The TV show Ally McBeal has, for me, placed a hex on most actresses who’ve appeared in it. I hated the show to a degree I cannot begin to describe. The ensemble cast thus suffers. This is true especially of Lucy Liu and Julianne Nicholson. I am not sure I can ever like Calista Flockhart or Courtney Thorne-Smith. Portia de Rossi is exempt because of her work in beloved Arrested Development. That said, it has been hard to watch actors in obnoxious roles and imagine them doing something redeeming. While my feeling about Lucy Liu has changed (softened), a more striking transformation took place in my approach to Julianne Nicholson.
Nicholson is not as high-profile or “on-the-map” as someone like Lucy Liu has been, but her choices have been unusual and unexpected, showing her capacity not just for depth but for losing herself in some very stern, unglamorous roles that show off her talents in ways that something like Ally McBeal never could.
I should not hold the choice of material against actors or believe that these choices somehow reflect on their abilities as actors. Being a working actor, I imagine you take the roles that you can get; you make the best of even bad material – and who can blame an actor for wanting to participate in a popular show, where visibility is much higher? And I am in the minority in believing that Ally McBeal is crap material.
Julianne Nicholson has turned up in the most surprising places, much to my delight. While she has popped up here and there, and has been pleasant, her very different and staid roles in Masters of Sex and Boardwalk Empire have shown the breadth of Nicholson’s range. Her career has been filled with independent films, many of which are well worth seeing (just the other day I saw her in a small role as a supportive friend to the main character in Keep the Lights On). Yet she has balanced these deliberate choices with mainstream roles in shows, such as the aforementioned Ally McBeal and a more entertaining, if procedural, Law & Order – Criminal Intent. Based mostly on her work in Ally McBeal, I never would have said that I thought she’d exhibit the kind of authority needed to pretend to be a cop. But she was surprising and delivered the goods.
Considered, reconsidered – it’s a tough world for working actors. I don’t doubt that for a moment. Thus harsh criticism shouldn’t be the first thing I unleash. I suppose it’s a little bit easier if you are pretty – as Julianne Nicholson is – but easier still if you are distinctive (another score for Nicholson). That said, when the acting is clearly more important, and the willingness to forgo vanity in favor of plainness is something an actor can embrace (not in the showy Charlize Theron in Monster or Nicole Kidman in The Hours way – but in a more subdued, subtle way), it is easier to see the actual talent and the work that goes into the role. This is where Julianne Nicholson really shines.
I won’t say that I ever disliked Paula Malcomson’s work, per se. She suddenly turned up all over the place, wielding different accents and playing roles representing different social strata across several time periods. I cannot go so far as to say that she is chameleonic – she does not completely disappear into all her roles (notably, her role as Abby Donovan in the recent Ray Donovan, is a bit too over-the-top with the put-upon Boston accent that it stretches believability). That said, she almost disappears into all her roles and imbues each role, even the villainous and suspicious ones, with a vulnerability and humanity that is unusual.
Why I thought of her suddenly, I am not sure. I suppose it’s because I was talking to someone about Battlestar Galactica – laying on thick praise – but cautioning them against its prequel, Caprica, in which Paula Malcomson plays a pivotal role. It is not that her portrayal of Amanda Graystone was anything less than great – she fully embodied and embraced the role and gave it the complexity it needed. It is more that the show never came together. The cast was never the problem.
I guess then that I did not change my mind about Malcomson so much as I decided to afford her work a more serious look. It would almost be easy to overlook her presence because she does slide into all kinds of different roles with such apparent ease. She would be easy to ignore – except that when you are really watching her, you can’t ignore her. In particular, her very human and heartbreaking role as Trixie in the late, great HBO series Deadwood was riveting. But in a show packed with a great cast and often overshadowed by the show’s main character – excessive profanity – it was easy to watch Malcomson be absorbed by Trixie, transfixed, but easily move on to the next thing, the next Al Swearengen tirade for example.
Malcomson may not stick around on some shows for long but her roles – and what she brings to them – create repercussions in the twists and turns of a story. A case in point – Sons of Anarchy, in which her character, Maureen Ashby, delivered information that infused the story with new life. Her portrayal of Ashby was not only sympathetic but helped to shed light on a character whose specter has hung over the show’s entire run – John Teller – a character who has never actually existed on-screen (alive) in the show but whose history, legacy and legend informed the story and motivations of the characters (particularly John Teller’s widow, son and former best friend). Malcomson was able to subtly bring John Teller – and another aspect of his personality and aims – to life.
Considered, reconsidered – for now, we can enjoy Malcomson’s presence in Ray Donovan – hoping she tones it down just a little bit, becomes slightly less shrill (although she does have her searing moments) – and her return to the Hunger Games film series to reprise her role as Katniss Everdeen’s mother.
While some actors, actresses, musicians or writers strike me the wrong way right off the bat (and I later change my mind), I have no rational explanation for why I decided I did not like Minnie Driver. It was not her performances (all of which were superb, right from the beginning, e.g. Circle of Friends, or one of my all-time favorites, Big Night). There was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. Many actors I have disliked and about which I later changed my mind evolved or grew more into themselves, which explains the evolution of my opinions about them. It might not even be about their performances or their aging gracefully into different roles so much as it is about the roles they are actually offered.
