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      Marisa Pavan, Oscar Nominee for ‘The Rose Tattoo,’ Dies at 91

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      The twin sister of the Italian ingénue Pier Angeli, she attempted to avoid the pitfalls of fame that befell her sister’s career.The Italian actress Marisa Pavan never achieved the fame of her twin sister, Pier Angeli, a film ingénue of the 1950s who graced national magazine covers, and whose romance with James Dean and subsequent marriage to the singer Vic Damone became the stuff of Hollywood lore.Ms. Pavan — analytical, at times defiant and, in her view, less conventionally beautiful than her sister — nevertheless carved out a successful career herself. She appeared in a number of high-profile films throughout the 1950s, including “The Rose Tattoo” (1955), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress.And she did it her way, bristling at the star-making machine that she believed had turned her sister into a sexualized confection of the silver screen.“The studios made her be like what they wanted her to be like, but from this moment on, it was not my sister I had in front of me anymore,” Ms. Pavan said in an interview with Margaux Soumoy, the author of a biography of Ms. Pavan, “Drop the Baby; Put a Veil on the Broad!” (2021). “She had become a studios’ product.”Ms. Pavan, right, with her twin sister, the actress Pier Angeli, in 1952. “The studios made her be like what they wanted her to be like,” Ms. Pavan said of her star-crossed sister.Ullstein Bild, via Getty ImagesMs. Pavan died on Dec. 6 at her home in Gassin, a village on the French Riviera, Ms. Soumoy said. She was 91.Maria Luisa Pierangeli, known as Marisa, and her fraternal twin, Anna Maria Pierangeli, were born on June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia, to Luigi Pierangeli, an architect, and Enrichetta (Romiti) Pierangeli, who later helped guide the careers of her daughters. (Their younger sister, Patrizia, born 15 years after they were, also became an actress.)The family moved to Rome when the twins were 3 and, during World War II, harbored a Jewish general in the Italian Army who was hiding from the Nazis and the Italian Fascists. His last name was Pavan, which Marisa, who had grown close to him, would eventually adopt as her screen name.Her sister’s career started in her teens, when she was discovered on a street in Rome. When Mr. Pierangeli died in 1950, the family relocated to the United States to further her career.Marisa had no interest in the limelight until a friend of the family, Albert R. Broccoli, an agent who would go on to produce the James Bond film franchise, invited her to visit the set of “What Price Glory” (1952), a film set during World War I starring James Cagney and directed by John Ford.Once she was there, the producer Sol Siegel asked her if she could sing in French. She could, and she did. “I sang a song of Jacqueline François,” Ms. Pavan said in a 2015 interview with Film Talk, an online film journal. She recalled Mr. Siegel responding, “You’re going to test tomorrow!”“I took all of this as a joke,” Ms. Pavan said. But she took the script home, learned the scene and returned the next day.She got the part — a French girl who falls in love with a U.S. Marine, played by Robert Wagner — and discovered a passion for acting.Her career reached its pinnacle three years later with “The Rose Tattoo,” based on a Tennessee Williams play. Ms. Pavan played Rosa, the rebellious daughter of a grief-stricken Sicilian widow (Anna Magnani) whose life in a town on the Gulf of Mexico takes a turn when she meets an ebullient trucker (Burt Lancaster).Ms. Pavan with Robert Wagner in “What Price Glory” (1952), her first film.Paramount Pictures, via AlamyHer sister, who by then went by the name Pier Angeli, had a long-term contract with MGM that limited her freedom to choose her roles and control her image, Ms. Soumoy wrote. But Ms. Pavan wished instead to preserve her independence and worked with various studios.“From the moment I realized that I wanted to build a career as an actress, I kept telling my agents to only find me quality parts that would fit my own personality and tastes,” Ms. Pavan was quoted as saying in Ms. Soumoy’s book. “The last thing I wanted was to be kept prisoner under contract to one studio like Anna was.”Her other notable roles included the noblewoman Catherine de Medici in “Diane” (1956), a romance set in the 16th century that starred Lana Turner; the wartime fling of Gregory Peck’s conflicted suburban husband and father in “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” (1956); and the love interest of Tony Curtis in the murder mystery “The Midnight Story” (1957).Ms. Pavan and the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont in 1989. They married in 1956 and remained married until his death in 2001.James Andanson/Sygma, via Getty ImagesMs. Pavan married the French film and stage star Jean-Pierre Aumont in 1956. He died in 2001.Her sister’s life ultimately took a tragic turn as she encountered a faltering career, a series of unhappy relationships and struggles with mental and physical health. In 1971, Ms. Angeli was found dead at 39.Although speculation of suicide has swirled for years, Ms. Pavan remained adamant that her sister’s death was accidental, a reaction to a medication a doctor had given her during a bout of anxiety. It was a loss from which Ms. Pavan never fully recovered.“She felt like she had lost half of herself,” Ms. Soumoy said.Ms. Pavan is survived by her sons, Jean-Claude and Patrick Aumont; her sister Patrizia; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.Her eventual parting with the movie business appeared to stem from one clash in particular. While filming the splashy historical romance “Solomon and Sheba” (1959), the headstrong Ms. Pavan squared off against a producer after many of her scenes were cut, and threatened to leave the project. The move resulted in her effective blacklisting by studios, according to her biography.Ms. Pavan pivoted to television, making appearances on shows like the police procedural “Naked City,” the snappy private investigator drama “The Rockford Files” and the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope.” She acted into the early 1990s. Late in life, she expressed no regret over her fate in Hollywood.“It was not in my nature to compromise,” she told Film Talk. “They did change my sister; they made her up like a pinup girl. I could wear a wig to play a certain part, but they could not change me in life.” More

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      Mel Brooks and Angela Bassett Feted at the Governors Awards

