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Finally, real women reign in Hollywood: Let's hear it for Sandra Bullock,
Meryl Streep and Mo'Nique!
Thursday, January 28th 2010,
4:00 AM
I am not particularly a fan of Meryl's acting (sorry Robin) but over the years I have found she is a very funny, and warm, woman at award shows. Until I saw/heard Mo'Nique,s monologue I wouldn't go out of my way to see hear but in that scene in "Precious" she stunned me. Now I have always been a fan of Bullock's as she struck as the type of person you
would like as a friend. I don't think "The Blind Side is that good a
picture but she is and ever since her acting in "Crash" I was waiting
for her to get n Oscar nomination, if not the actual Oscar!
Finally, real women reign in Hollywood: Let's hear it for Sandra Bullock,
Meryl Streep and Mo'Nique!
Thursday, January 28th 2010,
4:00 AM
Beck, Merritt, Beck/Getty
Meryl Streep,
Sandra Bullock and Mo'Nique (l.-r.) are putting a down-to-earth face on this
year's awards season.
Down with the bombshell. Out with the sex kitten. In Hollywood this Oscar
season, real women are at the top.
Sandra Bullock,
Mo’Nique and Meryl Streep have
already raked in Golden Globe and Screen Actors
Guild awards. But are they letting it go to their heads? Forget it. When
Bullock beat Streep for the best actress SAG trophy last Sunday, a reporter
backstage told her she had become the front-runner in the awards race. Her
response: She told him to shush.
They are the queens of awards season, but 10 years ago, you might never have guessed these would be the women at the podium. In youth-obsessed Hollywood,
there’s always a new star on the rise, and for a time Streep and Bullock’s
careers seemed to be flagging. Plus, who would have believed that Mo’Nique, best
known for her tell-it-like-it-is brand of standup comedy and stint as as a
reality TV host, would nail a dramatic role steeped in heartbreak?
Their key to success: keepin’ it real.
Start with their down-to-earth attitudes. Add daring performances, devotion
to good causes, and their refusal to do things any way but their own. They spurn
plastic surgery. They keep their private lives private. At the Golden Globes,
Mo’Nique even lifted the hem of her gold Reem Acra gown to reveal
unshaven legs.
But how exactly do they keep fans and critics clamoring for more? To start,
they dig deep for the right roles. And if the right role isn’t around, they stay
out of the spotlight.
After her turn in 2002’s “Two Weeks Notice” opposite Hugh Grant, Bullock
crossed romantic comedies off her list of projects.
“They’re not funny, they’re not romantic, they’re not written well for women
anymore,” she has said, explaining her decision. “It was basically all crap. I
did the last good one. I’m done.”
With her stream of date movies over, she built herself back up with serious
supporting roles in films such as “Crash.” Then, last year, she found a return
to comedy that she actually liked. One problem: “The Proposal” was a romantic
comedy, but don’t tell her that.
“It’s a comedy that has romance in it,” she has admitted. (She could say the
same about 2009’s “All About Steve.”)
Still, the snarky script felt right, and she went with her gut. Also on her
slate, “The Blind Side,” in which her role as an imperious Memphis interior decorator
could have gone sour without the right comic touch.
The lessons in her story: Trust your impulses and work hard. “The Proposal”
and “The Blind Side” made Bullock, 45, the best money of her career.
“I am Sandra Bullock, and I’m an actor,” she said, accepting her SAG Award
for “The Blind Side” last weekend. “I am so proud to say that in a room full of
faces that have inspired me, and allowed me six years ago to say I’m going to
stop working ’cause I wasn’t doing good work, and audition again. And you say
goodbye to the money, and you say goodbye to all the things that you became
comfortable with.”
Meanwhile, Mo’nique, 42, turned her lowbrow image on its ear with her
riveting role in “Precious” − and she didn’t do it for the prizes. In fact,
she’s caught flack for not seeming like she wants an Oscar badly enough, not
being willing to “campaign” for one.
“When they say campaign, I’m like, well, wait a minute,” she said on her BET
talk show, “President Barack Obama had to campaign because he had something to prove: that he could do it. Well,
the performance is on the screen. So at what point am I still trying to prove
something?”
The remark was a little too real for certain bloggers, who sniped she should
be denied a nomination until she learns to “play the game.” But that’s just it,
“Precious” wasn’t a game for Mo’Nique, it was a job.
As for Streep, she’s a perennial favorite of Oscar season − but this time
things are different. In Nancy Meyers?a>??
flirty romp “It’s Complicated,” Streep is suddenly the romantic ingenue, with Alec
Baldwin and Steve Martin in hot
pursuit.
“”It’s incredible — I’m 60, and I’m playing the romantic lead in romantic
comedies!” Streep trilled to Vanity Fair.
“Bette Davis is rolling
over in her grave.”
