Onstage Speech: Performance by an actress in a supporting role
CATEGORY: Performance by an actress in a supporting role
SPEECH BY: Mo’Nique
FILM: “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey because you touched it, the whole world saw it. Ricky Anderson, our attorney of Anderson & Smith, thank you for your hard work. My entire BET family, my Precious family, thank you so much. To my amazing husband Sidney, thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forego doing what’s popular in order to do what’s right. And baby, you were so right. God bless us all.
Posted by Dana Kaminski on 7th March 2010 in actor interview
Mo’Nique Had Just Won For Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role At The 82nd Academy Awards.
Here is the transcript of her backstage interview:
A. Thank you very, very much, baby. Hey. Hey.
Q. Hey, Mo’Nique.
A. Hey, Sugar.
Q. Right here. It’s Sam from KTLA.
A. Hey, Sam.
Q. How are you?
A. I am wonderful.
Q. You’ve got all the time in the world now. Everything you’ve wanted and what you said on stage was wonderful. There was no red light or time pressure, and you could say anything you wanted to say.
what do you want to say, holding that in your hand?
A. Everything I wanted to say and everything I needed to say, I said it. Thank you, Sam.
117. Is that how we do it? Is this what they do at the Oscars? 117.
Q. Mo’Nique?
A. What we are going to do, sugar? Who was 47? Where is 47?
Q. Right here on the right.
A. After 160, we are going to do 117. Okay? Go ahead, sugar.
MODERATOR: We are going to 117, then we will go to 147.
Q. Mo’Nique, you’ve often said you are not an actress, you’re a standup comedienne. That’s your baby, and you won’t call yourself an actress.
Now that you’ve won an Oscar, are things going to change?
A. I am a standup comedienne who won an Oscar.
Q. Okay.
A. Oh, baby, I did it, me.
Q. Thank you so much, my friend, Mo’Nique. Congratulations. We told you, you would be right here. Okay.
I want you to just share the story with the audience and the world that you shared with us on the red carpet about Hattie McDaniel. I don’t think people out there really got it? Please explain the blue dress and the whole
A. This is why I called your number, because I don’t know how many people would have taken out the time to ask about that dynamic woman.
The reason why I have on this royal blue dress is because it’s the color that Hattie McDaniel wore in 1940 when she accepted her Oscar. The reason why I have this gardenia in my hair, it is the flower that Hattie McDaniel wore when she accepted her Oscar.
So, for you, Ms. Hattie McDaniel, I feel you all over me, and it’s about time that the world feels you all over them. Thank you so much, baby. I love you.
Q. Congratulations. Well deserved.
A. Thank you, sugar.
Q. Now, you are a very empowering woman. So I want to ask you, what do you think would happen to Hollywood actresses if they had more natural figures and didn’t shave their legs?
A. They’d win Oscars.
Oh, sugar, who is next?
Mickey, what question do you have, baby? Do you have one?
Q. Let’s go with 22.
A. You know what, sugar, I am going to tell you why. I have to go to the people I have to go to, because they were the ones that came to me when no one did.
You have a question for me, sugar? Can we get a mic? It’s as simple as walking. Mickey, as soon as you get the mic, baby, we got you, sugar.
Q. Congratulations.
A. Thank you, sister.
Q. So tell me, as awful as Mary Jones was, did you see any of yourself in her?
A. Yes, in that last scene. And I will ask you, have you ever had a dark moment when you were unlovable? I am asking you the question.
Q. Yes.
A. Didn’t you want somebody to love you through it?
Q. Yes.
A. That was that same for me. For as cruel as Mary Jones was, for the monster that she was, everybody and I don’t care who you are and what crime you’ve committed, everybody deserves to be loved, even when they are unlovable.
Thank you, sugar.
Q. Okay. Does Mickey have a microphone? Yes? No?
A. They are giving it to her, baby. Thank you for your patience.
Q. Hey Mo.
A. Hey, sugar.
Q. How’re you doing?
A. I am good. I’m a queen.
Q. All right. Did you and Sidney have a moment right when they announced your name? Did anything go on between the two of you? Did you say anything to each other?