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      The academy honored Mel Brooks, Angela Bassett, the recently widowed editor Carol Littleton and Sundance’s Michelle Satter, whose son died in a shooting.Despite the chockablock ballroom full of Hollywood’s best and brightest, a jovial emcee in the comedian John Mulaney and honorees the audience seemed thrilled to celebrate, a pall of sadness was cast over the Governors Awards — an event created 14 years ago by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to shorten the Oscar telecast by relegating the honorary Oscars to its own untelevised confab.Held Tuesday night, the ceremony — which was delayed two months because of the Hollywood strikes — honored two women who had just experienced remarkable losses. The editor Carol Littleton’s husband of 51 years, the cinematographer and former academy president John Bailey, died in mid-November. Just two weeks later, Michelle Satter, the Sundance Institute’s founding director and the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, learned that her son, Michael Latt, 33, had been shot dead at his home in Los Angeles.“We need to talk through a broken heart,” the filmmaker Ryan Coogler said during his presentation to Satter, who had guided him through the making of his first feature, “Fruitvale Station.”Still, as they say, the show must go on. And with Oscar nomination voting set to begin Thursday, A-listers of all stripes were in full campaign mode, working valiantly to try to ensure their spot on the ballot when nominations are announced on Jan. 23.Boldfaced names mingling in the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood included Christopher Nolan, Margot Robbie, Robert Downey Jr., Greta Gerwig, Leonardo DiCaprio, Colman Domingo, Ava DuVernay, Florence Pugh and scores of others.The first award of the night went to 97-year-old Mel Brooks, who the presenter Matthew Broderick said was older than penicillin, FM radio, polyester and the academy itself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      SAG Award Nominations 2024: The Complete List

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      The summer blockbusters each garnered four nominations. Notable snubs included Leonardo DiCaprio of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”Box office behemoths “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” led this year’s nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which were announced Wednesday morning. Each film picked up four nominations, including ones for the guild’s top ensemble prize.In addition to that nomination, “Barbie” earned additional nods for lead actress Margot Robbie and supporting actor Ryan Gosling, as well as for its stunt ensemble. The other three nominations for “Oppenheimer” were for lead actor Cillian Murphy and the supporting performers Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt. Both Murphy and Downey prevailed in their categories during Sunday’s Golden Globes.Other nominees for the top award included “American Fiction,” “The Color Purple” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Still, the latter movie was dealt one of the morning’s biggest snubs when star Leonardo DiCaprio failed to crack the best-actor lineup. “May December” received the coldest shoulder, going zero for three with contenders Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton.Rarely do actors win the Oscar without first scoring a nomination from their own guild. Last year, the entire quartet of SAG winners went on to repeat at the Oscars, while the SAG ensemble winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” also took the Oscars’ best picture prize.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Jewish Group Assails Film Academy’s Diversity Efforts

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      An open letter signed by notable actors and producers criticized the organization for not including Jews as an underrepresented group as part of a new initiative.More than 260 Jewish entertainment figures — including the actors David Schwimmer, Julianna Margulies and Josh Gad, and the producers Greg Berlanti and Marta Kauffman — signed an open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on Tuesday, criticizing the organization for excluding Jews as an underrepresented group in its diversity efforts.In 2020, the academy issued a set of standards as part of its diversity initiative that recognized a number of identities as “underrepresented,” including women, L.G.B.T.Q. people, an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, or those with cognitive or physical disabilities.Religion is not one of the categories considered.These initiatives will become part of the standards required for a film to compete in the best picture category beginning this year. For a film to be eligible, at least one of the lead actors or a significant supporting actor must be from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. The academy has said that includes actors who are Asian, Hispanic, Black, Indigenous, Native American, Middle Eastern, North African, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.“An inclusion effort that excludes Jews is both steeped in and misunderstands antisemitism,” said the letter, which was organized by the Hollywood Bureau of the group Jew in the City. “It erases Jewish peoplehood and perpetuates myths of Jewish whiteness, power, and that racism against Jews is not a major issue or that it’s a thing of the past.”The letter added that Judaism was not just an issue of faith, but also an ethnicity.This is not the first time in recent years that the academy has faced criticism from the Jewish community. When the organization opened its long-awaited museum in Los Angeles in 2021, the contributions of Jewish immigrants like Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer, who were largely responsible for the founding of the Hollywood studio system, were barely acknowledged. In response, the academy said it would open a permanent exhibition dedicated to the birth of Hollywood and the Jewish filmmakers who established it. Called “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,” the exhibit will debut on May 19.According to Allison Josephs, the founder and executive director of Jew in the City, the letter has been in the works since the summer, months before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, as the new academy standards were being discussed.“It feels like a very big mistake to not recognize that we are maybe the most persecuted group throughout all time,” she said in an interview.The academy declined to comment. More

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      What Role Will the Israel-Hamas War Play in Hollywood’s Awards Season?

