Oscars weekend kicked off on Thursday on the official residence of Zaib Shaikh, the Consul General of Canada in Los Angeles, celebrating the country’s nominees.
Scattered around an out of doors swimming pool, well-wishers gathered to talk with Women Talking director Sarah Polley and Turning Red director Domee Shi. With nominees in makeup, directing and acting, Canadians are well represented across the board this awards season.
The Whale’s Brendan Fraser made a low-key appearance, spending his evening contained in the consulate, skipping the press line.
As temperatures dipped to a Canadian-like 12 C, the party kept going into the evening.
CBC News’ senior reporter Eli Glasner caught up with nominees and stars on Thursday to speak about film, representation and what it means to honour homegrown talent.
Sheila McCarthy
The Women Talking actor discusses what it was prefer to work on a Sarah Polley set:
“Sarah Polley set a really high bar when it comes to excellence and everybody bringing their A-game each day. It was terrifying. I mean, we were doing 120 takes of 11-page scenes, three days in a row. So it was the Olympics, but having said that, she also created a playground for us to play in and to fail in and to be collaborative in.”
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
The Turning Red actor on India’s Tollywood hit RRR, a best original song nominee:
“It is basically cool to see RRR just up on the front … I can not even count how over and over people have said to me, ‘that movie is just so cool’ and I’m like, ‘trust me, there are such a lot of more on the market of all these South Asian stories. That is just the tip of the iceberg.'”
Sarah Polley
The Women Talking director on making a humane filmmaking environment:
“While you sit down with a budget and you progress things around and also you realize that it is not, it doesn’t come at no cost, creating [these] working conditions. I hope that does not dissipate in people’s minds, nevertheless it does feel like a conversation is going on around it.”
Domee Shi
The Turning Red filmmaker on breaking down Asian stereotypes on screen:
“I believe you are also just seeing for the primary time people from those communities getting the possibility to inform these stories from their very own personal experiences, too. And we’re finally breaking down the stereotypes, the one-dimensional depictions of what it means to be Asian. What it means to be an Asian mother, an Asian woman.”
Chris Williams
The Sea Beast director on why animation is a team effort:
“One person doesn’t make an animated film. We’re so reliant on one another … Not one person could inform you how an animated movie gets made, you already know what I mean? It’s that complicated. There are a whole bunch of folks that dedicate years of their lives to make one animated film. And there is something concerning the Canadian psyche that I believe just form of can work in that environment thoroughly.”
Adrien Morot
The Whale‘s makeup artist on designing prosthetics that Brendan Fraser dropped at life:
“Until you glue it onto the actor’s face and he starts acting with it and also you see the range of mobility that he has and that it doesn’t obstruct his acting abilities … It’s now not your creation now [and] it’s now not Brendan. It becomes the character that you simply all strive to attain. And that is amazing. It is a magical moment. You’re feeling like Dr. Frankenstein.”
