On an appropriately rainy Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosted its annual pre-Golden Globes tea party at the Four Seasons. A smattering of smartly dressed Brits including Keira Knightley, Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, and Henry Cavill, turned up for a proper “cuppa” toast, where they were joined by American colleagues like Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Steve Carell, and Anna Kendrick. But perhaps no actor was as thrilled to be part of the awards-season celebration as Rene Russo, who three days earlier earned her first-ever BAFTA nomination for Nightcrawler—a feat all the more impressive considering she beat out awards favorite Meryl Streep for the supporting-actress nod.
“I didn’t even know there were nominations that morning,” Russo told us, still in disbelief. “I was thinking, ‘BAFTA, that’s never going to happen.’ So I was sleeping and it was like 1 o’clock in the morning and I get an email. I’m like, ‘Who is this?’” Pulsing with excitement, she continued, “I’ll be honest with you, I’d rather have BAFTA [recognition] over an Academy Award any day. Because it’s just cool. Right?! And I’ve never been nominated for anything, ever! You know, [it’s amazing] when you don’t expect it.”
The pitch-black thriller written and directed by Russo’s real-life husband Dan Gilroy stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a creepily amoral crime reporter and Russo as the television vet who takes him under her wing. Although Nightcrawler was not as obvious an award contender as, say, Boyhood or Selma, in part because of its disturbing (if thought-provoking) subject matter, it has been gaining awards momentum in the last few weeks thanks to both actors’ mesmerizing performances. BAFTA voters particularly seemed to embrace the film wholeheartedly, with a quartet of nominations.
“I was like, ‘Of course the Brits would get it!’” The accolades seem even sweeter considering that Russo never thought the film would get made.
“When [Gilroy] wrote it, I said, “This will never get off the ground. And then when he said he wanted to direct it, I said, ‘Yeah, good luck.’ Not to his face!” she added. “I would never do that.”
Despite the fact that Nightcrawler has been out in theaters for over a month now—and, living with the writer/director, she surely has access to a copy—Russo has still not seen the finished film she did not think was possible.
“I haven’t seen the movie. I will when everything is over. I am just critical [of myself]. But I saw some dailies. . .and I was with [Jake] in the scenes. So I was there and I get it. He deserves everything he gets. As an actor I know what he did was so complicated and difficult.”
Later, Damien Chazelle, writer and director of another indie awards contender this year, Whiplash, told us that he enjoyed working with star Miles Teller so much that he is collaborating with the actor again—this time on a musical.
“It’s a contemporary love story,” he told us. “It’s about two dreamers in Los Angeles who are trying to make it. Their dreams bring them together but also end up pulling them apart. It’s about how you kind of balance life and art and your dream life with reality, which to me is what musicals are all about.”
Although Emma Watson has been rumored as the female lead, Chazelle said that he could only talk about Teller’s involvement, and told us how he discovered the actor’s singing and dancing talents while on the Whiplash set.
“Between takes he would just start dancing and singing,” Chazelle said. “Most people do that and you are kind of covering your ears but he actually had a nice tone and just a great physicality to his dancing. He’s got this weird Gene Kelly thing going on.”
If you enjoyed Whiplash, Chazelle and Teller’s upcoming film has another enticing detail—the music is written by Whiplash composer Justin Hurwitz.
Nearby, Superman actor Henry Cavill warmly greeted fans and nominees despite the fact that he had not seen any award-nominated titles yet—not even Big Eyes starring Amy Adams, the Lois Lane to his Clark Kent. “I’ve been living in the dark. I’m essentially a mushroom right now,” the British actor told us apologetically when we asked about his favorite movies of the year.
Cavill has a good excuse for his movie-watching negligence though: the filming of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which took what “feels like 100 years, at least,” he joked. Finally coming up for air after months on-set, he asked for our film suggestions.
Apparently even Superman can’t get through all of his awards screeners.