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      Stars are increasingly vocal about political issues, but the Mideast conflict has divided Hollywood, magnifying the choice of whether to discuss the topic or remain silent.As Hollywood heads into the heart of its awards season — a three-month orgy of frothy self-celebration and pop culture glamour — celebrities and their handlers find themselves with a serious decision to make: what, if anything, to say about the Israel-Hamas war.Movie stars have become increasingly willing, even determined, to use award shows like the Golden Globes, scheduled for Sunday on CBS, to bring attention to progressive causes and concerns. In recent years, winners like Meryl Streep, Russell Crowe and Michelle Williams have incorporated topics like sexual harassment, the global refugee crisis, abortion rights, Trumpism, climate change, Black Lives Matter, veganism and the Ukraine war into acceptance speeches.Viewers from both political sides sometimes bristle at what they see as elitist lecturing. But in the Los Angeles ballrooms where these trophies are awarded and such speeches are made, the response is usually uniform praise. The couture-clad A-listers leap to their feet to offer ovations.The Israel-Hamas war is much more complicated.“It’s such a treacherous topic — there’s no response, especially in the sound-bite scrum of a red carpet, or in a breakneck acceptance speech, that won’t offend someone,” Martin Kaplan, who runs the Norman Lear Center for entertainment, media and society at the University of Southern California. “Add alcohol to the mix, as is often the case at these awards dinners, and what could possibly go wrong?”Susan Sarandon, center, at a protest in New York City in November. United Talent Agency dropped her after she made public statements about the war in Gaza.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesReaction to the conflict has convulsed Hollywood, where there is a large Jewish presence, along with many other parts of America. On one side, there is ardent support for Israel. On the other are those who view the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial and social justice movements that swept the United States in the summer of 2020.Stars have been fired from movies. Agencies have dropped clients; clients have dropped agents. Friendships have been severed, with people accusing one another of hypocrisy and betrayal.Ahead of the Golden Globes, which kick-starts the awards season in earnest, some publicists and agents have been advising celebrity clients to say nothing about the Israel-Hamas war. One carelessly chosen word could torpedo their hopes for an Oscar, and maybe even their career. One longtime Hollywood publicist who has clients in this year’s Oscar race summed up her advice on the topic as “run for the hills.” A couple of A-list clients, she added, would walk red carpets but skip interviews. Too risky.Others worry that silence itself is a political message. After Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel, most Hollywood unions rushed to condemn the violence. But one leading union, the Writers Guild of America, refused to put out a statement and stuck with its decision in the face of enormous backlash from hundreds of its members.Jeffrey Wright, an awards contender for his role in “American Fiction,” has weighed in on the conflict on social media.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressSome leading Hollywood communications firms, including Rogers & Cowan PMK and ID PR, have offered yellow ribbons to wear in support of the hostages in Gaza. They see the effort, managed in part by Ashlee Margolis, who runs an entertainment and fashion marketing firm called the A-List, as nonpolitical, though some might disagree.“Wearing a symbolic yellow ribbon to support the 136 women, children and men — both Israeli and American — who were brutally kidnapped by terrorists is not only powerfully human, and certainly noncontroversial, but camera ready,” Melissa Zukerman, a managing partner of Principal Communications Group, said in an email.The parade of ceremonies after the Golden Globes will include the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and the British Academy Film Awards, before culminating on March 10 with the Academy Awards. This year, the strike-delayed Emmy Awards and Governors Awards have also been squeezed into the corridor.Most of these galas come with red carpets lined by reporters. Stars should expect to be asked about the Israel-Hamas war, said Marc Malkin, a senior Variety editor and co-host of the official Golden Globes preshow on Sunday. “If they have posted about it on Instagram or signed an open letter it’s fair game,” he said.In response to the Hamas attack, Natalie Portman posted a statement on Instagram that read, in part, “My heart is shattered for the people of Israel.”Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat would seem to include the Israeli-born actress Natalie Portman, a nominee for “May December,” who has posted on social media expressing horror about the Hamas attack, and Jeffrey Wright, a nominee for his acting in “American Fiction,” who has questioned the wisdom of Israel’s retaliation. Bradley Cooper, a multiple nominee for “Maestro,” signed two public letters, one about the hostages that urged “the fight for their freedom to continue” and the other calling for “an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire.”Spokeswomen for those nominees either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries.The coming self-congratulation-athon could certainly go off without a hitch, with celebrities speaking knowledgeably about the complex and divisive topic. But the odds are not in Hollywood’s favor. The movie business has a long if not proud history of tone-deaf behavior.There was the time in 2008 when Sharon Stone, walking a red carpet, started a media frenzy by saying an earthquake in China, which left 88,000 dead or missing, was perhaps karmic payback for the country’s handling of Tibet. In 2022, jaws dropped in living rooms across America when, moments after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock on the Oscar stage, guests inside the theater gave Mr. Smith a standing ovation after his teary best-actor acceptance speech.Award shows used to have a fiery speech here, a political shout-out there — whether it was Marlon Brando’s sending out an activist for Native Americans to decline his 1973 Oscar for best actor or Vanessa Redgrave’s denouncing “Zionist hoodlums” in 1978. For the most