A. When they announced my name, Sidney and I went back to Ramblestown High School on the balcony, at 14 years old, in the 10th grade.
And I said, “One day we are going to be stars.”
And he said, “You first.”
That is the moment we went to.
Q. Thank you.
A. Thank you.
Q. Hey, Mo’Nique, it’s
A. Hey, sugar.
Q. It’s Russ with BET News.
A. Hey, Russ. We love you, baby.
Q. This moment culminates a very long career, and at your NAACP award, you dedicated it to all the Preciouses out there.
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell us how it feels at this moment for that little girl from Baltimore who was told, “I can’t, you won’t, you will not, and you can’t,” what does it feel like in this moment?
A. I feel like you can, you will, and I did. God bless you, brother.
Q. Thank you.
Q. How has this powerful role shaped the rest of your acting career?
A. You know what? This role was not so not about my acting career, this role has shaped my life to allow me not to judge and to love unconditionally. Now, if that goes into my career, great. But if it doesn’t and I am just a dynamic person that I strive to be every day, I’ve won, baby.
Q. Congratulations.
A. Thank you, brother.
Q. Hi, Mo’Nique. Congratulations.
A. Thank you, sugar. We are actually going to do this young lady. Then, 85, then we can wrap it up with 244.
Q. Uhm, thanks. One of our viewers, Marilyn, wants to know about your technique: ”How long did it take to you relax when you’d get home from Precious, in doing some of those really emotional scenes?”
A. You know, and I have said this before, I am married to an angel, and oftentimes I tell him, “I can see your wings,” because the best advice he gave me was, “Don’t judge it, just be it, and leave it on the floor.”
So when Mr. Daniels said, “cut,” Mary Jones was left on the floor. There was no deprogramming, there was no therapy where I had to be brought back. Mary Jones was left on the studio floor, so when I went home, I was Mrs. Hicks, Sidney Hicks’ wife. I was Mommy to David, Jonathan, Michael, and Shawann.
Thank you, baby. 85.
MODERATOR: Okay. And I am just going to add, unfortunately, we do have to end with 85.
Q. First of all, congratulations. I knew you were going to win it all along. It was wonderful to see you up there. I just wanted to ask you, you talked about, in your acceptance speech, the politics and talent, meting it out.
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
A. Sure.
Q. Thank you.
A. Through this journey and process and I’m sure some of you are sitting in this room right now some journalist wrote, some reporters wrote, “Someone needs to teach Mo’Nique a lesson. Someone needs to tell her how this game is played.”
And I am very proud to be part of an Academy that says, “We will not play that game. We will judge her on her performance and not how many dinners she attended and how many pictures she took. It’s on the screen.”
So I am proud to hold this Oscar in my hand because this Academy said, “We won’t play the game that the media wants to so readily put out there.”
Posted by Dana Kaminski on 23rd November 2009 in Auditioning
Gaborey Sidibe Acts, For The First Time, At Her Audition For Precious
I’ll probably put this on the Actors Audition page later, but it just so boss! So I’m sticking it here with its very own page, as a post, first.
::
I just am so flummoxed, and bedazzled, by this actress. She is one-in-a-million, and with no formal acting training! That just does not happen. Her natural sensitivity, attunement, and empathy toward others; must guide her acting abilities, fuel her acting instrument. A natural connection to the role and as she has stated, her familiarity with that type of girl. And just divine provenance!
::
Her physicality creates such a beautiful paradox. For an actor, altogether. As an audience, we watch actors, really, to see what’s inside of them. You see nothing inside of her. Part of that is because the character, Precious, has never developed a connection to her own real self. Her own emotional self. As others support the inner Precious, and pull her out, Precious is also discovering herself. At the very same time, the audience is also discovering her.
::
Imagine that kind of restraint, as an actress. The measuring, the meting out…of an emotional self as it blossoms at only a pace accurate to the story. Slower, than we in the audience can take. Not because it’s a slow movie, not at all. But, rather because the amount of restraint is in equal measure to the amount of injustice that this person, this child, has endured. Precious is played with such restraint, she is so buried in there, in that person so that she is barely found. When the audience does find her, you just don’t want to let go.
