Andrea Riseborough’s late-blooming word-of-mouth campaign for her title role in To Leslie has resulted in the British star’s first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, turning on its head popular wisdom about the direction of this year’s race. Riseborough joins Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas, Michelle Williams and Michelle Yeoh in this year’s Best Actress Oscar race.
“I’m amazed,” she told Deadline this morning. “It’s such an unexpected ray of light. It was so hard to believe it could ever happen because we really weren’t in the running for anything else. Although we had a lot of support, the idea that it could actually happen seemed so far away.”
How did it happen?
Directed by Michael Morris and based on author Ryan Binaco’s semi-autobiographical experience, To Leslie premiered at last year’s SXSW but largely flew under the radar, grossing just over $27,000 on an underwhelming release from Momentum Pictures in October. This makes it one of the lowest-grossing films to ever receive an Oscar nomination, and the film might have suffered forever if the team behind it hadn’t fought hard to get its film seen by audiences and the industry.
TIED TOGETHER: 2023 Oscar nominations: Full coverage by Deadline
“The reactions we’ve received all along have been so personal from people,” Riseborough said of the encouragement she felt to continue supporting the film despite its distribution woes. “Some moments you’re judging Leslie, other times you identify with her and take so much travel. It felt like there was scope for touching so many people. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to keep talking about it, even if people weren’t very interested, because as soon as they saw the film, they were immediately interested and couldn’t shake the story. The film really propelled itself in that way.”
With virtually no budget for an awards campaign, they took it upon themselves to ensure the film was submitted and uploaded to the Academy’s screening portal, and Riseborough and Morris turned to friends to screen the film support. Charlize Theron hosted a screening at CAA in November, and since then, screenings by Gwyneth Paltrow, Courteney Cox, Edward Norton, Jennifer Aniston and Minnie Driver have ensured members of the Academy’s acting department have had every opportunity to see the film on the big screen. Marc Maron, who stars in the film alongside Allison Janney and Stephen Root, hosted Riseborough on his popular podcast WTF.
TIED TOGETHER: Oscars Snubs & Surprises: Tom Cruise, Viola Davis, Taylor Swift, David Bowie & Female Directors Scorned
Although Riseborough was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for the role in late November and previously won Best Actress at the Raindance Film Festival in London, few forecasters saw it coming. In the last few days before voting ended, a social media campaign spearheaded by these stars and others including Demi Moore, Jane Fonda, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, Laura Dern, Frances Fisher and many more brought Riseborough to the fore. Blanchett, another of today’s nominees, highlighted Riseborough’s performance in interviews at the recent Critics Choice Awards, where Blanchett won Best Actress.
Responding to the growing support, Riseborough said with a laugh: “I’m not exactly sure how the hell that happened. After SXSW there was a quiet lull. And then slowly as the film got a few screenings elsewhere – including at Raindance, which was a big deal because we haven’t had a UK release yet – we found that people were starting to talk about it. And people asked us, ‘Why can’t I watch it? Where can I see it?’ After a while we were able to point them to iTunes and Amazon, but it didn’t happen immediately.”
TIED TOGETHER: Best Picture Oscar Winners Over the Years – Photo Gallery
Riseborough said she’s had more and more reactions from people inside and outside the industry as word of mouth spread throughout the season leading up to the voting window. “You always think, ‘If we’ve done our job well enough, it’s going to cut through the noise,’ but often it’s just impossible to compete with advertising in the millions,” she noted. “Each year for some reason the spotlight shines brighter in some places than others and maybe it’s just money to do, although I try not to be cynical in that way. It was special to feel so supported by the community – especially the cast – and to feel like the work broke through that. I really have never experienced anything like this before.”
In fact, there are very few precedents in Oscars history for a groundbreaking awards campaign that has garnered enough steam to garner a nomination. Deadline’s Awards columnist Pete Hammond suggests that Sally Kirkland’s personal campaign in 1987, which earned her a nomination for Anna, is the closest comparison, but Kirkland’s journey began earlier and she won a Golden Globe for the role, making it a more enduring one Greatness in that role made the talk of the season.
Riseborough credits producer Claude Dal Farra with his continued commitment to the film. “We couldn’t have come this far without a producer like Claude,” she said. “It takes one person to believe it’s worth sharing.” She was in London this afternoon with partner Karim Saleh, who was watching the livestream and telling her the good news while she “dealed with making a Finding a sock or something just to distract me”.
Riseborough’s Oscar nomination is her first in a career marked by appearances in critically acclaimed and award-winning feature films such as Birdman, The Death of Stalin, Battle of the Sexes and Never Let Me Go. She is a two-time BAFTA nominee and received a British Independent Film Award in 2012 for her role in Shadow Dancer.