Great performance jumps off the screen, regardless of its size. We can feel a whole life behind what we see. Here, The Envelope steps away from the big names (and big roles) of the Oscar nominations to look at some supporting actors who helped make those buzzy films stand out.
Hanna Schygulla has a small role as a kind of mentor to the character Bella in “Poor Things”
(Ossenberg and Schneider/Anna Frandsen)
Hanna Schygulla
as Martha Von Kurtzroc, “Poor People”
In the Frankensteinian film “Poor People,” Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) sees Martha Von Kurtzroc across a ship's dining room and is attracted first to her foamy hair and then to her independent nature. Martha is played by German actress Hanna Schygulla, muse of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (“The Marriage of Maria Braun”), so it is fitting that she stars alongside Stone, muse of director Yorgos Lanthimos.
Schygulla, who lives in Berlin, is not inclined to receive emails or text messages, so Lanthimos wrote her a letter to offer her the role. “She said more or less that every time, even if she saw me in a small part, she could give it a certain flavor,” says Schygulla, speaking (by landline) from Berlin. The script attracted her, “because it established a cosmos built with past and futuristic elements,” something she had not seen before.
Their scenes mark the film's transition from a story dominated by men to one more populated by women. “My character is like an early riser for women's liberation, which Bella also becomes.” She enjoyed working with Stone, calling her “present and open to everything” and was surprised that the star knew her reputation. “At first she showed a reverence that to me was quite surprising; I thought she wouldn't know me. That was very charming and also gave me insight into her culture.”
Lanthimos writes that Schygulla was ideal to play Martha, “a more mature and experienced woman who can open new doors for Bella's intellectual and social evolution. She brought seriousness, a sense of humor and depth to the few scenes in which she appears. “We were all filled with awe and admiration and felt lucky to have had her with us, even if it was for a short time.”
“You're trying to be a gymnast, trying to do exactly this at this exact moment, with very little knowledge about what happened before or what's coming up in the movie,” says actor Stephen Thorne of the normal experience of a daytime player. . But working with “Holdovers” director Alexander Payne was different, he notes.
(Seacia Pavao / Focus Features)
Stephen Thorne
as Thomas Tully, “The Remains”
When “The Holdovers” reluctant professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) and rebellious student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) embark on a road trip to Boston, Angus is forced to reveal a secret: his dead father, Thomas, is actually He is alive, locked up. in a mental institution and Angus is desperate to visit him. The moment the heavily medicated Thomas sees his son, his eyes light up and he says two words that melt anyone who looks at him: “Hello, honey.”
Thomas is played by Stephen Thorne, an actor and long-time member of the acclaimed Trinity Repertory Company in Rhode Island. After auditioning for the role, a call brought him face to face with director Alexander Payne. “I'm a big fan,” says Thorne, “so I thought, it's worth the price of admission here, just to come in and say hello, no matter what.”
The day player parts are often challenging; “You're trying to be a gymnast, to perform exactly this at this exact moment, with very little knowledge about what happened before or what will happen in the movie,” he says. But Payne had the entire cast read the script together via Zoom, “which was very helpful in creating a very brief but meaningful moment.”
Thorne felt that despite Thomas' mental state, “the sight of his son would stir something inside him.” But after the warm greeting, Tully soon becomes consumed by his paranoia and Angus is powerless to stop him.
Payne notes, “I was worried about that role, because the portrayal of mental illness has to be taken seriously. I have received a lot of praise for Stephen's performance, particularly from people with mental illness in his family. You feel the sane version of Thomas trapped inside but tired and defeated by the struggle to escape.”
“There's something about someone who is so corseted and reserved, who talks so little but thinks so much, that is very satisfying,” says John Rhys of his role as Duncan, the butler in “Saltburn.”
(Muir Vidler / For The Times)
Pablo Rhys
as Duncan, “Saltburn”
As steward of Saltburn, the estate where all manner of gruesome activities take place, Paul Rhys presides with a fabulously grim countenance, ghostly but all too corporeal. “I loved being Duncan,” Rhys says on a call from London. “There is something about someone who is so corseted and reserved, who speaks so little but thinks so much, that he is very satisfying. It's like being in a silent movie, Buster Keaton or something, and you are this presence. He makes you more articulate inside.” Rhys also played the loquacious Tallyrand in “Napoleon” last year. “Tallyrand said that words were invented to disguise what we feel. And I think that's true in Duncan's case.”
Writer-director Emerald Fennell calls Duncan the embodiment of the impressionist gothic film. When we talked about the role with Rhys, “I said, 'Duncan is the house,' and he said, 'Oh, yeah.' And that was it.”
Rhys first came to Fennell through her star, Rosamund Pike. “She called him the best actor of her generation.” Fennell soon agreed, using the words “magical,” “transcendent,” and “supernatural” to describe it. “I'm so obsessed with it I don't know where to start.”
Rhys believes the magic is all his. “I've played much, much bigger roles and I don't want to talk about them so much. I don’t know what it is,” he says. “If I could make movies with Emerald for the rest of my life, I would be very happy, talking or not talking.” He filled notebooks with Duncan's biography and even lived in the mansion's servants' quarters, at his request. “It was a scary and wonderful experience. “I know people laugh at me for taking things a little far, but I think these things somehow communicate the mystery that is cinema.”
