Last Year’s Best Supporting Actress winner Melissa Leo is still fighting

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By Thelma Adams | The Reel Breakdown – Thu, Sep 13, 2012 5:12 PM EDT

Photo: Factory 25

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Melissa Leo's latest independent film dares the audience to look away because it is so unflinching and gloss free. "A small gem of bleak, neorealist portraiture," wrote New York Times film critic Stephen Holden today. "Melissa Leo plays a granite-faced, taciturn woman who connects more easily with animals than with people." The very first scene of "Francine" shows the 51-year-old Leo taking a shower in a way that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. Directors Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky shot the micro-budgeted indie in upstate New York -- Leo has a house in Ulster County -- in the summer of 2010 before the actress earned her Oscar for "The Fighter."

She plays the title character: an anti-social New York animal lover who gets out of prison for an unspecified crime and discovers that living free and earning a living has challenges that may be beyond her ability to cope. At the Berlin International Film Festival, where I first saw "Francine" last January, the buzz was about the scenes where Francine lives in an increasingly filthy crash pad surrounded by a growing number of cats and dogs. Her situation inspired a gag reflex in some audience members, and deep empathy and awe in others. The movie opens theatrically in limited release and contains an unforgettable performance from an uncompromising actress, a raw, honest, and disturbing portrait of a woman living precariously on the edge of society.

Melissa Leo: We shot "Francine" in the giddy-up-go to the Oscars. "Francine" was shooting in the Hudson Valley, so I was home for the summer.

Thelma Adams: So, it was your summer job. After your best-actress nomination for playing Ray Eddy in "Frozen River," you were itching to play a lead role again.

ML: With Ray Eddy, I was carrying the ball. It was more fun. I love acting. What I do is called playing, like a child. I get to go to work and play. It's not about the most and more. As the character that the story is about, you are more integrally bound to the magic of storytelling.

TA: And how does that differ when you are playing a supporting role, as you did in "The Fighter"?

ML: As a supporting player, the fun is aiding and abetting the lead. It's fun. Don't get me wrong. I'm just not "The Fighter." I probably could have played them both -- Dicky and Micky. Just don't tell Mark [Wahlberg]. I also take my work very seriously, and there is greater responsibility. I am old and wise, and I enjoy rising to that responsibility.

TA: Which is something that you did as an animal lover with people issues just out of prison in "Francine." To say you're stripped bare is not an understatement …

ML: It was oddly self-conscious to watch "Francine" while at Berlin with an audience and take in how I handled that responsibility. The work was difficult and hard, but what it has wrought is a very beautiful movie -- not me, not them [the filmmakers], that fiery combination.

TA: Who is Francine?

ML: She might in some degree live in all of us in the way that people incarcerate themselves and live by only the rules they understand.

TA: What about all those cats and dogs and gerbils Francine collects? The audience audibly gasped to see how she lives covered in pets.

ML: The animals were awesome. A lady and her kids in the Hudson Valley rescue beasts, and they come from her home, where they live together -- tidily nonetheless and loved. Extraordinary care was taken with the animals while portraying some of the most in-your-face acting. The dog that dies is only pretending the truth like the rest of us.

TA: So, tell me, Melissa, what has been the biggest change in your career since you won the Academy Award for "The Fighter"?

ML: The biggest change is deep inside my heart, Thelma. The respect, admiration, and inclusion of my fellow thespians and other industry members envelops me as much as family. I'm feeling connected. My work is my religion, and to be honored by the Academy is like being honored by the pope.

TA: "Francine" is a daring opportunity, not the first thing that came along after your Oscar and, certainly, not a big paycheck for you. It's not quite like Mickey Rourke going from "The Wrestler" to playing the villain in "Iron Man 2."

ML: As with Ray Eddy in "Frozen River," "Francine" tells a story that's interesting and unique. She has the specificity that makes the film very universal.

TA: David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film and wrote: "'Francine' is a legitimate discovery." He concluded: "The stealth impact of 'Francine' is tremendous given its simplicity and strangeness. The same goes for Leo's performance, an exceptional demonstration of power in silence." In my opinion, the performance has so little dialog, it's almost a contemporary silent movie.

ML: If I'd have known that, I'd have had a funnier walk, with a cane, like Charlie Chaplin.

