Inside Thursday night’s event where Spielberg got a standing ovation, Sam Rockwell praised Colin Farrell’s pheromones.
“There’s some actors that you aspire to be, there’s some actors that you aspire to know, and some that you want to work with and learn from, hoping that some of the magic wisdom and stardust will rub off on you. Viola Davis is all three,” Blanchett said of The Woman King star. “Make no mistake, this is actually not a speech, it’s kind of an audition because I’m auditioning tonight for the role of co-star or supporting actress or personal assistant to Ms. Davis in any project she has. I’m Australian; I make a really good little coffee and, actually, I know how she takes it. It’s a black decaf, little bit of oat milk and a dash of cinnamon. I think I’m in.”
“I don’t have an idea but I just want to work with you,” Blanchett said. “I’m selfish. I want some of Viola’s emotional power. I want some of her stardust, her effortless technical mastery and her constant access to the flaws that makes her characters so painfully human. I want some of her dignity, her grace, her old soul depth. And I want to look as fabulous as she looks in red on the red carpet. I want her deep throated, sometimes joyous, but always knowing, laugh. I want some of her sass. I want some of her ass. I just want some all of this to rub off on me, and I know I’m not alone. I know I’m joining a really, really long line, but I’m dogged and I’ll wait. It’s kind of creepy, but I will wait.”
Blanchett went on to single out empathy as Davis’s superpower, something she said the actress and producer utilizes to connect with audiences on the journey her characters travel on screen. She closed by congratulating Davis on the honor and joking that the phone number for her agent, CAA’s Hylda Queally, was inscribed on the bottom of the trophy.
Davis then recalled what a teacher at Julliard once told her — that there’s a difference between the work and the business. “I don’t want anyone else to thrive despite the business. I want them to thrive because of the business,” she said, explaining how the industry often tells Black actors that they can’t open films at the global box office or their stories might not resonate with a wider audience. She was touched by a plaque she recently purchased in Martha’s Vineyard that stated, “The warrior does not fight because he hates what is in front of him, she fights because she loves what she left behind.” “My fight is nothing if I leave what I love behind. So I forged through and I keep fighting at 57 years old.”
Blanchett received a similarly glowing tribute from her Borderlands pal Curtis, who revealed that one of her conditions for turning up in the desert was being able to carpool with Blanchett. While they were shooting the Eli Roth video game adaptation in Budapest, Curtis said that Blanchett was prepping to play a composer in Tár. “I was fascinated as her student to watch her from afar,” Curtis explained, noting that she did so while playing a “guns a blazing” action star who has the swagger of Captain Jack Sparrow. “She is an artist revelation. There are very few people whose work I can’t wait to watch and Cate Blanchett is one of them.”
In accepting, Blanchett elaborated on their time together ahead of the awards by saying they discussed whether she should wear pajamas. “She’s telling me this about what I should wear, and she comes out in her bra and knickers. This is why we nearly missed the tonight’s event.”
Blanchett then pondered the entire awards system. “It’s arbitrary that I am up here,” she said, adding that she’s been so “inspired and enthralled” by all the great performances of the past year, some of which have been seared into her memory. “The whole idea of ‘best’ anything — I wonder if we should change the system. It’s such a subjective thing. Really, no performance stands on its own.”
Elsewhere at the Film Awards, Steven Spielberg and his Fabelmans collaborators received a standing ovation after a beautiful tribute from the filmmaker’s friend of 50 years, Sally Field. “I tell people that filmmaking is a collaborative party and that’s never been truer than it has been with this film,” Spielberg said. “The cast and crew took the journey home with me to help me make my first movie about coming home.” He then corrected himself: “Well, the second movie about coming home. The first one was E.T. who got home. So, this is the sequel to E.T. where I come home and every day, because of everybody up here, I was surrounded by love and support of these artists.”
Hong Chau, Fraser’s The Whale co-star, presented the actor with his trophy by noting that ever since their Darren Aronofsky-directed film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September she “kept hearing about the Brenaissance.” She questioned the true meaning of the term by asking if it meant that people lost interest in him or they stopped caring before adding that a quick check at his credits proves that he never went anywhere and worked steadily through the years. “Brendan Fraser is beloved, and he always has been and that hasn’t changed.”
