October
28
Getting Ugly for Oscar
It's an Oscar staple, the beautiful actress who makes herself ugly for a role and wins an Oscar. Reelzchannel has a preliminary list:
1. Charlize Theron in Monster
2. Nicole Kidman The Hours
3. Hilary Swank Boys Don't Cry
4. Susan Sarandon Dead Man Walking
5. Elizabeth Taylor Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Sasha Stone at Awards Daily adds:
1. Renee Zellweger, Cold Mountain
2. Jessica Lange, Frances
3. Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice
4. Renee Zellweger, Bridget Jones (by Hollywood's standards)
5. Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas
6. Jodie Foster, The Accused
Sasha's list includes some nominees who didn't win: Zellweger won for Cold Mountain and not Bridget Jones Diary, Shue was nominated, and Lange won for Blue Sky and Tootsie, not Frances. Also, I don't think Streep, while a beautiful woman, was ever identified as a glamour girl; she's always been a character actress who looks different in every role. Swank and Foster are also actresses who have never been seen as ingenues. And on my list below, it's fair to say that Holly Hunter has never been perceived as a glamour girl either.
I'll see Sasha and raise her:
1. Halle Berry in Monster's Ball
2. Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby
3. Holly Hunter in The Piano
4. Helen Hunt in As Good as it Gets
5. Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted
6. Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve
Which brings up another theory: The Oscar often goes to an actress playing poor white trash--as exemplified by Foster in The Accused, Swank in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby, and Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, who while deglammed, was by no means ugly.
By this logic, gorgeous French star Marion Cotillard is in good shape for channeling songstress from the gutter Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.
Any more?
Here's an evergreen Oscar quiz from the Guardian. Oscar-savvy that I am, I scored 34.
Here's another List of Oscar Rules from Film.com. And Bruce Kirkland lists actresses who have gone from fluff to tough.
Obviously, Academy actors and Oscar voters look at degree of difficulty and bravura moments. But for Hollywood's glamour girls, from Elizabeth Taylor to Halle Berry, it's a question of picking a great role to chew on--and getting folks to take them seriously.
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The wonderful TABU was aged for a span of nearly 30 years in THE NAMESAKE!
Posted by: Barry Dale | October 29, 2007 at 10:56 PM
but hilary swank was a hot transguy in Boys Don't Cry, not "ugly" at all.
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