THELMA ADAM'S BLOG: FROZEN RIVER

When I saw Frozen River last January at Sundance, it knocked me out. IMDB I'd been a Melissa Leo fan since she played Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on Homicide: Life on the Street. We became friends through the Woodstock Film Festival, and I adore Racing Daylight, her movie with David Strathairn that has yet to get theatrical distribution. When I saw Frozen River (FR), I discovered that when an actress who's also a friend appears on screen, it's doubly interesting because you're rooting for her, and you want her to be great, and you know she can be great. I saw the drama about two struggling single mothers forging a friendship while smuggling on the NY-Canadian border, and I literally wept in two ways. I wept because this particular story moved me emotionally but, also, to watch someone you love create a work of art is extremely affecting. And, over the process of becoming an advocate for FR that week in Park City, I bumped into Michael Barker and Tom Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics at a screening. I told them they had to see FR: it's tremendous, I told them; it's adult and has Melissa Leo, you know her from 21 Grams and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and she should be on the Oscar track. And, by festival's end, not only had Michael and Tom bought FR, but Quentin Tarantino and the jury awarded it best narrative feature and it went on to open New Directors/New Films at MOMA. Last month, I sat down beside Melissa for a chat:

Thelma Adams: Melissa, when did you step into FR to play Ray Eddy?
Melissa Leo: Five years ago-ish, I was in Chatham, NY with James Schamus [Focus Features]. He'd brought 21 Grams up there for a screening. At the after-party, a wide-eyed blond-haired gal came up to me and said 'I have a short, will you read it?' And I said, 'sure.' I read a script called Frozen River about two characters: the blond and the native; they didn't even have names. About four years ago, [writer-director] Courtney Hunt, [co-star] Misty Upham and I went up to Massena, NY and shot the short. After, I saw that short and was very impressed by what she had done, Courtney said, 'wanna do the feature?' And I said, 'oh, I didn't know you had one,' and 'sure, let's do the feature." So every six, eight months I would call Courtney and say, "Are we going to make that movie?" And she would say, "oh, yeah, no, I'll get right back to you," so I would kick-start her again to go look for the financing. Eventually we found it in her own backyard through her husband and his business associates.
TA: Melissa, your character is tough, and yet when her sons are around, her behavior is warm, natural. When Ray Eddy's getting ready for work and the younger son is there, there's a real bond. I know you have a great connection with children - I've seen that with my own daughter - and you're really present and you can see that on screen.
ML: What you have to realize is that little actor never acted before -- and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. So, it took a lot of work with me and the older boy and sometimes Courtney as well. Sometimes there are actually all three of us off-camera with the little boy on screen prodding him in this direction, prodding him in that direction.
TA: FR was in development for years, but when the money came did it happen quickly?
ML: It was in the works for a long time and then we had a lot of issues: the winter had not gotten cold enough to freeze the water we needed frozen, and then we started going and the water began to unfreeze. So there were both a money factor and a weather factor that made us have to giddy-up and go and just shoot it.
TA: Courtney told me she pulled the shoot together the week before ...and she cast a lot of non-actors.
ML: Yes. We want up to the reservation outside of Montreal, Tonawanda, and a casting woman - they have a theater group - held auditions up there, Misty and Courtney and I met with the actors; they were a varied group of both actors with experience and others who were just willing to give it a try.
TA: The movie revolves around two great central performances - you and Misty. The acting avoids melodrama. Is that partially because Misty is so solid?
ML: Solid is a really good word for her. Misty, however, is a consummate actress. And not really very much like her Lila Littlewolf lead. There's a lot of gregarity in Misty, she's deeply, deeply wise I'll be walking somewhere with her and I'll go, "Misty, are you sure it's this way?" and she'll go "yeah, I'm sure" and, alright, I'm with Misty. She always knows where she's headed. She's remarkable.
TA: Has FR changed her career?
ML: That's waiting yet to see what happens with it. What Misty is acutely aware of and, I think is worth mentioning, is that there has never in the history of film been anything like her performance. Misty and her native community across the US are aware of it: she's not playing an Indian, she's playing a person with a complete life, with the ups and the downs of it, the wisdom and the mistakes, and a rounded person whose tale does not hinge on their being an Indian or not. It's an extraordinarily rare thing to have that kind of character in a film and I hope that she and the performance are celebrated and she can parlay it into other things. She has the talent to do it.
TA: Your character is also strong and fully realized. How much of that was on the page? What did you contribute?
ML: It's difficult for me to know how much of myself I end up bringing. Comments from people after the fact like my mom's friend who just can't get over the fact that I really knew how to look for that change in that couch [laughs]. She's known my history. She's known me my whole life. I'm not quite sure what parts of the character are parts of my self. What I do know is first of all in the writing of Ray Eddy, she was a whole, complex character with flaws that Courtney wrote, and Courtney even was, as many writers are when they write, her character. And very, very generously gave me the character when it came my turn to play Ray Eddy and Courtney, then, took a backseat. So there were things in her writing that are primary to who Ray Eddy is, and there's what I then brought to it, which is innate in me. I'm not sure how to describe what that is. And, then, there's also the direction that Courtney gave me. With another director at the helm, and me in that part, it wouldn't have been the same thing because Courtney made me make Ray more likeable, that even though she might be doing things people might question, that you would still care for her. That's very much Courtney's hand in the direction. Courtney had a very keen eye that that was important and, now, in viewing the film, which is very different from reading or performing the film, I understand and see the importance of that. So Courtney's direction of me was a big, big part of it.
TA: What was Courtney's approach?
ML: What a director must have is a vision of their film - and Courtney had that in spades. She knew every heartbeat and turn of her film as we worked so I knew I could trust her. There were some bumps to get through in the first handful of days of shooting. Courtney's never really been on a set before. There's a way things work that everybody else there knows because the gaffer and the grips and the electric, they've all been on lots of sets...
TA: ... as have you...
ML: As have I. There was a really scary day about three days in. We were shooting late in the film, not when we're out and Mark Boone Jr. is being mean to those poor Chinese girls and then he shoots me in the ear, but right after I get in the car. So we're starting the scene. We haven't shot the other stuff with Mark Boone and the girls, where Ray gets shot in the ear, but we're shooting right after when I get in the car. So we're in the car, it's pouring out with snow, with me driving to the start mark. Courtney's in the back seat with what they call a clamshell, which is a monitor so she can see what the camera's seeing. And I turn to look over my shoulder, quick as I'm driving to the start mark. 'Courtney, do you think that we've been driving a little while and now we start the dialog or have I just got in the car, and we're starting the dialog,' Does that question make sense?
TA: Yes.
ML: Didn't make sense to Courtney! [Laughter] So then, I'm now about to act like a woman who's just got shot in the ear, I'm getting a little amped up because I know my face is going to be about this close to the camera in about three seconds, because they're going to call rolling and I ask Courtney one more time [voice rising] 'just be very clear with me if this is a little while down the road or if I've just gotten in the car?" and she says [softly, whispery] 'don't talk to me like that."
TA: And what did you do?
ML: I remembered that I was working with a first-time director. We were going to have to work this out after we got the shot. They rolled the camera. We did the take. We got there. I got out of the car. I looked for a producer and I said, [loudly] "talk to her!" And they did. And it never happened again. That's the amazing thing about Courtney. Is that she could learn even as we were doing it. And when we got through that third day, and that particular bump, and we came back the next day, something had changed. I knew we were going to be OK.
TA: Does that typically happen on a set? Is there that moment when it galvanizes or it doesn't?
ML: This was very different for me in so many ways because here I was being given that opportunity that I have waited a lifetime for, the opportunity to carry the film. So everything mattered that much more to me. I was that much more involved in all of it. There's all kind of utter nonsense that goes on onset but, somehow, you get the darn thing in the can anyway.