The same article points out that, only 15 years ago, Streep was considered
too old to play Clint Eastwood?a>??s
love interest in “The Bridges of Madison County,” and
he had to fight for her to join the cast. (Eastwood is 19 years her senior.) The
producers of “It’s Complicated” didn’t see age as an issue.
Just as important as their career choices, the three actors share a secret
weapon when it comes to surviving the Hollywood grind. They have lives.
They’re married to, well, pretty regular dudes. Streep’s husband, the
sculptor Don Gummer, has been by
her side for over 30 years. Mo’nique’s, Sidney Hicks, has been
her best friend since she was 14, and helps produce her talk show and write her
jokes. Bullock’s man, Jesse James, is a
frequent TV presence, but he’s no Tinseltown pretty boy. He’s a
motorcycle-obsessed daredevil that Bullock met in 2005 when she set up a visit
to his show, “Monster Garage,” for her 10-year-old godson.
Bullock gave viewers a glimpse of her romance when she poured out thanks to
James from the SAG podium. “And to my husband, Jesse,” she said, “who works so
hard all day, and you get dressed up in monkey suits, and you sit at a table
with people you don’t know. ... I don’t know how you do it. I love you so much,
and you’re really hot.”
Movie fans crave chemistry, both on and off screen,
and we tune out if it’s not there. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt will
never earn our oohs and awws. They’re too fake. And if both halves of a couple
are famous, we sometimes get suspicious. We hear rumors about Jennifer Aniston canoodling with Gerard Butler and
wonder − could it possibly be real? Or is it just for the publicity?
“There’s not as much intrigue when one person is a ‘civilian,’” says Irin Carmon, a writer for entertainment site jezebel.com. “That also
allows us to believe that it’s a genuine marriage instead of a career move.
[Bullock, Streep and Mo’Nique] didn’t marry to gain some exponential celebrity
wattage.”
As the award nominations started rolling in, Carmon asked her readers to
explain exactly what makes an actor such as Bullock so popular.
“She is very I’m-every-woman,” wrote one, “at least the woman you
realistically wish you could be. Smart, determined, down-to-earth, funny and oh
yeah, beautiful but naturally and effortlessly so.”
Another: “Most actresses say, ‘I don’t really like the Hollywood scene, I’m
more at home with my jeans and my dogs.’ I actually believe Sandra Bullock.”
A third had a personal take: “Sandra Bullock is incredibly humble. My friend
is a hostess at the restaurant she owns in Austin called Bess
Bistro and says she drops by a lot and gets to know everyone really
well.”
That humility shows. Mo’Nique spent her SAG acceptance speech thanking the
less appreciated members of the “Precious” cast, including the little girl, Quishay Powell, who
played her granddaughter.
Bullock also chose to share her spotlight. She arranged a gala premiere of
“The Blind Side” in New Orleans to benefit
Warren Easton High, a school she’s taken under her wing since Hurricane
Katrina. She brought along the cast, Saints quarterback Drew Brees −
now headed to the Super Bowl − and even the school marching band to play as the
audience exited the theater. And she’s not hoarding those box office bucks. This
month, after the earthquake struck Haiti, she gave $1 million to
Doctors
Without Borders.
“It’s not like I’ve had the ability to hang out with A-list Hollywood
actresses, so I don’t know the personalities of the rest of them,” says the
real-life Leigh Anne Tuohy,
the model for Bullock’s “Blind Side” role. “Sandy is a wonderful person.”
Streep’s causes include environmental and arts organizations. With Equality
Now, she works for women’s rights around the world.
But the Real Women of Hollywood aren’t only in front of the camera. Helping
them succeed are directors such as “It’s Complicated” creator Nancy
Meyers, who cracked the ceiling of romantic-comedy cliché when she paired Diane
Keaton, then 57, and Jack Nicholson, then
66, in 2003’s sex comedy “Something’s Gotta Give.”
On the serious side of the aisle is Kathryn Bigelow,
whose war drama “The Hurt Locker” has been hailed as one of the finest films
about combat in Iraq. She didn’t snag the
Golden Globe − blame the accolades heaped on “Avatar” director James Cameron, her
ex-husband − but she’s as real as they get.
This recognition of realness bodes well for stars such as Reese
Witherspoon, Catherine Keener,
Vera Farmiga. And hey,
the leader of the next generation of the Queens of Real, Maggie
Gyllenhaal, makes her home in Brooklyn. Glenn
Close is still tearing up “Damages.” Sissy Spacek is back
in the spotlight on “Big Love.” Betty White’s lifetime achievement award at the
SAG Awards shows how long a career you can enjoy with the right spark and
savvy.
Just take it from the singular way she lauded her “Proposal” co-star
Bullock:
“With all the wonderful things that have happened to her,” said White, “isn’t
it heartening to see how far a girl as plain as she is can go?”