“Coincidentally, it was Will Rogers who once said why not go out on a limb, that’s where the fruit is,” he continued. So that’s what he did by setting out to find the branches, smashing into the low-hanging fruit along the way. “This is how earnestly I took myself in those days: I brought my degree with me to present at my first meeting with a proper Hollywood agent who was clearly puzzled, but somehow I got signed.”
Fraser got work quickly and frequently (“perhaps too frequently”) and he kept making films over the years. He explained that he was always drawn to diversity, not in the same way that the word is employed today in Hollywood, but in terms of exploring different ways to play. “It seemed to work,” he said. “I am the luckiest guy I know to still be invited to this world. … I will show up to work with my diploma in hand — try and stop me.”
“About 34 years ago, I was on the set of a movie in Rome and I said farewell to a little girl of 8 who starred in the movie,” Idle said in opening his remarks. “We had all been scarred on this movie … going on nine months before we’d been able to escape.” Idle called some of the scenes “life-threatening.”
In her book, Sarah Polley writes that “blasts of debris exploded on the ground around me, accompanied by deafening booms that made me feel as if I myself had exploded. A log I was to run under was partially on fire. The gigantic blasts continued and shook everything around me. I ran, terrified, straight into the camera, tripping over the dolly tracks. It didn’t seem possible that this could have been the plan, that things hadn’t just gone terribly wrong. But they hadn’t. This was the plan.”
Idle said from the stage that they hadn’t seen each other since they left the set until a month and a half ago when Polley “walked through my front door.” She subsequently invited him to the premiere of her film, Women Talking, and he had a front row seat to see her grace, generosity and strength of character as she invited the entire ensemble — actors like Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Emily Mitchell, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Kira Guloien, Shayla Brown, Ben Whishaw and others — to the stage while introducing key members of the crew. “She knew how to lead,” Idle said. “Women Talking is an incredible piece of work.”
Polley said that while there is much harm done in this industry, she called it a “gift” that she and Idle reconnected and he helped validate her experience on that Gilliam film. As Polley talked about focusing her gaze more resolutely on building than destroying, she said having this new bond with Idle delivers more hope than despair. “I think about how many untold stories there are like this one. It goes a long way towards giving me faith.”
Elvis helmer Luhrmann presented the breakthrough performance award, actor to his leading man, Austin Butler, someone he called a “miracle.” He praised Butler for his work ethic, going so far as to admit that he even cautioned Butler to “roll it back” because he was giving so much of himself, 24/7 for seven days a week for more than 18 months of his life only to see the film derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It doesn’t matter how clever we are [as filmmakers], if you don’t have a great cast and a central performance, there’s no trick in the book that will get you out of that abyss,” Luhrmann said.
“When Baz first invited me on this journey, you can never predict the outcome or reception of any film but what you can do is you can give every ounce of yourself,” he said. “You can work as hard as you possibly can every day and do your best to savor the process rather than the outcome. What transpired was the most joyous two years of studying and exploring, draining and unearthing everything I could.”
Stephanie Hsu presented the International Star Award, Actress to her Everything Everywhere All at Once co-star Michelle Yeoh, who accepted by praising the film festival and its board members for an ongoing spotlight on international cinema. “Representation matters. By your choices over the years, you demanded that attention must be made to other cultures. I thank you for that.”
The international star award on the actor side went to Living actor Bill Nighy, presented to him by the film’s screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro. Nighy joked that if he had known that he might one day be singled out for such an honor “I would’ve arranged to be more cheerful in my early life.”
Sam Rockwell earned laughs in his introduction of Desert Palm Achievement Award recipient Colin Farrell for the latter’s work in Banshees of Inisherin. After gushing about Farrell’s pheromones, he said his work shows that he is “no ordinary movie star. He is clearly one of our great actors.” Not to mention “one of my favorite people in the world.”
“You really fucked me with the pheromones thing,” Farrell quipped to start. He quoted filmmaker David Lean by saying that the last great traveling circus in town is working on location with film crew. He explained the singular experience he had on McDonagh’s film on an island off the coast of Ireland. “We had the most extraordinary time. We all leaned into each other.”
He accepted the award on behalf of the crew and closed by shouting out three “actors” from Banshees: Jenny the donkey, border collie Morse and Minnie the horse.