part, however, stars worked at being stars, turning on the charm and saying nothing that might alienate a single ticket buyer.Sacheen Littlefeather refused the Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973. Bettman Archive, via Getty ImagesThat has changed, and the Golden Globes have led the way.In 2017, Ms. Streep tore into President-elect Donald J. Trump from the Globes stage. The next year, the Globes became a de facto rally for the Time’s Up movement, with actresses wearing black to protest sexual harassment and Oprah Winfrey delivering a scorching speech. In 2020, Ms. Williams gave an impassioned plea for abortion rights, while Mr. Crowe called attention to climate change and a bush fire crisis in Australia.Last year, the Globes gave airtime to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a speech about his country’s war with Russia.Representatives for the Globes did not respond to queries about whether this year’s show would teeter into politics.Producers who specialize in awards telecasts say research, compiled mainly from Nielsen, indicates that most viewers dislike it when celebrities turn a trip to the stage into a political bully pulpit. One recent producer of the Oscars said minute-by-minute ratings analysis indicated that “vast swaths” of people turned off televisions when celebrities started to opine on politics. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential metrics.The comedian Ricky Gervais, hosting the Globes in 2020, used part of his monologue to tell Hollywood that it was testing the public’s tolerance for mixing serious causes with awards bacchanalia.“You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything — you know nothing about the real world,” Mr. Gervais said, adding: “If you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your god” and get off the stage. More

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      Lily Gladstone on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

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      In college, Lily Gladstone studied the history of Native American actors in Hollywood. Now, she’s making it.The 37-year-old actress has been checking off all sorts of awards-season firsts thanks to “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the Martin Scorsese-directed period drama in which she plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman whose relatives are systematically murdered by her husband (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his uncle (Robert De Niro) in a bid to seize her family’s oil-rich Oklahoma land. If Mollie is the movie’s conscience, Gladstone is its center of gravity: Even when she shares scenes with A-listers like DiCaprio and De Niro, the film bends to her.That portrayal has so far earned Gladstone a best-actress win from the New York Film Critics Circle and nominations from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, and major nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards are likely to come in the weeks ahead. In the run-up to those ceremonies, Gladstone has been a hotly pursued presence for round tables and events on both coasts, and she’s taken to those opportunities with such command — using her platform to amplify other Native voices and concerns — that you’d never know that she wasn’t used to this, or that for a long time, she was hesitant to engage with Hollywood at all.“There’s a handful of people who love film that have been aware of my career for a while, but this has been like being shot out of a cannon,” Gladstone said, tracing the far-flung route that has led her to all those awards-show ballrooms. “My dad’s a boilermaker, my mom was a teacher. I was raised on a reservation, went to public school. It’s a very normal, sort of working-class upbringing in one way, and in another way, I’m just a rez girl.”Onscreen, Gladstone has the profile and indomitable presence of a 1940s film star. In person, when we met last month at a rooftop restaurant in Beverly Hills, Gladstone was more approachable but every bit as striking, with vivid brown eyes that her father once warned her were eminently readable. He said this mostly to dissuade her from telling lies, but he was right: When we feel for Mollie, it’s because of the fear and righteous indignation that Gladstone can convey in just a look.She also has a wry sense of humor, glimpsed in some of the Scorsese film’s lighter moments, and an ability to punctuate her conversation topics and awards-season speeches with an impressive command of history and facts. “Lily is a big nerd wrapped up in this very giving, curious person,” said the director Erica Tremblay, whose film “Fancy Dance” starred Gladstone. “If you’re at a dinner party with Lily, you’re going to find yourself talking about physics and bumblebees — and when I say she’ll be talking about physics, she’ll be talking about some very specific theory that Lily will know the mechanics of inside and out.”Awards season has meant perks like being interviewed by her favorite actress, Cate Blanchett. “I’m hugging myself right now,” Gladstone said. “I know your readers can’t see that.”Thea Traff for The New York TimesAt an Elle event in December celebrating women in Hollywood, Gladstone was honored alongside the likes of Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrera and Jodie Foster, but she particularly sparked to meeting the academic Stacy L. Smith, whose University of Southern California think tank, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, had recently issued a report about Native American representation in Hollywood. After analyzing 1,600 films released from 2007 to 2022, Smith found that the amount of speaking roles for Native American actors was virtually nil, less than one quarter of 1 percent of all the roles cataloged.A leading role like Gladstone’s in a film the size of “Killers” isn’t just unusual, it’s unprecedented, so much so that Smith subtitled her report, “The Lily Gladstone Effect.” Gladstone can hardly wrap her head around that recognition. “It’s the kind of paper that if I were a student now taking the same class, I would be citing in my studies,” she said.For DiCaprio, Gladstone has more than earned the plaudits. “To see her rise to this occasion and be somebody that’s so formidable as far as understanding the depth of her own industry and Native American history, it’s an incredible moment to be a part of,” he said in a phone call. “I’m just glad to be next to her.”To tout his co-star, DiCaprio has been a willing participant in the sort of