FROZEN RIVER WINS SUNDANCE JURY PRIZE!

Why, you may wonder, are we so excited at this seemingly unrelated triumph? For so many reasons, not the least of which is that it's star Melissa Leo is also our star. It's also a film written and directed by a woman with women in the lead roles.

CONGRATULATIONS COURTNEY, MELISSA, AND MISTY!!!

CONGRATULATIONS to JULIE CHRISTIE and RUBY DEE! Two women well over the Hollywood target age who gave us performances of beauty and integrity, and to Sarah Polley for daring to take us where many of us fear to travel with a blend of humor and pathos.

I've been in contact with Thelma Adams, film/DVD critic for US Weekly, and Melissa Silverstein, www.womenandhollywood.blogspot.com, to discuss the irony of a woman-guided film taking the top prize when the sundance critics' panel was again composed soley of men. Melissa Silverstein noted that the difference between male and female helmed films was reflected in the purchase prices as well, Frozen river selling for about 1 million, yet all the boy movies, like Hamlet2, sold for much more. Isn't the equation how it performs, not who made it?

WOMEN!!! Wake up! If you don't go to the polls, the movies, the anything ... or let the powers that be know you are not happy with the choices you're being offered, well ... our absence is viewed as apathy not disinterest. Get interested. Get vocal. When women vote women win.

Here's the rub ... many films made by women FOR women, not to sugggest that Frozen River falls into this category as it is a story with enormous humanity, but many female helmed films are made by women FOR women and are killed before they reach their target market, by male critics. 51% of the population is being told by Papa what's good for them, or that the reflections we cast of ourselves into the popular conversation are sub par, or of no interest, or more incredibly that our reflections of ourselves are WRONG. Huh? Seriously? What is that about? Will somebody please explain to me why this equation seems equitable? And if not, why it still exists?

