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 Melissa Leo plays a desperate woman who smuggles people over the border in Frozen River. |
Veteran character actress Melissa Leo found it "mind-blowing, completely!" when she found her name among Oscar nominees last month.
The New York-born Leo, 48 years old and proud of her ripening maturity, was nominated as best actress for her portrayal of a hardscrabble mother of two sons in upstate New York in the film Frozen River.
Abandoned by her loser husband, the desperate woman turns to smuggling aliens from Canada to the U.S. across the frozen St. Lawrence River through a trans-border Mohawk reservation.
'EXTREMELY HAPPY'
She calls the weeks since the Jan. 22 nominations announcement "an extremely happy time."
She is not optimistic, however, that she will win the Oscar on her first try in a strong field of Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and the legendary Meryl Streep -- with 15, the most Oscar-nominated actor in Academy Award history.
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"I don't really see any need to prepare myself for that," Leo tells Sun Media about the possibility of an upset. "I am trying to conduct myself graciously. So I will try to remember an important name or two in that all-important moment -- but I don't have any expectations of being called up there."
Instead, the Oscar nom has already been a boon for her personally and also a boost for the film itself. Frozen River debuted on DVD last week. That, along with a limited re-release, gives writer-director Courtney Hunt's film a new lease on life.
Leo says she also was thrilled when Hunt was nominated for best original screenplay.
The Oscar noms, however, were not the original motivation for either she or Hunt, says Leo.
Nor is she up on the trend that sees Academy voters selectively honouring small pictures such as Frozen River with one or two significant noms while big films take the lion's share.
"I don't pay that much attention, in the way that most do, to the history of my industry and to the awards winners and to (things) like that," Leo says. "I'm best when my nose is to the grindstone and I'm in some tiny town shooting something, hoping that somebody might see it some day. But I do feel a groundswell for what has long been called independent (cinema)."
RISE TO TOP
Leo says there are many indie pictures of value and that it is "inevitable that more of them will rise to the top because, frankly, a lot of it is very fine filmmaking. If it just holds true to its own course, each film -- with no eye on any prize or need to hire this or that person for this or that reason except that they are ideal for the role -- can succeed. Just make your movie!
"Really, truly make your movie and then it can rise up and be seen. And then it is going to get easier and easier to get smaller films more widely seen."
Frozen River, in which Leo's blunt-spoken character reluctantly teams with the equally impressive Misty Upham as a young Mohawk single mom, is driven by what Leo calls "marvellously rich characters -- and there is fine interplay between them."
A quality script was not her primary motivation, however.
"For me, it had more to do with the idea of a role -- any role! -- where I would be carrying the ball. For me to have that opportunity!"
Leo does mostly support roles in films such as the recent Righteous Kill or The Alphabet Killer, or on TV series such as Law & Order, Cold Case or Criminal Minds. Those TV guest spots are especially difficult, she says, although she is happy for the work.
"It's a moving machine and you hop on it for three days and you have to spin the tale on its head and they know and you don't know. So, to be able to really have a character that the audience will slowly get to know, and she gets to know herself better in ... it sounds so selfish but there is so much that is so great about it."
Leo will attend the Oscars Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre.
"I plan to be," she says with a rueful laugh. "I hope that appendicitis doesn't hit me. I've avoided it this long!"