Oscar rewards real-life roles (Omaha.com)

By Bob Fischbach
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

 

Meryl Streep stars as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."

 

 

Actress Meryl Streep was not a fan of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Playing Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," she told the BBC, meant challenging her own prejudices, since she is always defensive of the characters she inhabits.

It soon could prove worth the effort. The odds that Streep will get a 17th Academy Award nomination on Jan. 24 may be better because she's playing a woman who, like herself, is world-famous.

It's no fluke. Streep did the same thing two years ago, nailing the voice, accent and ebullient personality of chef Julia Child in "Julie and Julia" to earn her 16th nomination. In fact, six of Streep's nominations have been for playing real people.

The past decade has seen a sharp uptick in Oscar nominations for actors playing real people. Since 2000, 65 of the 220 acting nominations honored depictions of actual people. That's 30 percent, up from 17.5 percent in the 1990s.

The odds of winning for playing real people also have gone up: 40 percent since 2000, compared with 10 percent in the 1990s. Since 1990, nearly every year has seen at least one of the four acting trophies go to someone playing a real person. Last year it was three: Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in "The Fighter" and Colin Firth in "The King's Speech."

Why the trend? Oscar watchers say Academy voters admire when actors transform themselves, stepping out of their own personas.

While it can be tricky playing a familiar figure, getting it right can turn into a career peak: Jamie Foxx as blues singer Ray Charles in "Ray," Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I in "The Queen" and Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in "Capote" all won Academy Awards for nailing known personas.

Oscar also admires when actors transform themselves from something beautiful to something else.
Charlize Theron gained 30 pounds and wore false teeth to play mass murderer Aileen Wuornos in "Monster." Nicole Kidman donned a grotesque fake nose to play writer Virginia Woolf in "The Hours." Marion Cotillard, a beautiful young French actress, appeared nearly hairless and feeble as aged chanteuse Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." Sean Penn wore a prosthetic nose, false teeth, contact lenses and an altered hairline as politician Harvey Milk in "Milk."

They all won Oscars.

Even when the role is not a public figure, actors can feel a special responsibility to get it right when playing real people. Sometimes, as with Amy Adams in last year's "The Fighter," they'll meet with the person to pick up an essence of realism.

Other times they form the character to meet the needs of the script and don't worry about re-creating the real deal. That was the case for Jesse Eisenberg playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network" last year. He didn't meet Zuckerberg until after the movie was released.

Some read extensively and study video, as Forest Whitaker did to play Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." It's one route to disappearing into another's skin.

A recent article in Paste magazine suggested that Oscar voters need to separate impersonation from interpretation. Embodying a character in a living, breathing performance, the article said, requires much more than physical resemblance.

That's how both Anthony Hopkins, in "Nixon," and Frank Langella, in "Frost vs. Nixon," won trips to the red carpet, even though they didn't particularly look like the late president.

Others make their mark playing real people who are not famous but who lived extraordinary lives that inspire. Such examples include Julia Roberts as a paralegal in "Erin Brockovich," Adrien Brody as pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman in "The Pianist," Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo as hoteliers Paul and Tatiana Rusesabagina in "Hotel Rwanda," and Will Smith as Chris Gardner in "The Pursuit of Happyness."

One thing's for sure: The real-people trend on award night isn't over.

Besides Streep's, this year's lauded performances include Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier in "My Week With Marilyn"; Brad Pitt as Oakland A's manager Billy Beane in "Moneyball"; Leonardo DiCaprio as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Armie Hammer as his companion, Clyde Tolson; and Jim Broadbent as Thatcher's husband, Dennis, in "The Iron Lady."

Next year, Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis will appear as the president in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln." Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays his son, Robert Todd Lincoln.