Andrea Riseborough’s rise in the Oscar race is like the first four letters of her last name: it happened quickly.
Hollywood is suddenly obsessed with the actress’ performance in the independent film To Leslie, with star after celebrity emerging from the shadows to throw accolades on her. Riseborough portrays an alcoholic single mother in the film. Gwyneth Paltrow described Riseborough’s performance as “stunned.” Edward Norton described Riseborough’s performance as “probably the most totally devoted,
emotionally profound, physically horrific I’ve seen in a while” Multiple celebrities, such as Dulé Hill and Meredith Vieira, sent almost similar tweets praising the “little film with great heart.”
Cate Blanchett lauded the actress on stage at the Critics’ Choice Awards for her “amazing” performance, while Kate Winslet said that Andrea Riseborough gave the “best female movie performance I have ever seen.” Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Paulson, and Charlize Theron are among those who have supported and hosted screenings of the film. This unexpected surge of excitement occurred during Oscar nomination voting, and Frances Fisher outlined just how many votes Riseborough would need to be nominated.
Michael Morris, director of To Leslie, told The Hollywood Reporter, “We can’t even afford an ad” because the film’s budget is so small, so the goal appeared to be to compensate for the lack of funds for an awards campaign by getting the film in front of as many actors as possible as soon as Oscar voting begins. According to Deadline, Riseborough is also “using mostly her own money to raise attention” to the project via a “guerilla campaign.” However, according to Puck’s Matthew Belloni, “rival campaigners suspect” the agency CAA, “which represents a majority of the supporters,” might be behind it.
But will this all pay off? At least one expert on the awards prediction website GoldDerby now predicts Riseborough will get an Oscar nomination, which might result in Viola Davis’s The Woman King being overlooked. It would be very rare for a film to get an acting nomination at the Oscars if it had little to no presence in the awards race earlier and was not heavily promoted until the last minute, signaling a possible victory for procrastinators worldwide.
