Latest news with #SissySpacek
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
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‘Awards Chatter' Pod: Sissy Spacek on Her J.Law Collab ‘Die My Love,' the ‘New Hollywood' of the '70s and the Penises in ‘Dying for Sex'
For the fourth annual recording of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast in front of an audience in the Campari Lounge of the Palais during the Cannes Film Festival, the legendary actress Sissy Spacek joined yours truly for an hourlong conversation about her remarkable life and career. Spacek, a youthful 75, reflected on her journey from small-town Texas to Hollywood (and then to a farm in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she has resided since 1982); her involvement in the 'New Hollywood' of the '70s and early '80s, including massively acclaimed performances in 1973's Badlands, 1976's Carrie, 1977's Three Women, 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter (which brought her a best actress Oscar) and 1982's Missing; and the recently deceased filmmaker David Lynch, a childhood friend of Spacek's husband Jack Fisk and a friend of hers for some 50 years, whose breakthrough 1977 film, Eraserhead, she and Fisk helped to finance, and in whose 1999 film The Straight Story she starred. More from The Hollywood Reporter Billy Joel Shares Brain Disorder Diagnosis 'Lilo & Stitch' Now Soaring to Record $170M-$180M Memorial Day Box Office Bow Pop Star King Princess Didn't Think She Could Be an Actress (Then She Talked to a Psychic) She also discussed her latest project, Lynne Ramsay's Die My Love, which premiered in competition at Cannes just hours after this conversation took place, and which shortly thereafter was acquired by Mubi in the biggest sale of the festival. In the dark drama, Spacek plays the wife of a character played by Nick Nolte (with whom she previously acted in 1980's Heart Beat and 1997's Affliction), the mother of a character played by Robert Pattinson and the mother-in-law of a woman in the throes of severe post-partum depression, played by fellow Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence. Die My Love brought about Spacek's first trip to the Cannes Film Festival in 26 years, following three previous visits, each in different decades — for Three Women, Missing and The Straight Story. The general consensus at the fest was that Spacek's performance in the new film could bring her the seventh Oscar nomination of her career, which would be her first first in 24 years, and her first ever in the category of best supporting actress. Her earlier noms, all in the best actress category, came for Carrie, Coal Miner's Daughter, Missing, 1984's The River, 1986's Crimes of the Heart and 2001's In the Bedroom. Only six living women have accumulated seven or more acting Oscar noms: Meryl Streep (21), Cate Blanchett (8), Judi Dench (8), Glenn Close (8), Jane Fonda (7) and Kate Winslet (7). Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jennifer Lawrence tipped for Oscars glory 12 years after her last win as Cannes critics praise her 'mesmerising' performance as a struggling mother in Die, My Love
has been tipped for Oscars glory after critics praised her 'mesmerising' performance in Lynne Ramsay's Die, My Love. The actress, 34, stars alongside Robert Pattison as a struggling mother battling postpartum depression and subsequent psychosis in an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's 2017 novel, which has been described as both a horror and a comedy. The film star, who appears as Grace in the highly-charged movie, is a four-time Oscar nominee, but her only success was scooping the Best Actress gong in 2013 for Silver Lining's Playbook. But now 12 years after her crowning moment, Jennifer could be a contender for yet another Academy Award if recent reviews are anything to go by after the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17. And while co-star Robert, 39, and supporting cast including Sissy Spacek, 75, have been hailed for their roles, it is Jennifer's stand-out turn as mentality fragile wife and mother that stands out. Vogue's Radhika Seth remarked: 'Several critics at Cannes have already labeled her as one to watch ahead of the 2026 Oscars, and if an effective comeback narrative is constructed (it's been a staggering 12 years since her Academy Award win and a decade since her last nomination), then I could certainly see it—despite its outlandishness, her turn is pure Oscar bait.' Meanwhile, though Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson didn't heap praise on the film, he lauded her performance, penning: 'What keeps our attention during the film's slightly sagging middle, and makes it such bracing viewing, is the marvel of Lawrence's mesmerizing performance. She cannily balances mordant humor with existential unease and fury, a bolt of energy coursing through the film.' With the publication's David Canfield noting in a separate piece: 'Jennifer Lawrence gives the kind of performance in Die, My Love that demands instant Oscar attention.' He later adds: 'Alongside strong supporting turns from Pattinson and Sissy Spacek, Lawrence arguably has never been better. It's a striking return to the cinephile space for the Oscar winner, a reminder of what she can pull off alongside an ambitious, visionary filmmaker. 