Andrea Riseborough: What is “Oscars campaigning” and how does it work?
When the Oscars 2023 nominations were announced yesterday, one of the biggest surprises was seeing Andrea Riseborough’s name among the ‘Best Actress’ shortlist. Her role in To Leslie had skirted under the radar until that point, having only received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Awards and failing to register elsewhere.
The film itself proved similarly obscure upon release, gaining little traction globally and amassing measly column inches outside of local indie circles. Perhaps most damning is the fact it reportedly made a meagre $27,000 at the box office. This undoubtedly makes it one of the lowest-grossing movies to ever receive a nomination. In a year that saw the Oscars include commercially inclined films like Top Gun: Maverick, the nomination was particularly dumbfounding.
Nevertheless, Riseborough campaigned to get her performance into consideration by the Academy Awards judging panel, and it evidently proved successful. Rather controversially, her inclusion has also been seen as the one that squeezed out Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler – who were both firmly ahead in the running – making for less diverse representation in the category.
In the film, Riseborough plays an alcoholic mother from Texas desperately trying to get her life back on track after squandering her lottery winnings. She puts in a powerful and emotive display, tempering the visceral edges of her character’s ragged disposition with an underlying humility that proves captivating. However, there is also a definite sense that Riseborough is operating in the liberated world of the small indie film where the pressures of the big screen are sequestered, and an actor can be more self-indulgent with their performance.
In fact, much of the film’s depiction of working-class struggle seems like a hammy Hollywood facsimile by those who have never listened to ‘Common People’ enough to realise that folks in the gutter can still gaze upwards and crack a smile. There is a lot of heart – as the campaign has continually asserted – but there isn’t a huge swathe of genuine sincerity or a true representation of transcendent human existence. Her performance is certainly impressive, and it fulfils the usual awards fodder of a polished star shunning shampoo for a rough role, but the “little film” shines through more than “the big heart” for the most part.
With that in mind, even Riseborough noted that she was “astounded” by her inclusion, but should she have been? After all, she heavily backed her own self-funded campaign, and in recent weeks Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Amy Adams, Jennifer Aniston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo and Jane Fonda all shared their public support and called for their friend to receive a nomination.
Paltrow’s social media post even stretched beyond a mere call for a ‘Best Actress’ win. She wrote: “Last night we had the true pleasure of watching a masterpiece of a film called To Leslie. Directed by our friend Michael Morris and starring the incomparable Andrea Riseborough. I am stunned by all of the performances. Andrea should win every award there is and all the ones that haven’t been invented yet.” For those succumbing to curiosity, that is, of course, obscene hyperbole and evident promotional endorsing.
In the past, we’ve seen zany campaigns by David Lynch, who used a cow on Hollywood Boulevard to try and coup Laura Dern a nomination for Inland Empire, but Riseborough’s was decidedly more conventional. So, what even is Oscars campaigning? And is it a dirty practice or necessary self-promotion?
It should be well established by now that all awards are tainted by arbitrariness. It is a natural flaw that judges obviously can’t watch every single film produced during the year. Usually, this means that low-budget films with limited circulation like To Leslie are dismissed. However, crucially, the film was uploaded to the Oscars portal to ensure that judges could access it. When combined with the curiosity factor of mass celebrity endorsement – in part, established by Riseborough’s well-connected manager – Riseborough was able to ensure that the film was seen by many.
On top of that, Riseborough also reportedly self-funded a late publicity push alongside her extensive celebrity networking. When coupled with what is a genuinely great performance, this last-minute hail-mary seemed to suddenly usher an awards nomination towards the realm of an inevitability. In essence, the affecting film was fresh in the minds of the judges and that paid off.
Essentially, the campaign simply centred around some genuine goodwill, a few amped accounts, good timing, and the ease of the film’s accessibility. When you consider that a lot of her rivals had huge budgets promoting their blockbuster movies, that doesn’t sound like a problem at all. However, it does highlight a practice that we should be wary of.
After all, off the back of this, Riseborough will no doubt be in demand, and viewing figures of To Leslie are likely to skyrocket. That is a profitable practice, and we have to be sure that it is favouring those who are worthy. While Riseborough’s campaign has been ethically sound, in the past, several films have been the benefactors of the Academy buzz through immoral means.
The disgraced Harvey Weinstein, for instance, was notorious for his tactics. It was even alleged that the Miramax mogul once disseminated false rumours that John Nash was antisemitic to hinder A Beautiful Mind’s chances of pipping In the Bedroom to ‘Best Picture’. The accusation posits that he used his contacts to establish dinners with known judges whereby he would schmooze them with a free night out and slip in offhand remarks about rivals to seed nettlesome doubt.
While this is an extreme example, ‘private invite’ parties hosted by studio heads are commonplace. You might ultimately ask why such desperate measures go into what is, essentially, a back-patting ceremony with small gold kitchen roll holders and a parade of designer clothing. Well, from the cynical side of things, it’s all about perpetuating moneymaking schemes. As Oscars founder Louis B. Mayer said of his brainchild: “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them … If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill them to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
For Riseborough, while her campaign may have been genuine enough, the benefit of her engineered manoeuvring pertains to the self-promotion of the nomination rather than the esteem of the award itself. In short, no matter what happens at the ceremony, the interest generated in To Leslie means that it seems highly likely that both Riseborough and director Michael Morris will go from making movies that garner $27,000 to more lucrative projects very soon.
The film itself is creditable enough to not be too cynical about it, but there are no doubt many filmmakers with indie masterpieces under their belt licking their wounds and bemoaning that they simply weren’t well connected enough to gear up through an industry that struggles to uphold the ethical practice of a genuine meritocracy. If we want great cinema, egalitarianism and representation, then that is something we should all be watchful about because awards might be arbitrary, though their impact is anything but.