Posted by Dana Kaminski on 31st October 2009 in great acting
During Gabourey Sidibe’s Audition, The Acting Portion Was Utterly Convincing
She was Precious. Director Lee Daniels liked her audition, very much.
Then, she did something that surprised the heck outa him.”Hark”, he said…”She speaketh.’ [Not really...]
Lee Daniels: After The Acting Part Of The Audition Was Over…
He and she started talking. And, then Gabby Sidibe, who hadn’t had an acting job, or acting class, for that matter, ever…
Spoke completely differently than the way she spoke during her acting audition, for the lead role of Precious.
Yes, Daniels did say that…that when she started speaking normally, he knew she was an actor. That is what set her apart from the 400+ other potential Precious-es. Gabourney Sidibe, Bedford-Stuyvesant-born, candidate-number-too-high-anymore-to-count-for-the-director, and actress-who-was-never-an-actress and who-really-didn’t-want-to-go-to-the-audition-so-much; spoke almost like what he described as ‘Valley Girl’, when she was just being Gabby. Yet, as Precious, she spoke differently, and as believably, as if Precious was actually her true self.
That’s acting.
Which Is What You Will See In The Film, When You Go To See ’Precious’.
I guess that’s gonna be a big problem for Gabby. Her portrayal is so right-on; and reasonably, invisibly understated. Her acting is so deep, so pure, so real, he felt that she was a veritably castable Precious, just like the other 400+ candidates in his file drawer, as Lee Daniels explained. But, Gabby Sidibe got the job, because when she was done trying out for Precious, when she wasn’t being Precious, she was being Gabby. And Gabby was a psychology major enroute to getting a degree. She’s a well-educated, verbally expressive, differently cadenced, grown woman.
Not an abused girl, not a withholding girl, not an invisible-type personality. Gabourey Sidibe is an articulate, actualized, accomplished individual.
She is so confident, so actualized, and entrusted the director so deeply, that her performance is so withheld, quiet, and accurately understated; it’s gonna whiz right over most people’s heads. It’s so real, and so tear-wrenchingly silent, understated. Precious is buried; a child whose real-self never saw the light of day.
If you read the psychology, you know then, that that is how abuse, especially sexual abuse, is survived. Detachment.
Precious is detached from the rest of the world, by girth, by non-affect, by laconic invisibility.
There are scenes where the camera is behind her, and I almost felt that her head could just slide right down into her back and she could almost disappear into herself. Her own physicality.
Rare is an actor who could use a physicality in that way. To express a subtext. To hide. Female actors are almost always called on to use their physicality in more ways than males; ‘their look’ is often the first description on an audition breakdown. Sometimes women are cast for parts for looks, alone. By either appropriateness of physicality, and-or attractiveness, sexual appeal. Or simply cast because the actress had a type of attractiveness that appealed to the director. Or the ‘team’, of director and producers.
Gabourey Sidibe, whether intentionally or not, used her physicality in acting the part of Precious in a radical way, for Hollywood. And in an acting sense, it’s remarkably evolved. It may be because she really has not had any public attention before, so she was able to be very free with her body, and use it as an adjective. And an adverb.
Ms Sibide may not even know, because it appears that she works from instinct and trust in the director, so the grace in which she employs her body to act; even while keeping that body still, is remarkable. The freedom of the way it is used. Her body glides as an acting instrument, like a large mammal hypnotizing us with it’s balletic grace, as it glides miles swiftly through the silent water.
This actress creates Precious with her body. With an ne’er-before-seen lack of body-focus, there is no pre-engendered ball-and-chain of self-awareness, and do-you-think-I’m-sexy emanating from her pores. That creates something else, something so subtle, yet remarkably groundbreaking in an critically artistic sense. Without that, this actress was naturally freed up, which enables Precious to emanate from her pores. And this person, Precious, does. Gabourey Sidibe stands still, silent; and the life of the character emanates so strongly from her physicality, because she lets it do so. Don’t think for a second that it’s not either a remarkable gift, or something that anyone could do. Neither is it “her”. It’s not.
