The Oscar-winning role Frances McDormand was bullied into playing: “Shut up and do it”
Given his unique brand of dark and absurdist humour, there are many actors who go hand-in-hand with Martin McDonagh‘s style. While Hollywood has its fair share of people who play by the rules, there are also many oddballs and eccentrics who work in accordance with their own set of rules and break free from the stifling traditions of a very rigid industry.
The likes of Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Woody Harrelson have become key players within McDonagh’s work, creating tapestries of outcasts and misfits who sit somewhere on the outskirts of society, whether it be his most recent film The Banshees of Inisherin and the conflict between friends on a remote Irish island or the ruckus caused by two hit men in Bruges.
However, perhaps the most perfect addition to his filmography was Frances McDormand, who funnily enough, had plenty of experience with dark stories after being a regular in the world of the Coen brothers, filmmakers who are famous for a similarly strange collection of stories. While she seems like the perfect fit, the actor initially had reservations about working with McDonagh on his 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, eventually being worn down and encouraged to accept the role.
The story follows a mother who takes her daughter’s murder case into her own hands after the local police force fails to take action, putting up three billboards that directly speak to the town’s chief of police. There are many conflicting elements at the heart of the film, being both painful and funny as it toes the line between darkness and comedy, a quality at the heart of McDonagh’s films.
However, while McDormand is exceptional in the role and it even earned an Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’, she felt iffy about accepting the part after thinking that she was too old to play a mother, saying, “When I first read it, I loved it, I thought Mildred was amazing. I was very flattered, but then I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m too old, because at the time he gave it to me, I was 58… I was concerned that women from this socioeconomic strata did not wait until 38 to have their first child.”
While this aspect might have been a concern for McDormand, the director had stated how he couldn’t picture anyone else for the role, and during his seven-year-long writing process, he had imagined the actor in the role for the entire time. As a result, it was a fraught time for the director, with his vision for the film entirely hinging on her saying yes.
But his period of uncertainty didn’t last long, with the actor revealing that her husband, Joel Coen, took matters into his own hands. “So we went back and forth and we debated that quite for a while, and then finally my husband said, ‘Just shut up and do it.’” Sometimes, all you need to hear is blind encouragement from a loved one to take on a project that intimidates you, leading to one of the greatest performances of her career.
