEART.”

CONSIDER THIS

LionsgateAwards.com

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