'This is easily her most significant dramatic role since 2017's Mother!, Darren Aronofsky's polarizing psychological horror drama, and should result in her first Oscar nomination in a decade (going back to David O. Russell's 2015 Joy).' Deadline's Damon Wise adds of her hopes for awards season: 'America knows very well how good Jennifer Lawrence can be, and this could well mean a fifth Oscar nomination if it lands in savvy hands.' While IndieWire remarked: 'Lawrence gives an unleashed performance as a mother in freefall that festival Best Actress awards are made for.' It comes as Jennifer candidly shared her struggles during an 'extremely isolating' postpartum period after the birth of her first child. The actress, 34, who welcomed her second baby earlier this year with husband Cooke Maroney, is starring as a mother battling psychosis in her new film Die, My Love. 12 years after her crowning moment, Jennifer could be a contender for yet another Academy Award if recent reviews are anything to go by after the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17 And while co-star Robert, 39, and supporting cast including Sissy Spacek, 75, have been hailed for their roles, it is Jennifer's stand-out turn as mentality fragile wife and mother that stands out Speaking at a press conference to promote the film, Jennifer candidly shared how she related to her character's struggles after struggling with the loneliness of her early motherhood. The Hunger Games star gave birth to her first child, son Cy, back in 2022, and shared that she had not long had her baby when she was approached to star in the film. She said: 'I mean, obviously, as a mother, it was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what she would do. It was just heartbreaking. When I first read the book, it was just such a devastating, powerful... Lynne (Ramsay) said it was dreamlike. 'I had just read my first (baby). And there's not really anything like postpartum. It's extremely isolating, which is so interesting when Lynn (Ramsay) moves this couple into Montana. 'She doesn't have a community. She doesn't have her people. But the truth is, extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolated, no matter where you are. You feel like an alien. And so it deeply moved me. I wanted to work with Lynn Ramsey since I saw Rat Catcher.' In the film, Jennifer stars as Grace, a new mother whose mental health begins to deteriorate as her marriage crumbles, with Robert Pattinson starring as her husband Jackson. The star admitted that since having children, it has changed her perspective on her career, and described motherhood as 'brutal and incredible.' She added: 'Well, having children changes everything. 'It changes your whole life. But it's brutal and incredible. And so not only do they go into every decision of if I'm working, where I'm working, when I'm working. 'It taught me... I didn't know that I could feel so much. My job has a lot to do with emotion. They've opened up the world to me. It's almost like feeling like a blister or something, so sensitive.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Secret Agent' Review: Wagner Moura Makes a Stunning Return to Brazilian Cinema in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Masterful Period Political Thriller
An inspired streak of absurdism runs through The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto) connected to an urban legend about a 'hairy leg' that moves autonomously, causing trouble in the northeastern Brazilian capital of Recife in 1977, when the country remained under military dictatorship. The leg turns up or is mentioned various times — being pulled from the messy guts of a large shark carcass; stolen from the morgue and disposed of by evidence-tampering police; tagged as the culprit in sensational tabloid crime stories; and literally kicking asses in a gay cruising ground, where men are getting it on under trees or on park benches. The rogue limb is a clever metaphor for the regime's persecution of the queer community, among other groups, including dope-smokers, longhairs and anyone else who might be automatically branded as a communist. The entire scene is a brilliant comic set-piece, starting with the gorgeous sight of chonky capybaras grazing in a field at night before shifting to the park, where all that al fresco friskiness is rudely interrupted when the leg strides into action. