Have you heard about the movie: “Frozen River”? It was released this past summer, and is still being buzzed about. Not just because it is a stirring film, and it’s different…
Thematically… it’s a bit more real, than the average Hollywood film. It’s a story about a woman whose husband gambles away all the money that they’ve saved for a suitable trailer home, for the family. Their “dream savings”. Now, he’s gone. She’s got a family, and poverty.
She’s not young; and all glammed-up. Sexily clad. No.
Melissa Leo’s character “Eddy”, doesn’t have a high end manicure. No little things, like hair tangles, ruins her evening… She’s a grown woman, with the kind of real-life-authentic-drama, that all human beings deal with. Female humans, too.
Yes, female, and Eddy is a mother, and if you are one, then you know… motherhood is just about the most profoundly dramatic experience… (Oddly, it’s a drama that is rarely, theatrically, expressed.)
In “Frozen River”, Leo is the type of mother who will do anything for the good of her children.
And, this woman’s life is on the precipice of complete ruination, without many options.
How does she handle an overwhelming challenge? She pairs up with a Mohawk woman [Misty Upham], smuggling people across a border. In Alaska, in the freezing cold.
You may remember Melissa Leo from television, she was detective Kay Howard, on “Homicide”. Her performances are always so seamless; she slips so deeply into the characters she plays, that, paradoxically, it almost renders her unnoticeable
…Remember “21 Grams”?
This time around, it’ll be a surprise if Melissa Leo doesn’t get nominated for a “Best Actress” Academy Award. If the Academy votes fairly, she may even win.
Recently, at the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, in New York, “Frozen River” won best feature film, and Melissa Leo won best breakthrough actor…the two best awards.
Here are selected portions of an interview with Leo, by Thelma Adams…
MELISSA LEO SHARES: FOUR YEARS TO FEATURE FILM
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.
ON ACTING A CHARACTER, USING “SELF”
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.
ON ACTING WITH A FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR
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…
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?
…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.”
…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.
ACTING OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME
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 on-set but, somehow, you get the darn thing in the can anyway….
Best,
:Dana
Please contribute to the cost of running this blog, if you find it valuable. Thank you.