The yardstick is still how men see women, not how we see ourselves. Level the playing field please. Give us more women critics! I suspect less of the traditional fare would survive a deluge of estrogen. Yes, judge my artistic content and execution, but on the intended playing field please. I DO NOT WANT SOME MODEL-DOTING TWENTY-SOMETHING TESTOSTERONE DRIVEN STUDIO EXEC, AD MAN, POLITICIAN TELLING ME WHO OR WHAT I AM. I do not want my work to be leveraged against what's come before as the only stamp of good and true. I can chew my own food, thank you.

Studio films target the testosterone driven "prick flick" market (thank you Gloria Steinam for the introduction of this apt term), consisting of 14-18 year old males, as if they are the only movie goers and the only repeat offenders. It's middle aged women who are buying those boxed sets of PBS and indie films, AND the "chick flicks" at a premium which we will watch over and over again. When I go to my local theater on a Monday night the audience is full of middle aged + women, and we're regulars. Hm ... what's missing here?

Though women directors sit in that esteemed chair far less than their male counterparts, the ratio of award winning films is disproportionate. Pay attention investors... a far greater percentage of women's films are winning awards, though less women are making films. Again I say hm ...

If I know Melissa Leo's in a film I'm going to see it. Not just because she's a friend, but because I know that the film is gonna be interesting, textured, complicated, not black and white but built in the grey-zone where most of us live. And the women are gonna be three-dimensional, not JUST moms and arm candy. I will go to see anything with Frances McDormand, Meryl Streep, Liv Tyler, Brenda Blethyn, Helen Mirrren, Judi Dench, Fanny Ardent, Sarah Polley, Drew Barrymore, Renee Zellweger and a host of other female actors worldwide who choose material that challenges the status quo, which challenge our view of women throughout history. Women who dare to tell her story. This win gives us hope. I like hope. It sure beats the alternative.

Reprint: THELMA ADAMS ESSAY on RACING DAYLIGHT

RACING DAYLIGHT

An essay by Thelma Adams,

Us Weekly film critic and New York Film Critics Circle member

When my six-year-old displayed dramatic tendencies, the actress Melissa Leo invited us to visit her on the set of Racing Daylight, The movie's title came to reflect my feelings on mothering: my daughter glows; I chase. And on that rare July afternoon, on a Catskills film set, I realized the limits of our time together. Elizabeth won't be this golden-haired girl riding shotgun in my life for long; this child will break out into the world and burn, baby, burn. And so I race.

At lunchtime, we approached the Big Blue Barn in Accord, our mom-mobile joining the aging sedans and trucks that packed the steep gravel drive. On the lawn, a folksy four-man band with an antebellum repertoire practiced amid black snaky cables On the patio, actors in period dress ate pasta salads, their laughter loud and thespian, unequal to their mild jokes and idle gossip.

Melissa emerged from a sliding glass door. The slender redhead best-knownas Benicio Del Toro's blowsy wife in 21 Grams skipped out to greet us in earth shoes and a cotton print skirt, welcoming Elizabeth like a VIP. When she introduced her to the producer, Elizabeth asked, with great seriousness: "Who's the second producer?" She's in the know.

"And who's the star?" Elizabeth asked. Melissa laughed and said slyly, "Me!" as if it was a joke she and Elizabeth sprung on the adults.

Melissa led us to Director Nicole Quinn, who shared a step with her husband. Nico, a fifty-plus African American, welcomed us on the set, eyes tired but happy, elbows on knees. She began apologizing for not vacuuming (it's actually her converted barn-home we're in), when a gangly assistant editor climbed past her on the stairs. She asked him if he ate, with a mother's concern, then dispatched him back downstairs for food.

With a rapt audience, Lizzy plunged in to pitching her movie. She will direct, she told Nicole, also produce and star. I, apparently, will write the screenplay. Then Elizabeth threaded her way down the hall, stopping to ask the production designer, the hair lady (who's stopped to ooh and aah over Elizabeth's Goldilocks ringlets), and Melissa, if they will work on her movie.

Having cast Melissa as her supporting actress, Elizabeth, who will also star, settled on the living room couch amid the wigs and the straw hats and a misplaced hammer and Giancarlo Esposito, whose scenes had wrapped for the day. Having never seen Esposito on Disney or Nick, Elizabeth ignored him; earnestly discussing with the producer whether her production should use real cats, which are hard to wrangle, or stuffed cats, or children dressed as cats. Apparently cats figure large in the movie.

