TMS Spotlight: All About Andrea Riseborough

(via wikipedia.org)

“To Leslie is a small film with a giant heart. Andrea Riseborough gives the performance of the year, and Allison Janney, Marc Maron, Owen Teague, Andre Royo and Stephen Root are all incredible. Please go find this gem, directed by Michael Morris!”

Are you getting déjà vu reading this endorsement? Or are you mainly confused? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Last weekend this statement made its way across social media as a group of celebrities shared almost verbatim the same recommendation for an indie drama from last October called To Leslie [directed by Michael Morris!]. The celebs were specifically plugging the performance from lead Andrea Riseborough, who has been primarily MIA this awards season. Almost instantly everyone thought the shout-outs sounded way too similar to each other, in the same vein as ‘bot spams.’ Naturally the rec quickly turned into a meme, particularly on Reddit. Why did all these people wait until only a week before Oscar nominations are announced to start supporting their friend? Some are theorizing this is an attempt by the ‘industry’ to sabotage Michelle Yeoh’s chances of winning Best Actress for the Daniels’ Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022). Others are jokingly suggesting Andrea has a lot of dirt she’s making use of blackmailing stars [including A-listers like Jennifer Aniston, Edward Norton and Sarah Paulson]. But mostly, a lot of people, including those who actively pay attention to film, are just like—

I’ll start with my discovery of Andrea as an actress, a decade ago, when I reviewed Henry-Alex Rubin’s Disconnect (2012) and Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion (2013). I was impressed by her range to go from determined journalist to sultry femme fatale, and was a little in envy of the voluminous honey/strawberry hair she had at the time. Afterwards, I continued to notice the English player in other interesting films like A.G. Iñárritu’s Birdman (2014) and Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals (2016) as well as Netflix’s series “Bloodline” (2016). Sometime around Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris’ Battle of the Sexes (2017) and Andrea’s 2017 episode of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” reboot; the actress’ career kind of fell off my radar as she started choosing artsy/indie flicks that didn’t really interest me. Though I’m clearly in the minority, since Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy (2018) and Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (2020) have plenty of fans. Then suddenly, out of nowhere this month, Andrea’s all over the internet and in a movie that actually sounds intriguing despite the dubious hype. But where did this movie even come from and why are we just now hearing about it? Well, according to Andrea’s To Leslie co-star, Marc Maron on his Twitter and podcast; Momentum Pictures decided to just dump the family drama into a limited theatrical release plus VOD, figuring they didn’t have enough money to properly campaign Andrea or the film itself for awards season with ads and interviews.

(Momentum Pictures)

So, it sounds like Andrea and someone else [possibly her agent Jason Weinberg] put things into their own hands and got word out as fast as possible, including hosting screenings of the movie in tinsel town, right before Oscar nominations. Puzzled pundits and historians are reminded of some of the more shameless Academy Award campaigns, such as Sally Kirkland and her pal Shelley Winters schmoozing around LA until Sally was nominated for Best Actress with Yurek Bogayevicz’s Anna (1987); or Diana Scarwid’s alleged self-funded lobbying to get the 5th spot in Best Supporting Actress for Richard Donner’s Inside Moves (1980). I don’t really think there’s currently any big, secret agenda by the film industry to stop a WOC’s chances from winning Best Actress by plugging Andrea’s performance in To Leslie. Just a quick research will show the vast majority of famous people name-dropping the movie have previously worked directly with either Andrea or Morris’ wife, actress Mary McCormack. So it most likely is just Andrea and someone else contacting everyone they’ve ever known in Hollywood. I do think this is a hilariously sloppy and amateur attempt at trying to get voters’ attention though. The weirdest thing about Andrea’s campaign is how it wasn’t organized it better.

If it were me, I would have sent the request to everyone one-by-one, made sure all the Tweets or other posts weren’t posted at the same time and encouraged the celebs to put their own recognizable flare in the wording so the rec doesn’t come off looking too much like astroturfing. Instead, it sounds like it was closer to the assistant or whoever just cc’ing/grouping a bunch of people with a message along the lines of, “Heyy, can you copy and share this message on your sm this weekend? Thaaanks. <333” I have no idea if this crazy plan is actually going to pay off next week. Early trade reports from LA already suggest this whole thing might just blow over by the time we know who’s officially nominated on Tuesday. But even Andrea having Oscar season experts go “????” over her random campaigning is very amusing. I’m not sure if this makes me interested in award shows again, but it did successfully make me add another movie to my watchlist: To Leslie starring Andrea Riseborough, directed by Michael Morris!