But none of this was applicable to Ms Driver. Unlike someone like Kim Dickens, about whom I changed my mind, I did not groan to myself if I knew Driver was in a film – I still watched and enjoyed it. For a while she seemed to be everywhere and showed a great range – period pieces, drama and humor, smaller parts to leading roles, and eventually film to television. Arguably she is a bigger star than most of the people I sat on the fence (and eventually jumped to one side or the other) about – a fact that made her harder to avoid, had I wanted to.
It was not until I saw her in the underrated TV show The Riches(which itself was something I avoided during its original run) that I began to respect the depth of her talent. I think a lot of people sort of fell in love with her when they saw her in Good Will Hunting, but for me, I guess I could have fallen in love with her work, so to speak, much earlier if I had really been paying attention. Her work in the aforementioned Big Night was subtle and insightful, her turn as Debi in Grosse Pointe Blank was believable (in the most broad and comprehensive way – “believable” makes it sound like it was barely passable, when in fact I mean the opposite). Later her memorable TV appearances proved that she was also not afraid to make fun of herself and to make fun in general (Will & Grace in particular, but also more recently in Modern Family).
Considered, reconsidered – being in the public eye and putting oneself out there for the world to see, while a choice, is a vulnerable act. Actors are scrutinized constantly, so the armchair criticism of someone like me – on an individual level – does not matter much. But on the whole, if exposed to this constant criticism en masse – I cannot imagine it’s fun. The public’s – and fandom’s – taste is fickle.
That said, Minnie Driver has been delivering top-notch performances all along.
I am like most other people in that I can be petty. I am also keenly aware that a blog is a highly self-indulgent activity. I want to chronicle my thoughts, my life, my frustrations – I just happen to make it public. My concerns are not monumental or particularly profound. My problems are largely luxury problems. I openly recognize and cop to that. This forum does not need to be something more – I write what I know.
Lately, the ache of losing friendship has come up again and again for me. Friendship has always been a bigger struggle and a larger emotional stumbling block for me than, for example, romantic entanglements. Romantic relationships are more cut and dry somehow. The only time one was really difficult was when it was starkly clear that “romance” should never have been a part of it. The guy in question was one of the best friends I ever had. And having had a lot of friends come and go, it always bore tremendous weight when someone “got” me in the way that a true friend did. He was one of those friends.
When this friend got into a new relationship, I was happy for him. I did not think it necessarily meant our friendship was over. We live in different countries, and our communication was limited in any case both in frequency and in terms of topics. Once the contact was so sporadic and topic-specific (almost always about a film, tv, an inside joke about something we both found funny or, usually, about baby animals – which we both found irresistibly cute), I did not imagine that he, once so stubborn and headstrong, would be with someone who was demanding enough to require him to stop talking to me. I also, without knowing the girlfriend, never imagined that someone who was undoubtedly a lovely person if he (whom I respected and believed would make good choices in this realm) decided to be with her, would be so irrationally jealous.
I have written about this before, and after several eruptions, I told him that, despite how much it hurt to cut off the friendship, knowing that I was losing something, I felt we would all have a more harmonious life if we stopped talking. This mostly happened, but of course insanely cute baby animals or funny things that only we could appreciate would sometimes occur, and he did not resist the temptation to write a few times. I then felt liberated not to resist the temptation to send him a gift. I sent it to his work address just because I did not want to stir up trouble in his home life – at all. (He took the envelope home and started up all the trouble that could have been avoided and triggered the REAL end of the friendship. Whether he secretly liked the drama or was just that thoughtless or wanted a detached way to make me really slam the door forever, I don’t know – maybe I am assigning it all too much meaning anyway.) I did not want to start talking again, I did not want to resume a friendship that was clearly over. I just wanted to make one last gesture that might make him smile and remember me – as his friend – fondly. But it turned into a psychodrama that caused me to lose respect for him, not really want to talk to him anymore at all and conclude that he is not the person I thought he was. Not that I wished him ill will. I just had no more feeling involved at all – the only feeling that had been left was this respect and friendship. But after this episode, he was as good to me as a stranger.
Lately this has disturbed me in some way. He now is a stranger – I have no idea what he is doing but still hope he is very happy. This is completely fine. But a few things came up lately that made me really miss him, despite everything.
For one, I watched the annoying film (although less annoying than I feared, and less annoying than the beginning of the film led me to think it would be), Frances Ha. In it, the main character and her best friend drift apart. Their lives take different paths, and somehow that listless sadness of not being able to turn to the person who had been one’s closest friend made an impression.
The final, and arguably much more important thing, is that my mom’s friend in Washington state just took custody of two beautiful tiger cubs at her big-cat sanctuary. He and I used to talk incessantly like near-drunk fools about the irresistible cuteness of baby tigers. We lamented that we would never in our whole lives have access to baby tigers to touch and play with them. And here, right in my hands, is the opportunity of a lifetime to go be in the presence of two baby tigers. No one else I know would find this as significant as he would. But I can’t tell him. I am not going to be the one to break the silence because I am the one who asked for it, I enforce it and really don’t want to open communication again. It is just an unusual set of circumstances that would only matter to the two of us.