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'A Pale View of Hills' Review: An Overly Cautious Adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Haunting Novel Sissy Spacek Shares 'Carrie' Audition Doubts at Spirited 'Awards Chatter' Podcast Taping in Cannes 'The Phoenician Scheme' Review: A Brilliant Benicio del Toro Leads Wes Anderson's Poignant Narrative Jigsaw Puzzle It's the kind of bizarro detour you don't expect to take in a period political thriller centered on a widowed father whose life is in danger. But moments of anarchic humor amid genuine suspense are exactly the kind of thing that makes Kleber Mendonça Filho's fourth narrative feature such a thrilling original. There's also a conjoined-twins cat, with two faces on one body; a woman experiencing demonic possession while being helped out of a movie theater showing The Omen; a less perturbed gentleman at the same screening getting a zesty blowjob in a back row while poor Lee Remick gets whacked by her Antichrist child; a kid so obsessed with Jaws he has nightmares but is too young to see the 14-certificate release; and a shark motif that even appears in an old black-and-white Popeye episode. Oh, did I mention it takes place during Carnival week, when revelers pack the streets by the hundreds of thousands and music saturates the air? But even that collective jubilation doesn't escape the specter of mortality. A broadsheet headline late in the film reads 'Death Toll of Carnival: 91,' as the pages are draped over the lifeless face of a contract killer in a pool of blood on a barbershop floor. The magic of the film is that all these incongruous elements fit organically into the larger picture, without ever diluting the tension or undermining the life-and-death stakes for the central character, initially known as Marcelo. He's played with soulful eyes and a cloak of melancholy and hurt by Wagner Moura, in a stellar return to Brazilian cinema after several years away. He's always been a good actor, but Mendonça Filho makes him a movie star. Despite its humorous flourishes and droll characters, The Secret Agent is a deeply serious movie about a painful time in Brazil's past, when people were disappeared in countless numbers, hired assassins haggled over rates, and even far-flung cities where the dictatorship was largely invisible felt its long reach. It's both of a piece with and completely different to Walter Salles' Oscar winner from last year, I'm Still Here, the main action of which takes place in Rio at the start of the '70s. Mendonça Filho's gift for exploring Brazil's complex sociopolitical realities in idiosyncratic ways was already apparent in Neighboring Sounds, Aquarius, and especially Bacarau, an anti-colonialist Western in which UFOs hover over a remote village mysteriously wiped from the map. But this new feature is his strongest yet and deserves to lift him into the ranks of the world's top contemporary filmmakers. The previous work that now feels almost like a companion piece to The Secret Agent is the elegiac 2023 documentary Pictures of Ghosts, about the director's childhood home in Recife and the now-vanished movie palaces where he found his calling. The seven years he spent making that film while poring over city archives is a significant part of the seed from which this new movie sprouted. It opens with Marcelo pulling in for gas in his yellow VW at a middle-of-nowhere station, where he's startled to see a dead body lying on the gravel in the blazing sun, only partly covered by a sheet of cardboard. He learns the man was shot by the night-shift attendant while attempting to rob the place, and the police are too busy with Carnival to come, though the stench attracts wild dogs. But two cops do pull in, showing no interest in the corpse. Instead, one of them does a close inspection of Marcelo's documents and car, looking for drugs, weapons or any kind of infraction. Finding nothing, the cop puts out his hand for a police fund donation. That scene clues us in that Marcelo is already on the authorities' radar. It also explains the urgency once he arrives in Recife to get things sorted and get out. The unofficial mayor of a tight-knit leftist community, 77-year-old Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria, wonderful), sets him up in an apartment and provides an envelope full of cash and details for a contact who can help facilitate fake IDs for himself and his son. Marcelo's late wife's parents have been taking care of young Fernando (Enzo Nunes) while he's been away. His father-in-law Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) is one of a handful of disarming characters, along with voluble Dona Sebastiana (historically the patron saint of death), who give the movie a buoyancy that works in lovely counterpoint to the corrosive fear driving the plot. Alexandre works as a projectionist at one of the movie palaces revisited in Pictures of Ghosts; scenes in the booth as well as posters in the lobby and outside provide a fresh hit of the affection for the moviegoing experience that was so intoxicating in the doc. Only gradually does it become clear that Marcelo (whose real name is Armando) made an enemy of Ghirotti, a crooked federal official from Sao Paolo, who stripped public funding from the university research department he headed. He condescendingly tells Marcelo's team to focus on work more in line with local business concerns, like tanning cow hides, and leave the sophisticated technological developments like lithium batteries to the more advanced experts in the southern cities. Marcelo has already patented lithium batteries, which doesn't go over well. He manages to hold his tongue during an uncomfortable dinner in which Ghirotti gets drunk and dismisses the Recife research team's work. But Marcelo's wife, Fatima (Alice Carvalho), lets loose with an angry tirade that turns into a physical altercation. Marcelo has explained her death to Fernando as the result of pneumonia, though the suspicion lingers that Ghirotti might have