Janney wins her first Academy award, against competition from Laurie Metcalf and Lesley Manville, for her dark turn as Tonya Harding’s mother
Allison Janney has won the Oscar for best supporting actress at the 90th annual Academy Awards for her brash turn as LaVona Golden in I, Tonya. Nominated for an Oscar for the first time, the veteran took the award ahead of Laurie Metcalf of Lady Bird, who was considered Janney’s closest competition in the category.
In her acceptance speech, Janney joked “I did it all myself!” before going on to thank her collaborators on the film, as well as veteran actor Joanne Woodward, with whom she appeared in the 1993 TV movie Blind Spot.
I, Tonya review – Margot Robbie superbly uninhibited as reviled ice-skater Read more
In the blackly comic Tonya Harding biopic directed by Craig Gillespie, Janney plays the figure-skating prodigy’s chain-smoking, domineering mother. Janney was previously best known for playing White House press secretary CJ Cregg in The West Wing.
I, Tonya tells the story of Harding, the disgraced American figure skater who was banned from the sport after an investigation into her involvement in an attack on rival Olympian Nancy Kerrigan. At the Oscars, 58-year-old Janney added another trophy to her collection after sweeping the Golden Globes, Baftas, Critics’ Choice, and Screen Actors Guild awards.
As well as Metcalf, Janney also beat out Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread), Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water), and Mary J Blige (Mudbound).
Sunday night’s Oscars had its highs (All hail queen Frances McDormand!) and its lows (awkward red carpet), but nothing felt quite like a punch to the gut as the few off-color Tonya Harding references that snuck their way into the presenters’ on-stage banter.
I, Tonya was a movie beloved by many this awards season. And for good reason: It featured dynamic performances by Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, who played Tonya and her mother, respectively; electrifying skating routines; and a banging ‘70s soundtrack. The film was a crowd pleaser, earning strong opening weekend numbers. But arguably the most important element of the film was the revisionist history lens that offered something akin to redemption for Harding herself. As a society, we’re beginning to look back on stories that dominated news cycles with a more critical eye. In a post #MeToo world, stories like Tonya Harding’s have new meaning for viewers who weren’t considering how discrimination, poverty, and domestic violence shaped the events of the survivor’s lives, and the way the media covered them.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
It’s a trend that’s unlikely to stop: Monica Lewinsky, once villainized for her role in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, is now garnering much more sympathetic news coverage as the world adapts to better understand the long-lasting effects of sexual harassment.
But the media is still quick to cast its heroes and monsters, sticking to the script with reckless single-mindedness. In one of the scenes from I, Tonya, when describing the fallout of the news coverage, Margot Robbie as Harding looks at the camera dead-on and delivers one of the most memorable lines from the movie, “I was loved for a minute. Then I was hated. Then I was a punchline. It was like being abused all over again. Only this time it was by you. All of you. You’re all my attackers, too.”
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
And on a glittering stage in front of millions, we did what we knew best: kept right on attacking. It started just seven minutes into host Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue. He introduced all the major nominees for the evening, and when it was time to acknowledge Robbie for her Best Actress nom in I, Tonya, he said, “Whose kneecaps did Tonya Harding have to break to get this dream casting?”
Robbie’s reaction after Kimmel’s Harding jab. ABC
It felt like the whack of a crow bar. The look on Robbie’s face can best be described as “embarrassed while painfully aware that the cameras are on her.” She smiles, acknowledging what’s meant to be a compliment, but averts her eyes downward for a moment. After bringing new life to a woman who had been so misunderstood, did this joke feel a bit like a betrayal?
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
I wanted to consider it a lark, but I could feel myself getting heated when it happened yet again. When Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence, who replaced Casey Affleck to announce Best Actress, walked on stage, Foster’s crutches were immediately noticeable. To add a bit of levity to her injury, Lawrence asked what happened, to which Foster joked that it was Meryl Streep’s doing: “She I, Tonya-ed me.”