One of two baby tigers*
So cute I could have a heart attack – baby tigers*
When I think of the girlfriend, it actually makes me sad to think that she hates me as much as she does without knowing me. I won’t go so far as to say I love her given how unreasonable she has been toward me – a total stranger. But if she makes him happy, I love that she is in his life even though it cost me a friend. If I were a lunatic who actually wanted something from him – as some exes do, I grant, I might understand her ire. Maybe it is unreasonable for me to think that friendship was possible.
Sometimes I want to ask her whether she never had a friend who was so important to her – on only a friendly level – that it would be like having her heart ripped out to have that friend removed from her life? I hope for her sake that she has never been through that. But I have – a handful of times. As I wrote, friendship and the loss of it has always been difficult for me – so losing the one friend with whom I could make ridiculous jokes, watch documentaries with about baby animals and joke about everything from a self-important American “journalist”, pretend characters Pedro, Jose and Esteban and “annyong” (and the new episodes of Arrested Development!) and Grizzly Man was really a devastating loss. I did not want him in any other way. I wanted him to be happy and fulfilled. The fact that he found love with someone made me immensely happy for him – and for her. Naturally I wanted him to find that kind of complete happiness somewhere and with someone – and I had no desire for that to be me.
– Annyong and off-the-hook, unlimited juice party (bad quality video)
— Timothy Treadwell in near-orgasmic state over bear poop
In truth, I realized that living with him, living in Iceland, I was stunted and unhappy – it was not a good situation when we lived together. I was depressed, and he was no happier than I was – I think he stuck with it as long as he did just because we were friends and because he felt sorry for me.
I grieve often because I lost that easy friendship – I gave it up willingly because she demanded it. I said goodbye to someone I loved (as a friend) and respected – and lost respect for him as a result – but it is stupid because I don’t have any “skin in the game”. I am not interested, I am not competing, I am not a threat. If I am the “immature teenager hiding behind my teddy bear” as she claimed, what is she so worried about? Why would someone like the image she has of me even register on her radar? She is the beloved, chosen one and he loves her – even at the cost of forsaking some friendships – which is perhaps meaningless because, happily for her, he is happy with her. That should be enough to allow her to let go of the petty and immature insecurity that drives her anger.
I offered many times to talk to her, to meet her, to let her be in on the whole thing if it would make her feel better. Maybe I have just never felt passionately enough about someone that that kind of possessiveness felt necessary. But too tight a leash eventually chokes the subject to death.
Every time I go on a “staycation” (hate that invented word but suddenly have occasion to abuse it) vacation, I intend to get a whole slew of things on a long to-do list done. Things start well but if I get derailed in some way (I like routine), I am really derailed, so I spend time reading and watching film after film. It’s for the best because the things on the to-do list are almost always work-related. Why would I spend my vacation working? I have done this all my life. This American work ethic (or insanity) never leaves, no matter how long you have been outside the US. The urge to work, check work email, be engaged instead of tuning out and turning off just buzzes under the skin. I am trying to retrain myself. But it’s difficult. One part of me wants to proceed one way, another part wants to proceed another. My lazy side is winning out because I am just so exhausted on every level right now. Usually I have to scheme with myself
Not that I watch “easy” things. I have watched some challenging documentaries, as usual. I have not just watched crap like the stupid film about Denzel Washington as an alcoholic airline pilot (stupid movie but I liked the small parts played by John Goodman and Don Cheadle), although I did watch that. Mostly I have chosen documentaries like Pink Ribbons, Inc., which also brought to mind the book Brand Aid and the whole idea of “cause marketing”. Or Hit So Hard, a documentary on former Hole drummer, Patty Schemel and her experiences in that and other bands, her drug addictions, her self-doubt and finally reaching some sort of peace with herself. And now Sons of Perdition, a documentary about the FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints – a splinter group living far afield of the mainstream Mormon church and the young men who have left or been thrown off the “compound”. The film chronicles the “Lost Boys” of this group, exiled by the group’s leader, Warren Jeffs (who has been convicted of sexual assault against children in the US).
Most interesting was to see the juxtaposition between an entire family rejecting a member (as in Sons of Perdition) (“choosing between family and what someone else wants you to be”) and a family accepting a member even when she has not completely accepted herself (as it appears Patty Schemel’s mother did when Schemel came out as a lesbian in her teen years). Schemel may not have been completely comfortable with this, but it seems her mother loved and was proud of her in every way. (Naturally we are seeing only what the documentary gives us. I did enjoy Schemel’s mother’s reaction when Schemel was upset that she had made a pass at another girl (something similar), which was not reciprocated. Her mother indicated that there was nothing wrong with the feelings – there isn’t! – but that not much better could be expected. It’s Marysville (a “hicktown” in Washington state, north of Seattle. I know the feeling – I got in trouble for calling my own little Washington town a “hicktown” on the intercom system of my junior high. But for god’s sake – let’s agree to be honest. It was a hicktown!)