When asked, Gabby Sidibe answered that she could play Precious so organically, because Precious was someone “she recognized”, she knows a lot of girls like Precious.
Don’t be fooled by the ease in which this character flows from her, throughout the movie; nor by the reticence of the character. It’s far more difficult to play a quiet character, than a loud. It’s easy to invent all kinds of aspects of a character; it’s a far more fun way to act, and it’s a surer way to get attention in a scene. I know there was at least one acting legend who said “Acting Is Being”. Well, here’s your example of that.
This newcomer actor, this virgin, Gabourey Sidibe, holds her own focus and more, silently, in scenes with some of our most famous, current, American divas. Divas who are used to commanding the attention, all on their own, of audiences of many people. Audiences of many loud and raucous people.
She does it emotionally effectively, as well. The life of this character has been beaten down, and f’ed down into such a secret place; that you’d have to wonder, how does an actor play someone who, in their life, has survived by not acting. By doing nothing? By letting it just happen to her, again and again and again while still a child, it’s all she knows?
I can’t answer that. I can only tell you that the director Lee Daniels, and the actor, Gabourey Sidibe, made it work with this one, somehow, with both their conscious magic. Some unconscious stuff too, maybe some channeling.
The credit, profoundly, does belong to the both of them; and the rest of the cast, too. This kind of performance cannot come about accidentally. Lee Daniels expressed a suspicion that ‘bias’ or ‘racism’ was the reason people supposed Gabby was ’simply playing herself’. I disagreed with him. I told him that his direction was so rare and unique, in that it prioritized the “real” in the scenes, in the acting. [How gifted that is! It gifts us too!]
And that we, as an audience, and obviously our critics as well, are so inured to a certain style of acting, that most people assume that when acting is so believable; they assume, wrongfully, that it isn’t acting.
I’m not saying the acting in Precious is seamless. It’s not. It doesn’t matter. The authenticity of it’s finest moments, of the acting, in this film, are so raw and pure, their beauty is indeed precious. A rare and wonderful moviegoing experience. In Precious, there is some real acting going on. Precious, pure acting.
There are scenes where the camera is behind her, and I almost felt that her head could just slide right down into her back and she could almost disappear into herself. Her own physicality.
Rare is an actor who could use a physicality in that way. To express a subtext. To hide. Female actors are almost always called on to use their physicality in more ways than males; ‘their look’ is often the first description on an audition breakdown. Sometimes women are cast for parts for looks, alone. By either appropriateness of physicality, and-or attractiveness, sexual appeal. Or simply cast because the actress had a type of attractiveness that appealed to the director. Or the ‘team’, of director and producers.
Gabourey Sidibe, whether intentionally or not, used her physicality in acting the part of Precious in a radical way, for Hollywood. And in an acting sense, it’s remarkably evolved. It may be because she really has not had any public attention before, so she was able to be very free with her body, and use it as an adjective. And an adverb.
Ms Sibide may not even know, because it appears that she works from instinct and trust in the director, so the grace in which she employs her body to act; even while keeping that body still, is remarkable. The freedom of the way it is used. Her body glides as an acting instrument; like a large mammal hypnotizing us with it’s balletic grace, as it glides miles swiftly through the silent ocean water.
This actress creates Precious with her body. With an ne’er-before-seen lack of body-focus, there is no pre-engendered ball-and-chain of self-awareness, and do-you-think-I’m-sexy emanating from her pores. That creates something else, something so subtle, yet remarkably groundbreaking in an critically artistic sense. Without that, this actress was naturally freed up, which enables Precious to emanate from her pores. And this person, Precious, does. Gabourey Sidibe stands still, silent; and the life of the character emanates so strongly from her physicality, because she lets it do so. Don’t think for a second that it’s not either a remarkable gift, or something that anyone could do. Neither is it “her”. It’s not.
When asked, Gabby Sidibe answered that she could play Precious so organically, because Precious was someone “she recognized”, she has always “known a lot of girls like Precious”.
Don’t be fooled by the ease in which this character flows from her, throughout the movie; nor by the reticence of the character. It’s far more difficult to play a quiet character, than a loud. It’s easy to invent all kinds of aspects of a character; it’s a far more fun way to act, and it’s a surer way to get attention in a scene. I know there was at least one acting legend who said “Acting Is Being”. Well, here’s your example of that.