red-carpet photo opportunities and awards-season parties he’d normally eschew. “It’s insane,” Gladstone said. “It’s like I’m trotting this mythical creature around, out and about, and he’s doing so of his own volition.” The ante was upped even further when Gladstone learned that her favorite actress, Cate Blanchett, would conduct a Q. and A. with her after “Killers” screened in London. “I’m hugging myself right now, I know your readers can’t see that,” she told me.Gladstone acknowledged that sometimes, the intensity of the awards-season spotlight can feel overwhelming. “I can’t speak from the heart if I’m not connected to what’s real about all this,” she said. In those moments, she endeavors to carry her community forward with her: “I know that all of this attention on me right now means so much more than just me.”In other words, don’t expect Gladstone to come out of this experience transformed into a demanding Hollywood diva, as so many have before her. She can’t be bowled over, onscreen or off.“I’ve talked to a lot of people who know Lily Gladstone and have been friends with her for a long time and seen this journey, and she is so steadfast and so immovable in terms of her values and her core,” Tremblay said. “I think she’ll be exactly the same, but with fancier clothes.”Gladstone is “so formidable as far as understanding the depth of her own industry and Native American history,” her “Killers” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio said.Apple TV+AS A CHILD growing up on the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana, there was one week that Gladstone looked forward to all year, when the Missoula Children’s Theater would roll up in a little red truck, construct a set out of P.V.C. pipes and cloth backdrops, and cast local kids in a production that the whole community would come out to see at the end of the week. “I was bullied a lot when I was a kid, partly because I was just goofy,” Gladstone said. “But that one week a year is when I was cool.”In the group’s production of “Cinderella,” the young Gladstone decided to play her ugly stepsister as if she were Roseanne Barr, studying how to walk and talk like the comedian. It was a lightning-strike moment when she realized that a little bit of craft could go a long way.“Somebody picked up on that in the audience and said, ‘She’s funnier than Roseanne,’” Gladstone said. “And my parents reminded me that somebody there from our community said, ‘We’re going to see her at the Oscars one day,’ just from that.”Performing has always been Gladstone’s true north, the place to which her inner compass is most attuned. She remembers watching “Return of the Jedi” at 5 and feeling such a strong desire to be an Ewok that she knew someday, she’d be on the other side of the screen. Similarly obsessed with “The Nutcracker,” Gladstone signed up for ballet, which she assumed would be the big performative outlet in her life until the body shaming became too tough to take: “Not just weight, but things like, ‘Your middle toe is too long,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, my grandma gave me that middle toe!’”But even in ballet class, instructors told her she was a natural-born actress, less concerned with nailing movements than with communicating a character. In her teenage years, when Gladstone’s family moved from Montana to the sometimes alienating suburbs of Seattle, she plunged fully into performance, acting in off-campus plays and auditioning for independent films. During her senior year, fellow students voted her “Most Likely to Win an Oscar.” They could already tell that acting was something she lived and breathed.“It gave me an identity when my identity was forming and reforming,” she said. “Being known as an actress felt good even when I wasn’t working, even before I got my SAG card, when people asked what I did: ‘Yeah, I’m working at Staples right now, but I’m an actress.’”In her 20s, many of Gladstone’s actor friends moved to New York or Los Angeles, but she was reluctant to follow suit. “I knew if I came to L.A. and was doing audition after audition, it would be really difficult for me,” she said. “And I knew how easily my love of ballet had been shot down by these boxes that I couldn’t fit in, so I was like, ‘I’m going to protect this a little bit.’”The boxes in Hollywood can be pernicious, and Gladstone is still wary of them. “I know myself and I know I’m difficult to cast,” she said. “I’m kind of ‘mid’ in a lot of ways.” Gladstone hastened to add that she didn’t mean “mid” like meh, dismissively as Gen Z uses it. Instead, she meant the word quite literally. She is in-between, hard to place, neither this nor that. Part of it is that she’s mixed-race: Her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce, her mother white. But there is another part, too.“It’s kind of being middle-gendered, I guess,” said Gladstone, who uses both “she” and “they” pronouns. “I’ve always known I’m comfortable claiming being a woman, but I never feel more than when I’m in a group of all women that I’m not fully this either.”Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie “Certain Women” proved a breakthrough moment for Gladstone.Jojo Whilden/IFC FilmsShe recalled a heartfelt moment at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event when Jodie Foster told the nonbinary “The Last of Us” actor Bella Ramsey that the room was full of supportive sisters. “That’s wonderful and that’s true,” Gladstone said, but afterward she went up to Ramsey to “introduce myself and let them know, ‘You also have siblings here, too.’”Instead of moving to Hollywood, where she might have been prodded into walking a narrower path, Gladstone spent her postgraduate years in Montana, doing theater and renting out basements with like-minded performers just to make something. Working in independent films and Native-centric productions allowed her to qualify for the Screen Actors Guild without ever having to move her home base, and a breakthrough role in Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie “Certain Women” raised her profile considerably. Still, the mega-budgeted “Killers of the Flower Moon” represents a comparative quantum leap: Though Gladstone was unsure about coming to Hollywood, in the end, Hollywood came to her.It’s a heady thing to go from semi-known to perceived on a major scale, as Gladstone found out during the film’s mammoth Cannes Film Festival premiere in May, when photos of her walking the red carpet with DiCaprio were beamed all over the world. But the actual premiere of “Killers” in October provided an unexpected respite, since the actors’ strike at the time prevented Gladstone from promoting it.A silver lining was the number of Osage people who instead spoke at the movie’s premiere, enjoying the sort of red-carpet moments that would have typically gone to the film’s striking actors. Watching them discuss and debate “Killers” reminded Gladstone that she was raised to listen to her elders, and the strike-imposed silence provided the perfect opportunity to collect her thoughts and reflect.