had her iced. The part of the movie in which Mendonça Filho jacks up the tension and gets to demonstrate razor-sharp genre technique comes when Marcelo is anxiously awaiting his and Fernando's fake passports from a resistance facilitator known as Elza (Maria Fernanda Candido), while two hitmen paid by Ghirotti, Augusto (Roney Villela) and Bobby (Gabriel Leone), arrive in town to track him down. The extended sequence where the killers get closer and closer to Marcelo is almost Hitchcockian in its tightly wound dread, made more agonizing by the raucous brass and drums of Carnival music. Perhaps the most daring trick Mendonça Filho pulls off is revealing the close of Marcelo/Armando's story through a present-day Sao Paolo researcher, Flavia (Laura Lufesi), who goes through audio tapes of bugged conversations and newspapers from the time to discover what became of him. But rather than cheating us out of a satisfying conclusion, it cuts a path to a profoundly affecting one when Flavia travels to Recife to share her findings with the now adult Fernando (also played by Moura), who runs a blood bank. That medical facility occupies the spot of a phantom movie theater. Expertly chosen music gives a rhythmic pulse to much of the action in a 2-hour-40-minute film that never drags. The atmospheric score by Tomaz Alves Souza and Mateus Alves has exquisite passages steeped in mystery and sorrow, combined with an eclectic mix that ranges from the festive Carnival bands to international hits like Chicago's 'If You Leave Me Now' and Donna Summer's 'Love To Love You Baby' to Brazilian songs of the period, notably a swoony number that Marcelo plays on the stereo when he first settles into his Recife apartment, which amplifies the emotion of his hometown return. Shot with Panavision anamorphic lenses in the slightly saturated colors of film stock from the era, the movie looks ravishing, every frame packed with interesting details thanks to the expert production and costume design of Thales Junqueira and Rita Azevedo, respectively. Enlivened by a populous, almost Altman-esque gallery of characters — way too many to mention — played without a single false note, and by the strong sense of a community pulling together for safety from the oppressive forces outside, the movie luxuriates in an inebriating sense of time and place that speaks of Mendonça Filho's intense love for the setting. It's a major achievement, and for my money, sure to be one of the best films of the year. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sissy Spacek Shares ‘Carrie' Audition Doubts at Spirited ‘Awards Chatter' Podcast Taping in Cannes
Sissy Spacek brought her Texas charm to Cannes, where the Oscar winner regaled an intimate crowd with stories from her 50-plus- year career. The conversation was lively and funny, with the actress discussing her defining role in 1976's Carrie and nearly missing out on Lynne Ramsay's current Cannes title, Die, My Love. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Phoenician Scheme' Review: A Brilliant Benicio del Toro Leads Wes Anderson's Poignant Narrative Jigsaw Puzzle 'Peak Everything' Director on Getting Personal With Dark Romantic Comedy to "Save Myself" Nicole Kidman Gives Update on 'Practical Magic' Sequel With Sandra Bullock: "It's Fun and Witchy" It was all part of the fourth annual live Cannes taping of the Awards Chatter podcast, hosted by Scott Feinberg, THR's executive editor of awards. Spacek first met Carrie director Brian De Palma through her husband, famed production designer Jack Fisk. The night before her audition, she stayed up late, rereading the Stephen King novel it was based upon, and 'feeling very tortured.' She showed up to the audition looking rough, in full Carrie mode. She put Vaseline in her hair and wore a torn dress. After the screen test, she was certain she'd blown her chance. 'I thought, 'He hates me. He'll never want me in his film and I'm not going to get this,' ' she recalled. Her husband was the one who broke the news that she landed the lead role, which would earn her an Oscar nomination. The conversation took place overlooking the Bay of Cannes at the Campari Lounge in the Palais, with the iconic red bitter brand returning for a fourth year as an official partner, continuing its role as curator of aperitivo occasions and celebrating the creativity and passion of visionary filmmakers who shape cinema. Spacek was in Cannes for Die, My Love, in which she plays the mother-in-law to Jennifer Lawrence's character, who is going through postpartum depression. Her agents begged her to meet with director Ramsay, but she declined because she was babysitting her grandkids. When she finally agreed, she couldn't understand the Scottish director's accent, while director Ramsay had trouble understanding her Texas twang. Said Spacek to laughs: 'Fortunately, her producer, Andrea [Calderwood] would explain. I'd look over say, 'What did she say?' So we had a great thing going.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lynne Ramsay, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson Toast ‘Die, My Love' at Cannes Dinner Hosted by The Hollywood Reporter and Longines
