How to Decide Best Actress
"'Can you wrap your mind around someone throwing you into the ring with Meryl Streep?' [Viola Davis] marvels.'I just don’t understand the competition thing. How can you compare two actors' performances? How do you say one is better than the other?''I know how you do it,' Clooney says to Davis. 'You have to play Margaret Thatcher and she has to play the maid.'" Your move, Harvey! [EW]
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Humphrey Bogart was not a fan of awards for actors and once said, "The only true test would be to have every actor play Hamlet and decide who is best."
That's such a humble actorish thing to say. Its easy to tell which performance is better than another. Like Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood was head and shoulders above any other performance that year. Most would agree, so Viola, yes, you can tell. Just like I can tell that your performance in The Help was wildly overrated and you've received far more buzz than you deserve. I guess all you have to do is play a put upon black person and boom! Oscar!
Totally disagree with AS's comment. Viola Davis' performance is brilliant because it is restrained and heartbreaking through just the simplest look in her eyes. She transforms into Aibileen. A beautiful performance.
The difference between Day-Lewis and Davis is that with Viola you don't notice the acting. That's why her performances, whether in The Help or Doubt, can seem overrated to some, while Day-Lewis' acting is usually earth-shattering to practically everyone. Except, um, Movieline's own SZ, who hated him in There Will Be Blood.
I didn't think her performance in Doubt was overrated. Day Lewis was just one example btw.
Like there are so many options of characters for black actresses to play. Hmph.
(That was supposed to be in response to AS.)
So you're saying the only roles available to black actress are characters who are oppressed by whites? Quentin Tarantino would disagree.
I'm saying there is not a whole lot out there for black actresses. And I say this as a friend of more than a few extremely talented black actresses for more than 30 years. The men in my circle have gone on to have incredible film careers; the equally talented women have ended up doing theater or else teaching.
Usually what happens is a select few black women actors are "chosen" each generation, and they get the bulk of the work (Alfre Woodard, Halle Berry, etc.).
And the degree of your blackness is still is a factor. How many very black actresses can you think of? If you are a darker skinned black woman, there's even less to choose from. Who wants to always play prostitutes, drug addicts and cleaning women?
It's changing, a little bit. But really, the bulk of movies are filled with white men.
(And when I say "the men in my circle," I mean the black and latino men in my circle.)