“There’s a level of ego that is wrapped up with being a public person speaking for other people, and a level of ego it takes being an actor, too,” she said. “So I think it was a real gift to be able to sit there and have another reminder that this is way bigger than me.”She spent the film’s opening day on a picket line in Times Square, marching back and forth in the rain near the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed “Killers” with Apple. “It was a little bit of my contrarian nature to choose Paramount that day,” Gladstone admitted with a grin. Later, while dining at an Italian restaurant in the city, a couple sitting next to her asked if she was Lily Gladstone from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” It was the first time she felt permission to own it.“I was like, ‘Yes, I am. Today, I am Lily Gladstone.’” Months later, recounting the story, she was still beaming.“If you’re at a dinner party with Lily, you’re going to find yourself talking about physics and bumblebees,” said Gladstone’s “Fancy Dance” director, Erica Tremblay.Thea Traff for The New York TimesIF GLADSTONE IS nominated for a best actress Academy Award on Jan. 23, she’ll be the first Native American contender in that category. With a win, she’d become the first Native performer to earn a competitive acting Oscar.Still, it’s one thing for Hollywood to celebrate underrepresented actors, and a whole other thing to actually provide for them afterward. Academy members were moved to vote for recent winners like Troy Kotsur (“CODA”) and Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) in part because of their inspiring personal narratives, but follow-up projects on par with their winning films can be hard to come by. DiCaprio hopes that Gladstone’s breakthrough year will finally change things.“I think she realizes that this really is a historical moment,” he said. “I know she has a plethora of other stories that she wants to tell, and I want her to be given those opportunities.”Whatever this season has in store, Gladstone is ready to make the most of it. At a recent Academy Museum gala, the Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly asked to meet Gladstone and wondered whether the demands of campaigning had already run her ragged. Gladstone was surprised to find herself replying that so far, she was doing just fine: “Maybe it says something about me that I’m kind of enjoying all of this right now.”The wider world appears invested in her success, too. After “Killers” received a standing ovation at Cannes, a clip of Gladstone’s moved reaction to the applause earned millions of views. Why does she think that video went viral, with so many excited commenters predicting the Oscar glory that now appears within reach?“I think people root for folks that come up from the grass roots having this global-stage moment, this dream coming true,” she said. “That’s something that I wish on everybody at some point in their lives, in whatever form that takes, and also for Native people.”Gladstone confessed that she had watched the Cannes clip “about a thousand times” since the premiere: “It’s a moment of transcendence that was wonderful to have captured.” But the moment was about more than just her own time in the spotlight: She recalled the way her Native co-star William Belleau let out a whooping war cry during the ovation and how the applause for the women playing her sisters — Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins and Jillian Dion — prompted Gladstone to let out a trilling lele. It wasn’t just a celebration. It was a release.“Whatever that oppressive system is that sometimes develops with colonial governments, that moment of transcendence for all of us, those are the healing moments,” Gladstone said. “Those are the ones that show people very clearly that we’re still here and we’re excellent. We’ve survived and we’re just soaring now.” More

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      For Best Picture, Here are 13 Most Likely Contenders

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      It’s a very competitive year for the top Oscar. With precursor awards like the Golden Globes coming soon, here’s what may make the cut.The good news is that it’s been a great year for movies.The bad news is that, now, the battle for best picture will be bloodier than ever.With such a wide field of acclaimed contenders, plenty of worthy films will be dealt a bad hand when the Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 23. Even today’s self-imposed assignment to narrow the list to the 10 likeliest nominees proved a harrowing task; instead, I have hedged with an unlucky 13.Ahead of the Golden Globes on Sunday, and the bellwether industry nominations next week from the producers’ and actors’ guilds, here are the current contenders with the most viable shot at a best-picture nomination, ranked in descending order according to their certainty.‘Oppenheimer’Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic has the feeling of an old-fashioned sweeper: It’s a highbrow film and a populist hit — exactly the sort of movie Oscar voters and general audiences should be able to agree upon. Still, this race isn’t sewn up. Recent best-picture winners tend to tug more at the heart than at the head, and there are a slew of contenders that can make a more effective case for that organ. And though Nolan has been nominated five times before, he has never been able to convince voters to actually hand him the Oscar: Even when he directed “Dunkirk” (2017), the sort of technically stupendous World War II movie that should have been a slam-dunk for the academy, voters flocked to the warm and cuddly Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) over the crisp, professorial Nolan.