On the eve of a Cannes Film Festival world premiere, it would be understandable, and so easily forgiven, if you encountered the cast, filmmaker and creative collaborators behind a competition entry and found them to be nervous, on edge or maybe a little jittery. Not Lynne Ramsay and her team from Die, My Love. The emotions radiating on Friday at sunset from the beloved Cannes auteur, her roster of producers and stars including Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield and Sissy Spacek are best described as calm, cool and confident on what proved to be one of those picture perfect evenings on the French Riviera. Even a light mist vanished in time for cocktail hour atop La Terrasse by Albane at the J.W. Marriott during an exclusive filmmaker dinner in honor of Die, My Love sponsored by Longines and presented by The Hollywood Reporter. More from The Hollywood Reporter Can Cannes Help California Get Its Groove Back? Cannes: 'The Creep' Remake Sells for U.K. (Exclusive) U2 Legend Bono on Why the World Has Forgotten What Freedom and Democracy Mean Die, My Love? Not so fast. One could also say the love was alive and flowing as the collaborators, many of whom hadn't seen each other since production wrapped, hugged and caught up on the terrace before sitting down for a mouth-watering summer dinner prepared by Argentine chef Mauro Colagreco, who owns and operates the three Michelin starred Mirazur in Menton, France. It featured starters of artichoke with shavings of bottarga and aged parmesan cheese and marinated tomatoes, basil and buffalo mozzarella, followed by main course choices of John Dory or a beef steak, both served with green asparagus and green pea purée. For dessert: Rum Baba with eggnog and toffee caramel or strawberries with creamy white chocolate and elderflower. Prior to courses hitting the table, THR co-editor-in-chief Maer Roshan and Longines Mattias Breschan offered brief yet heartfelt toasts to the Die My Love team. Roshan went first, offering how 'thrilled' he was to be in attendance (alongside publisher Lori O'Connor, awards guru Scott Feinberg and PMC's senior vp operations and finance Jerry Ruiz) before expressing 'our deepest gratitude' to the creative team. He also noted a determination in the room for the film to land a distributor ahead of Saturday's world premiere at the Grand Lumiére. Roshan also shouted out the producers on the Cannes title, which includes Lawrence and her Excellent Cadaver partner Justine Ciarrocchi (a pair that was last in Cannes for their documentary Bread and Roses), Andrea Calderwood, Black Label Media's Molly Smith, Thad and Trent Luckinbill and Bruce Franklin (an executive producer). Lawrence was quick to shout and make sure one more iconic name got attention: Martin Scorsese. (The Cannes debut of Die, My Love marks a moment for Black Label Media, last here for the critically acclaimed Sicario from Denis Villeneuve.) Roshan introduced Breschan, CEO of Longines which enjoys a long-term partnership with Lawrence (who was sporting a Longines DolceVita timepiece). 'Because we are from the time business, time matters, so for us it's really an honor and pleasure being here,' he said. 'It's really amazing to have this private moment to meet here on a very, very emotional occasion.' Breschan then leaned on one of Longines' most prominent slogans — 'elegance is an attitude' — to explain what he saw being reflected during cocktail hour as the team caught up and posed for photographs at the event, expertly curated by 'queen of Cannes' Danielle Pelland and her Brilliant Consulting. 'I could see that you define elegance how I see elegance,' he praised. (A fitting compliment in the presence of Lawrence, who was praised in Longines advertisements for being the embodiment of that with her 'natural elegance and style.') In Die, My Love, Ramsay cast the Oscar winner to play a new mother experiencing postpartum depression as she struggles to maintain a grip on reality. Ramsay, who directed from a script she co-wrote with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, is back in Cannes after standout showings in previous years for her debut Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller, and You Were Never Really Here starring Joaquin Phoenix. And she seemed to be soaking in the early moments of her return to the French Riviera. While she revealed they were still cutting the film in a race to finish in time for the world premiere, the stress didn't show. But pre-premiere compliments were definitely present. (Also present: Rick Yorn, Cooke Maroney, Jennifer Metcalf, Bron Heussenstamm, Chris Donnelly, Grace Clisshold, Nick Frankel, Rachel Hampton, Tim Grimes, film's editor Toni Froschammer, Josie Redmond, Sarah Schweitzman, Kasmere Trice, Josh Varney, Stefania Arrivabene, Andrea Calderwood, Temitayo Bandele, Weiman Seid, Courtney Kivowitz, Huy Nguyen and Daniel Angeles.) 'It's pretty astonishing to have this entire group assembled,' Ciarrocchi said in addressing the dinner guests. 'Every movie is an odyssey. This one took so much blood, sweat, care and spirit. To reunite in Cannes is overwhelming. I think I can speak on behalf of everybody in this room by saying that working with Lynne Ramsay is easily one of the greatest privileges of our career thus far.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
