The term The “passion work” is in circulation a lot in Hollywood. usually as a reference to a personal story that means a ton to its writer, director or star.
But what kind of pressure does this put on the rest of the cast and crew?
This Oscar season, there are many so-called passion plays that have received accolades. Among them: “The Fabelmans,” a family story inspired by director and co-writer Steven Spielberg’s own parents. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a script that writer-director Martin McDonagh spent years perfecting is set in an era of Irish history that few outsiders may know. and Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” for which director and co-writer Ryan Coogler had to follow the success of the film’s predecessor, 2018’s “Black Panther,” while accepting its late star Chadwick Boseman .
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” from the writing-directing team of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, meanwhile, leaned toward diverse storytelling and the power of refusing to be ignored. Stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan’s previous attempts at Hollywood roles added poignancy to their performances.
All four films earned acting nominations, and three of them — “The Fabelmans,” “Banshees” and “Everything Everywhere” — also scored best picture nominations.
In the case of “Banshees,” the cheers were far from a slam dunk. Brendan Gleeson tells Variety that he started seeing the characters laugh when he received McDonagh’s redrafts three years ago. “I just remember feeling the thrill of exploring that person,” she says of Colm. A fiddler in a fictional remote Irish town circa 1923, Colm is eager to end his relationship with best friend Pádraic (lead role nominee Colin Farrell, co-starring with Gleeson in McDonagh’s “In Bruges”) — and to inflict physical harm on himself — if it means the chance to create a great song before he dies.
In the original version of the script that Gleeson saw seven years ago, “Colm wasn’t developed enough in any way” and “he had just cut Pádraic and there wasn’t a great deal of exploration as to why,” recalls the supporting actor hopeful. Because Gleeson knew that McDonagh wasn’t satisfied with the draft either, and didn’t want to reteam with the actor over anything “half-baked,” he felt comfortable giving honest feedback.
Now, Gleeson equates the plot of “Banshees” with what he calls a “Garden of Eden” story in which Colm is an Eve-like character trying to escape the confines.
But it’s not just McDonagh’s connection to Gleeson and Farrell that makes “Banshees” work. The writer-director’s relationship with Kerry Condon, who plays Pádraic’s sister Siobhán, dates back to when the supporting actress was a teenager starring in a Royal Shakespeare Co. production. of his play ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’.
This is their fifth project together — their joint credits also include the 2017 Best Picture nominee Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — she says, “I think he knew exactly what I was going to do.” Like her low-key character, “I didn’t feel like this had to be ‘I’m going to be the current star’ and ‘I’m going to steal the scenes.’ “
He also looked at what the era in which the story took place was like. As a single woman in a deeply Catholic area, she would be a virgin. And taking a job on the mainland would probably mean she would never see her brother again.
There is also at least one aspect of Siobhán that Condon immediately understood:
expiry.
“It’s there all the time because I think it’s a hallmark of Ireland,” he says. “What I like about Irish women is that there is a toughness about them. But, I think, at this point in the story she’s kind of on the edge and she’s in a hurry to lose it a little bit.”
Lead Actress nominee Michelle Williams’ portrayal of high-spirited and adventurous matriarch Mitzi in “The Fabelmans” is on the other side of the spectrum. The personal nature of the story could make it difficult for any director to step back and look at it objectively. But Spielberg was deeply close to his mother, Leah, and her mental health had to be put into history.
“It’s so subtle because, in telling the story honestly, she never wanted to expose the person she liked to judge — to expose what really haunted her whole life,” Williams told actress Laura Dern during their conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors. .
In the film, Mitzi takes her children into the eye of a tornado, dances in a see-through nightgown in front of a fire, and goes out of her way to help her young son recreate a train wreck from ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ because he understands that this is what he must do so that he is not afraid of it. She also has a secret crush on her husband’s best friend, Bennie (Seth Rogen).
“For me, when I read it, I never judged her,” Williams said. “I just saw, wow, they really let this person breathe. When you live a liberated life, you give this gift to your children passively. It’s not even a lesson you have to teach them.”
Once the scope of the film became clear, she agreed to play the mother of its director. “I’ve worked my whole life to feel able to say yes and be ready and able, when that request is made, to say, ‘I can and I will — and let’s go,'” Williams told Variety.
That confidence should have carried her through making the film, especially since Spielberg doesn’t like to rehearse.
“That first day you show up, you just cross your fingers and hope that your preparation has put you on the right path and that you’re going to hold hands and walk it together, but you just don’t you know,” Williams said. “But it’s also exciting, that feeling.”
He added: “He’s already cut the tape on his head, but you don’t feel that way. Space, freedom, play, invention, anything goes.”
So, a new definition of “passion play”?
