A few years ago I watched the Academy Awards with a friend of mine who is an actor. Don't get your hopes up; he isn't a particularly famous one, otherwise he would have been in the actual audience and not drinking beers with me on my couch. I remember watching Daniel Day-Lewis win the academy award for best actor that year for "There Will Be Blood." He got up on stage and gave a brief, but heartfelt speech. It wasn't incredible or out of the ordinary, but I looked over at my friend and said something along the lines of "Sounds like a pretty nice guy."
He looked back at me and said "Pretty good actor, you mean."
"Of course he's a good actor I replied." The Oscar was proof enough.
"You're so innocent," he quipped with a vicious little tone. "That's not his real personality."
He went on to explain that an Oscar acceptance speech is the most watched live event of an actor's career. If they are good enough to convince the academy that they are worth the award, then they are good enough to act like a heartfelt loving person during the speech. He gave a few stories of directors actually squirming in their seats in past years when certain acceptance speeches lied about actual events on set just to improve a public image.
Yikes he may have had a point. If these actors are so believable on film, what's to say they aren't just giving a performance on awards night? I enjoyed the academy awards alot less this year and it wasn't just because of the awful hosting. When Colin Firth gave his talk about holding down dance moves I wanted to believe that he was this charming actor with a great accent, but I couldn't do it. The only thing I could really be sure of is that Melissa Leo is really annoying.
Daniel Day-Lewis met Arthur Miller's daughter on the film set of The Crucible and they are married with children...he is a fascinating man...deep, intelligent, sentient like many actors who win the academy award.
ReplyDeleteHe also has a reputation for being a huge pain in the ass method actor.
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