This newcomer actor, this virgin, Gabourey Sidibe, holds her own focus and more, silently, in scenes with some of our most famous, current, American divas. Divas who are used to commanding the attention, all on their own, of audiences of many people. Audiences of many loud and raucous people.
She does it emotionally effectively, as well. The life of this character has been beaten down, and f’ed down, into such a secret place; that you’d have to wonder, how does an actor play someone who, in their life, has survived by not acting. By doing nothing? By letting it just happen to her, again and again and again while still a child, it’s all she knows?
I can’t answer that. I can only tell you that the director Lee Daniels, and the actor, Gabourey Sidibe, made it work with this one, somehow, with both their conscious magic. Some unconscious stuff too, maybe some channeling.
The credit, profoundly, does belong to the both of them; and the rest of the cast, too. This kind of performance cannot come about accidentally. Lee Daniels expressed a suspicion that ‘bias’ or ‘racism’ was the reason people supposed Gabby was ’simply playing herself’. I disagreed with him. I told him that his direction was so rare and unique, in that it prioritized the “real” in the scenes, in the acting. [How gifted that is! It gifts us too!] That the audience cannot believe that what they are watching is anything but real.
The acting is that authentic. And that we, as an audience, and obviously our critics as well, are so inured to a certain style of acting, that most people assume that when acting is so believable; they assume, wrongfully, that it isn’t acting.
I’m not saying the acting in Precious is seamless. It’s not. It doesn’t matter. The authenticity of it’s finest moments, of the acting, in this film, are so raw and pure, their beauty is indeed precious. A rare and wonderful moviegoing experience. In Precious, there is some real acting going on. Pure, precious acting.
My best,
;~Dana
Actor Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe
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Posted by Dana Kaminski on 28th October 2009 in Skilled Acting
Lee Daniels Directed Precious.
As I watched the movie, I was floored by moment-after-moment truth. Real.
Real acting, I mean. The authentic kind. The only kind.
The RARE kind. Rare-st kind. Also, the highest-level kind. Specifically, the kind that makes acting an art form.
It’s the only kind, in my book. Otherwise, it’s not acting. It’s pretending to act.
Let’s Start With The Unlikely Actors And Acting In The Movie Precious
Unlikely, because of the three that I will mention, just this time around, not one of them came by way of being a trained and experienced actor.
Additionally unlikely, because they are, all three, in absolute danger of doing the worst kind of acting of all. Yet they did the opposite.
Let’s start with Mo’Nique. Last night, the director Lee Daniels, called her: “The Queen Of BET” for her Live At The Apollo fame. I am familiar with the onstage Mo’Nique, isn’t everyone?
Mo’Nique is a household name, and a household personality. Her personality is what brings home the fame. She’s notorious for that moxy, the outrageously bold statements, the flirtatious blunt sexual-speak, tactless assessments, and claws-out skinny-girl bashing. Yeah, you’re right, that’s as real as can be.
It’s also a performance. A persona. Many people that have public personas, don’t get out of them. When coaching acting, it’s sometimes hard to get into a person with a persona to not only drop it for the truth of the character they are playing…but, as I’ve said elsewhere in this blog, it’s often hard to get them to be able to understand or decipher the difference. Between their onstage or public persona, and authentic acting. Sometimes, it’s hard to get them to decipher a difference between their real selves and their persona.
Comedy Success Can Sometimes Make Authentic Acting Impossible
Two things wrong with that, and that’s just for a start. One is that it’s all ‘external’, done for effect. Polished, over time, for effect. Done for ‘result’. There’s no way to be inside a character, in a ‘private place’, where your emotions can move and flow freely; if you are focused on the metronomic beats of the line, and if you are trying to get a result.
If you are on the outside looking on at your performance, then you are not in it enough to give an authentic performance.
Stand up comics are experienced in getting a laugh. That can be oppositional to being real, in acting. When a result is played for, by the actor; then the audience just watches, instead of experiencing the result for themselves.