‘The Holdovers’Could Alexander Payne’s Christmas movie be this year’s “CODA,” a scrappy little heartwarmer that defeats the imposing auteurist film it’s up against? Set in the 1970s and shot like a film from that era (even the precredits studio logos are appealingly vintage), this boarding-school dramedy couldn’t be more of a bull’s-eye for older academy members, who’ll be eager to give “The Holdovers” their they-don’t-make-’em-like-this-anymore vote. Paul Giamatti, the film’s lead, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, have could-win heat in the actor and supporting actress categories, and movies that triumph in the acting and screenplay races have a nearly unbeatable portfolio for best picture. If Payne manages a best-director nomination, it’s a good sign that this underdog could slip past all the big-budget spectacles and go the distance.‘Barbie’Greta Gerwig’s plastic-fantastic comedy was indisputably the movie of 2023: This billion-dollar blockbuster went over like a rock concert in theaters, and its creative swerves had Hollywood types marveling at what Gerwig was able to get away with. Though Oscar voters have gotten a bad rap for ignoring mega-budget hits, they’re typically willing to make an exception for movies with a distinctive point of view and a high level of craftsmanship, which the deliciously decorated “Barbie” has in spades. A fun movie that’s full of heart and a standout in this group of contenders, “Barbie” is limited only by the not insignificant number of voters who’ll be thinking, “Can I really give Hollywood’s most prestigious award to a toy?”‘Killers of the Flower Moon’“Killers of the Flower Moon” could get a boost if Lily Gladstone is nominated for best actress.AppleTV+Martin Scorsese’s well-regarded movie would have a better shot at the top Oscar if “Oppenheimer” had been a contender in a different year: Between these two weighty, three-hour historical dramas, voters may deem Nolan’s more significant, simply because it made nearly a billion dollars worldwide. Still, the 81-year-old Scorsese has won only one Oscar and time is ticking for the academy to give him another. If his lead, Lily Gladstone, comes out on top of a fiercely competitive best-actress race, that could help burnish the film’s chances of picking up another significant prize.‘Poor Things’The Venice Film Festival kicks off awards season in earnest every August, and Emma Stone movies that play there often get a sensational launchpad: Just look at Oscar favorites like “La La Land” and “Birdman” and “The Favourite,” the last of which kicked off Stone’s very fruitful partnership with the director Yorgos Lanthimos. Their most recent film, “Poor Things,” won the Golden Lion at Venice this year and quickly established itself as a major contender, able to compete for up to three acting nominations (for Stone and her supporting actors Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe) and a huge haul of below-the-line nods for its stunning costumes, cinematography, production design and visual effects. There’s no doubt it’ll be a best-picture player, but is there a narrative to push the film and Stone over the top in a very crowded year?‘Past Lives’Celine Song’s directorial debut was a breakout indie hit this summer, but this intimate romantic drama was in danger of receding once bigger and noisier rivals arrived in the fall. Fortunately, “Past Lives” begins this awards season in strong shape, earning the best-film trophy at the Gotham Awards, five nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a key nomination for best drama at the Golden Globes. Like “The Holdovers,” it’s a smaller-scale film that some voters simply adore, and that passion will count for a lot in this field.‘American Fiction’There may be no more auspicious festival prize than the People’s Choice Award voted on by attendees of the Toronto International Film Festival: Every movie that won there over the past decade went on to score a best picture nomination, and three of them — “12 Years a Slave,” “Green Book” and “Nomadland” — actually took the top Oscar. This bodes awfully well for the writer-director Cord Jefferson’s contemporary comedy “American Fiction,” which hit big out of Toronto, netted crucial nominations at the Golden Globes and Indie Spirits, and ought to land its leading man, Jeffrey Wright, the first Oscar nomination of his long career. (I should note Jefferson is a friend.)‘Maestro’Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” which he also directed.Jason McDonald/NetflixBradley Cooper’s first directorial effort, “A Star Is Born,” deserved better from the Oscars. It won only the original-song trophy when so much else about it, including Cooper’s ace lead performance, was also worth recognizing. Then again, Cooper had only himself to blame for that result: He was so determined to land the directing nomination, which ultimately eluded him, that he didn’t give his acting the push it merited. I wonder if something similar may happen this year: Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein drama, “Maestro,” is an even bigger directorial swing, and though he delivers exactly the sort of makeup-aided, transformative real-person performance that Oscar voters go gaga for, the fate of “Maestro” currently seems tied up in whether the directors’ branch will finally admit Cooper to the club.‘Anatomy of a Fall’The hip studio Neon has a knack for guiding Palme d’Or winners from the Cannes stage into Oscar’s inner circle, and the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” could very well follow in the footsteps of Neon’s “Parasite” and “Triangle of Sadness.” It helps that the lead, Sandra Hüller, has enough heat to make it into the best-actress race, though the film was dinged by France’s decision to submit instead “The Taste of Things” as its contender for the international film Oscar: As fans of “RRR” found last year, it’s hard for world cinema to penetrate the best-picture lineup without a corresponding nod in the international-feature category.‘May December’Can Todd Haynes finally score a best-picture nominee? Though the director’s drama “Carol” got awfully close, “May December” is the most viable contender he has ever made, a favorite with critics’ groups and a mainstream conversation-starter since its debut on Netflix. If Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton all pick up acting nominations and the writer Samy Burch snags an original-screenplay nod, a place in the best-picture race ought to follow, but Haynes and his oeuvre have proved too smart for the room before. Let’s hope the academy’s tastes have caught up.