The Fighter<\/a>, when all I was offered was older, nasty women. I don\u2019t want to do that any more.<\/p>\n Playing Alice in The Fighter. Photograph: Paramount\/Everett\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve played lots of blue-collar characters. Do you get the urge to play somebody really posh and rich? PeteTheBeat
Absolutely! I am dying to do that kind of work. I\u2019ve been asking for years: \u201cPlease, may I play the princess? The glorious, kind, benevolent queen?\u201d I want lovely fancy costumes, maybe from another period. Years ago, I made a film called A Time of Destiny, which was set in the 40s. Not all actors can fit in period pieces because they feel too modern, but I can play goodies and baddies \u2013 past, present and future.<\/p>\n
What was it like filming police drama Homicide: Life on the Street [the series ran from 1993 to 1999], and did you get to hang out with the cast afterwards? Oberursel67
The cast was almost all male, so that perhaps answers that question. Did they invite me to the bars with them \u2013 the single mother of a seven-year-old? No. It was a lot of years together, so I held a lot of those guys really close. But I don\u2019t do what I do for the party afterwards. I\u2019m more interested in the process.<\/p>\n
How did you get into the role of Alice Eklund-Ward in The Fighter? Leobatch
I accepted because David [O Russell, director] really, really wanted me to be his Alice. Then I met the real Alice Ward, who came from a very different socioeconomic background than my mother\u2019s mother, but there was something of my mother\u2019s mother in her, so that\u2019s where I found a path towards becoming her. I was no more than 10 years older than the majority of the nine people who played Alice\u2019s children, but that\u2019s movies for you.<\/p>\n
What goes through your mind when you stand up to receive an Oscar? MrSOBaldrick
One loses one\u2019s mind. I had won a lot of prestigious awards for The Fighter that season, and sat in that great gigantic theatre thinking: \u201cWell, it certainly is possible.\u201d Kirk Douglas came out to present the best supporting actress award, opened the envelope and called my name. I was so delighted to meet him \u2013 that was all I was thinking about. I turned to the house, which in most theatres, you can see by looking a little above your own eyesight. In the Dolby theatre, you have to raise your chin like you\u2019re about to scale Mount Everest. Every single actor, director and producer you recognise, is staring you in the face. I then cursed, and I\u2019m still sorry I cursed. I fucking curse all the time, but you cannot curse on network television. Thank God for the 10-second delay, which was introduced for fucking idiots like me. Having said that, winning an Oscar has not been good for me or my career. I didn\u2019t dream of it, I never wanted it, and I had a much better career before I won.<\/p>\n
\u2018I cursed, and I\u2019m still sorry I cursed\u2019 \u2026 Leo accepting her Oscar. Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc.\/Alamy<\/p>\n
What are your memories of filming ABC Western series The Young Riders? I loved your character Emma \u2013 it was a shame she left early! Tahra_
I agree. It was a total shame. I loved being Emma. I loved being out in Arizona with the horses. I love that people still have such an adoration of that show, 35 years later. Emma was a goodhearted, hardworking woman. I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m not seen as that more often. I\u2019d grown up reading Little House on the Prairie and other Laura Ingalls Wilder books, so I loved going to live in that new west world with the costumes, the long dresses, the corsets and the hairdos.<\/p>\n
What are your memories of playing Holly in Denis Villeneuve\u2019s 2013 film Prisoners? Sagarmatha1953
Holly is so misunderstood. These days, people leave or switch over before the end of a movie. I beg you to watch until the end, because Holly makes her entire history clear in a single speech. You might think she\u2019s a bad person, but she\u2019s just protecting her child, which is an admirable thing.<\/p>\n
In Olympus Has Fallen, how do the North Koreans capture the White House, yet suddenly become so incompetent once Gerard Butler shows up? zerkalo
That\u2019s exactly how it works. Gerry Butler doesn\u2019t lose in the pictures.<\/p>\n
Which of your films are you the most proud of? SkillWizard
I\u2019ve made several films that nobody\u2019s ever heard of which are very, very good. I cannot recommend seeing my new film The Knife more highly, in which I play a detective who is neither a goodie or a baddie. She\u2019s a woman doing her job, which is of a lot of interest to me. I also have a smaller part in King Ivory, a fascinating, beautiful, painful and truthful portrait of the fentanyl crisis in the US. There\u2019s a wonderful, fantastical small film I made many years ago called Racing Daylight, written and directed by Nicole Quinn, where I get to play a character from both present and past times. There\u2019s another gentle, sweet, delicate film called Francine, where we meet a woman on the day that she\u2019s been released from a long-term jail sentence and watch her try to integrate back in to society, which I\u2019m very proud of.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve said that your best pick-me-up is a good nap. Where\u2019s the weirdest place you\u2019ve ever been caught sneaking in 40 winks? TurangaLeela2
Oh, it\u2019s not sneaky at all. If somebody finds me napping, I\u2019m proud of myself because I\u2019ve been able to do the thing any doctor will tell you: get more rest. Just don\u2019t let me miss lunch. And don\u2019t let me miss when you need me on set!<\/p>\n
The Knife is on digital platforms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why didn\u2019t you insist on a \u201cmust kiss Denzel\u201d scene in your two Equalizer films? nivlek47Well, if you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-409164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}