This is all a bit complicated. I don’t really want to spend a whole lot of time explaining this now. I have in the past, and will do so in the future. Just know that Mo’Nique should be nominated for an Oscar. She was superb. Not just because she was able to avoid the traps that hinder almost every comedian-turned-actor you can name. But because characterization was wonderful, and her acting was so damn real.
Number Two Actor is Gabourey Sidibe Who Plays The Role Of Precious.
Not an actor. She was not experienced. Start there?
I don’t know how to explain this; except that this actress has an unusually high amount of sensitivity, channeling power, and natural acting ability. She also was a Psych major, and I have always thought there were similarities between the professions of acting, and psychology.
May I please reveal that before I met the director and his leading lady, I had a chip on my shoulder. I assumed that Gabourey Sidibe was just a real person that he had cast because she looked like the Precious that Lee had in mind. That, and since he had also cast Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, that he really didn’t respect actors at all. Once I saw the film, I was flipped upside down. My strong assumptions, that is.
Last night, I learned that they had, in fact, searched far and wide for a real Precious to play the onscreen Precious. They went across the country. They eventually found more than 400. Precious-Potentials, that is.
The director, Lee Daniels, stated that he lost count after that. They recruited girls from public transportation, from inside different McDonald’s on both coasts. He described something called “Precious Camp”, where some prospectives were put through auditioning levels, and some training. He said they were all very great Preciouses-Plural. The difference between all 400 plus wonderful Precious-castables, and Gabourney (Gabby) Sidibe, wasn’t acting experience.
None of them had any acting experience. (He had auditioned plenty of actresses who did have experience, long before he went on the cross-country search.)
However, they all were very capable. And, in the end, he was sorry to let all of those other ones go.
Because Of Acting.
But, during the very first meeting with Gabby Sidibe; a meeting that, by the way, she really wasn’t interested in going to, and was prodded by a friend who was also going…It was during that first meeting that he knew what she didn’t even know. The director experienced it at a specific moment, that she was an actor.
He described it clearly, and …
Well. I will tell you tomorrow…. [To Be Continued, Manana.]
Best,
;~Dana
One important note on status change here. There is now a fee. The charge of each article is to send it to someone else, or post it on your Facebook page. Retweeting is negotiable as far as payment. Thanks for sharing this forward…
Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr., Playing Lead Title Role
Directed by Madonna’s Ex, Guy Ritchie; this movie also has leading actors, Rachel McAdams, and Jude Law.
For full list of the supporting players, go to this link at IMDB.
(Sorry, to my iPhone users, about the trailers being in ‘flash’…it was just a bit easier this time.)
Precious Trailer, With Mo’Nique Who May Get An Academy Award Nom For Acting In This Film
Directed by Lee Daniels, this movie has a newcomer-actor in the lead title role, Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe. Some well-known musical names are also acting in Precious, such as Lenny Kravitz, and Mariah Carey. Full cast list at IMDB.
Doesn’t Every Actress Wish To Work With Pedro Almodovar? ...Broken Embraces
Here’s a trailer with one of his usual actor-hires, and acting-Oscar winner as well, Penelope Cruz.
Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans, Directed By The Esteemed Werner Herzog
Yet, this film is a remake and Harvey Keitel was the actor in the original, and it’s one of his most famous roles. So there’s a little murmur of complaint inside the artistic film community, where great acting performances are regarded as sacred.
Negating the murmurs, somewhat, is the fact that Werner Herzog directed this one. He’s solidly in the master league of directors; and you can’t get any more artistic, as a definition, than Mr. Herzog; whether he’s doing documentaries, or narrative films.
Besides Nicolas Cage, this Bad Lieutenant also has an exciting cast list. Here are just a few actor names to throw: Val Kilmer, Eva Mendez, Michael Shannon, Fairuza Balk, Brad Dourif, Vondie Curtis-Hall…See the full list of actors at thisIMDB page link.
Enjoy!
;~Dana
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"So many great painters, great musicians, great geniuses ended with nothing. With broken hearts in rooms with broken windows. I want to see artists sitting at the table that decide the outcome of their lives."
--Bono