‘The Zone of Interest’Jonathan Glazer’s audacious Holocaust drama is one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, the probable winner of the international-feature Oscar, and could even score Glazer an auteurist slot in the best-director category. Still, its chances for best picture are harder to predict. Every other contender on this list is likely to earn at least one acting nomination and any such recognition for “Zone” would come as a big surprise. It would also be the most challenging art-house film to make the best-picture lineup in ages: When older, more traditional voters cue the movie on their academy app and are met with a black screen and several minutes of unsettling score, will they stay seated through this unusual overture or close the app to call tech support?‘The Color Purple’Fantasia Barrino-Taylor in “The Color Purple,” which missed out on a Golden Globe nomination for best musical or comedy.Warner Bros PicturesThis musical take on the classic Alice Walker novel is banking on some late-breaking momentum, aided by a strong box office return on Christmas Day, to push it into the best-picture lineup. Still, it’s missed out on a few key nominations, failing to make the American Film Institute’s populist-leaning 10-best list or even snag a Golden Globe nomination for best comedy or musical, which should have been a given. Earning an ensemble nomination from the Screen Actors Guild on Jan. 10 is all but necessary to move “The Color Purple” up on this list.‘Society of the Snow’Last season, when the academy announced semifinalist shortlists in a wide variety of below-the-line categories, Netflix’s war film “All Quiet on the Western Front” had the sort of surprisingly strong showing that presaged a stellar nine Oscar nominations and four wins. That’s the reason I’m keeping an eye on the streamer’s Spanish-language plane-crash drama, “Society of the Snow,” which made the international-feature shortlist and also popped up as a semifinalist for visual effects, score, makeup and hairstyling (even edging out “Barbie” in the latter category). If all of these branches are already taking notice, don’t be surprised if “Society of the Snow” vaults past a better-known contender by the morning of the Oscar nominations. More

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      Tom Wilkinson, Actor in ‘The Full Monty,’ Dies at 75

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      A versatile actor who also starred in “Shakespeare in Love” and “Batman Begins,” he won acclaim through decades of work in television and film and onstage.Tom Wilkinson, the actor who could turn a manic lawyer, a steel-foreman-turned-stripper and parts small and large into mesmerizing turns, winning Oscar nominations and plaudits for his performances in movies like “Michael Clayton” and “The Full Monty,” died on Saturday, according to a family statement. He was 75.The statement, from his agent sent on behalf of his family, said he died suddenly at home. It did not provide other details.Mr. Wilkinson’s range seemed to know no bounds.He earned Academy Award nominations for his work in “In the Bedroom” and “Michael Clayton” and delighted audiences in comedies like “The Full Monty” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”He appeared in blockbusters like “Shakespeare in Love” and “Batman Begins,” and took on horror in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” history as Benjamin Franklin in “John Adams,” and memory in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”He often did not have the name recognition or sheer star power of the actors he played opposite — George Clooney, Sissy Spacek and Ben Affleck among them. But he drew audiences’ eyes and critics’ acclaim through decades of work in television and film and onstage.“I see myself as a utility player, the one who can do everything,” he told The New York Times in 2002. “I’ve always felt that actors should have a degree of anonymity about them.”To many Britons, though, “The Full Monty,” remains his most beloved performance, as one of the gruff, unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England, who scheme to make some money and repair their self-regard by starting a striptease act for the town.In “The Full Monty,” Mr. Wilkinson was among the characters who schemed to earn money by starting a striptease act.Maximum Film / Alamy Stock PhotoMr. Wilkinson played Gerald Cooper, an aging ex-foreman who joins the cadre in part to escape the ornamental gnomes his wife erected on the lawn.But his range extended far beyond comedy, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for best actor for his performance in “In the Bedroom,” directed by Todd Field.Opposite Ms. Spacek, Mr. Wilkinson played one half of a Maine couple struggling in the aftermath of their son’s murder. Mr. Field said he was drawn to Mr. Wilkinson because of his everyman quality.“You don’t typically think that Robert Redford is going to live next door,” Mr. Field told The Times. “But you believe that Tom Wilkinson could live next door. That’s the difference.”A few years later, Mr. Wilkinson was winning acclaim again as a high-powered lawyer who has a breakdown in Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton.” He was nominated for another Academy Award for his performance in that film.By then, Mr. Wilkinson had been acting for three decades, in theater, television and film.He was born in Yorkshire, England, and his parents moved to Canada when he was 4, seeking better work than farming. Their stay lasted only six years, during which time his father worked as an aluminum smelter. The family returned to Britain, where Mr. Wilkinson’s parents ran a Cornwall pub until his father died, drawing Mr. Wilkinson and his mother back to Yorkshire.Information on his survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Wilkinson said his life took a sharp turn at 16, at the King James’s Grammar School at Knaresborough, where the headmistresses “simply decided she would make something of me.”This, he said, “meant being invited round to her house, being taught how to eat, which knives and forks to reach for first.”“We would go to the theater together,” he said. “Having wandered aimlessly through school, suddenly someone took an interest in me.”But he was not drawn to acting until he reached the University of Canterbury in 1967, he said. After college, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he discovered that it was possible for “working-class kids from the provinces” to open art galleries, run rock bands, become designers, be actors.“All the things that weren’t cool became cool,” he said. “I saw the young, provincial bohemian and thought, that role can be mine. I’ll be in the arts. You can have a life in the arts. Why not?” More