After lunch, we went outside in the sticky heat. Elizabeth sat on a stump near the action, rapt, heavily doused with bug spray, and watched as, time after time, handsome Jason Downs solemnly approached a slightly flirtatious Sabrina Lloyd with her hair pulled back in a snood. They repeated the scene five, six times, Nicole pleasant and patient and encouraging; the snippy young sound man with shaved head and tats dissatisfied with the sound quality. He was the only drama queen on the set, except for a bee buzzing in the brush.

Next set-up, The Camptown Shakers played for the Victorian garden party scene. Despite the oppressive heat, banjo music and magic filled in the air. Nicole set the mood; she had the mellow attentiveness to detail of someone who's wrangled two children through infancy, childhood, adolescence, to successful high school careers and a bit beyond. She's a heaven-sent role model, no devil boss in Prada!

"Coffee, any one?" Melissa asked between takes, channeling her inner production assistant. She had a belly ring, and little five-pointed stars tattooed at various points on her body her ankle, hip, shoulder a constellation, she said. Then she laughed embarrassedly: she didn't want to be a bad influence on Elizabeth, who yearned to be Melissa right then.

As the heat rose, along with the mosquitoes, Elizabeth started to sag. We began to say our goodbyes then, as we crossed the lawn to our car, Nicole dispatched the Assistant Director. The stocky twentysomething with a Home Depot solidity asked Elizabeth if she wanted to be an extra. Suddenly, she had energy to burn!

The wardrobe lady whisked my daughter to the spare bedroom. She returned transformed to 19th century girliness in a calico pinafore and straw boater. Wild ringlets tumbled across the shoulders of her long-sleeved blouse. She was barefoot her feet too small for any stock shoes but it went with the summery feel of the lemonade day. She was ecstatic in that great game of dress-up: acting.

Elizabeth went to the front lawn. Nicole and her cameraman were setting the shot for a card game beneath a shady oak, where character actress Le Clanche Du Rand gossiped with the preacher and two others while playing bridge The sound man grumbled: the trees whispered.

After the extras and crew kvelled, and the actors ignored her, the assistant director led Elizabeth to her mark beyond the action. It was a lonely spot in the high grass where she waited until he lowered his hand. The plan was that after the actors began their dialog, she would run behind them, up the hill out of the frame, then circle around to the steps leading down to the camera placement. She would wait there silently for the A.D.'s signal to return to her mark.

Melissa and I positioned ourselves on a stone bench where we couldn¹t see the card players but had a perfect view of our star. Elizabeth, focused, paying strict attention to the A.D., ignored us. On her first try, her straw boater flew from her head, and she stumbled over the long skirt's ruffle. But she didn¹t stop or fuss, just gathered the skirt with one hand, picked up the hat with the other, placed it on her head where she held it securely and continued her uphill frolic.

Having gasped together when the hat flew, Melissa and I laughed to see how Elizabeth completely recovered, without a murmured darn, or a wasted motion. We covered our mouths to keep silent, wiped away tears, in awe of our girl and the day's assymetrical, unexpected enchantment. When Elizabeth came around to the stone steps, Melissa and I give her the thumbs-up. She smiled proudly, but swiftly, looking toward her A.D. to escort her back to her mark for the next take.

Elizabeth was an instant pro and Melissa couldn't help seeing herself in my daughter: the glow, the total concentration, the giddy feeling that when she was acting for a camera at the center of all that activity she was truly alive. And when Melissa returned at day¹s end to her quiet house, and the bills, and the what-next of it all, the magic evaporated. Maybe that was
why she lingered, dispensing coffee and joy, twirling in her cotton skirt, with her tattoo constellation.

We watched as Elizabeth prepared for each shot: grabbing her skirt; anchoring her hat. She stared at the stocky young man with unflagging concentration, ignoring Melissa and me. And then, the A.D. lowered his hand again, six more times. Each time, Elizabeth ran, all golden ringlets like summer sun, pinafore and pink legs and bare feet beneath the indigo ruffle, her straw hat a kite caught in a sapling.

Maybe, for Elizabeth, this was the beginning of a glorious career. Or maybe it was just the July day Mom made the magic happen. It doesn't matter what she wants to be when she grows up: vet, teacher, film critic, superstar. It's important to just be in the moment. She is the diva; I am her entourage. Let her lick the insides out of life's Oreo for the moment; it¹s one gift I can give her while I'm still picking up the check.

Thelma Adams is the Us Weekly film critic and a New York Film Critics Circle
member.