Getty Images
How was this possible? Did anyone else besides the nominees even watch this movie? At this moment all I could think about was one of the final scenes. Robbie sits dead-eyed and defeated next to a microwave, preparing a frozen dinner while her TV blares. We hear the show host's cavalier voice rattling off barb after barb, each one a jab at Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan. It's heart-breaking. We don't presume Harding is innocent, but we understand how much more she was than just that one ill-fated moment in her life. The film sought to treat her as a multi-dimensional, flawed human being. It championed looking at imperfect people with nuance, and in so doing cautioned against reducing people to mere caricatures. And last night, yet again, Harding was nothing but a punchline.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The media lifted her up, strutted her around on the red carpet, gave her pages in legacy publications, then put her down once more. Watching this cycle play out again so quickly damn near gave me whiplash.
The treatment of Harding last night felt like a metaphor for the Hollywood's treatment of the Time’s Up movement. All of the enthusiasm surrounding the Golden Globes, all of the red carpet call outs and the fiery speeches, seemed to fizzle out at the season’s biggest awards show, where they perhaps would have mattered most. We had brief moments of hope, but on the whole it felt like we’ve learned nothing. Tonya deserved better from us, and so did the women of Hollywood.
Follow Ali on Twitter.
Margot Robbie has missed out on the Best Actress Oscar for I, Tonya.
Frances McDormad took home the Academy Award on Sunday for her incredible portrayal of Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The Australian star graciously stood up and applauded the 60-year-old veteran star as she took to the stage to accept her statuette.
Scroll down for video
Aussie hopes dashed! Margot Robbie misses out on Best Actress Oscar for I, Tonya to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star Frances McDormand
The triumph was Frances' second overall in the Best Actress category, after winning for her leading performance in the 1996 film Fargo.
'I'm hyper ventilating a little bit. If I fall over pick me up, because I have got some things to say,' the veteran actress started her rousing acceptance speech.
After thanking a number of individuals, Frances asked the audience to allow her to 'get some perspective' and then asked the women in the room to stand with her.
'I'm hyper ventilating a little bit. If I fall over pick me up, because I have got some things to say,' the veteran actress started her rousing acceptance speech
Rousing: After thanking a number of individuals, Frances asked the audience to allow her to 'get some perspective' and then asked the women in the room to stand with her
'If I may be so honoured to have the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, Meryl [Streep], if you do it everybody else will,' she quipped.
'The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographers, the composers, the song writers, the designers,' she described.
'Look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,' she continued.
'Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple of days or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best, and we will tell you all about them,' she offered.
'If I may be so honoured to have the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, Meryl [Streep], if you do it everybody else will,' she quipped
'Look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,' she continued
Margot and her I, Tonya co-star Alison Janney, who won Best Supporting Actress earlier in the night, stood up and happily applauded Frances' rousing speech.
Not only did Margot play the lead role of Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, her newly-formed production company LuckyChap Entertainment produced the film.
The independent film has made approx. $33.9 million USD at the box office.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Allison Janney won her first Oscar on Sunday for her supporting role as the demanding and abusive mother to Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding in the mockumentary “I, Tonya.”
90th Academy Awards - Oscars Backstage - Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018 – Allison Janney poses with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "I, Tonya." REUTERS/Mike Blake
Janney, 58, a seven-time Emmy winner, swept all major acting honors this season, including Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards.
“I did it all by myself,” Janney said facetiously to laughter from the audience. “Nothing further from the truth.”
Janney plays LaVona Golden, the mother of U.S. Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, in the independent comedy about the disgraced and troubled athlete who is best remembered for her role in a 1994 assault on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan.
Janney is most familiar to audiences from her roles on 2000’s White House television drama “The West Wing” and current TV comedy “Mom.” Her past film credits include supporting roles “America Beauty,” “The Hours” and “Juno.”
90th Academy Awards - Oscars Show - Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018 - Allison Janney kisses Sam Rockwell. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
“I, Tonya” screenwriter Steven Rogers wrote the role of the hard-driving, foul-mouthed LaVona expressly for Janney, partly as a way for her to demonstrate her range.
“Steven Rogers, look what you did, look at what you did,” Janney said accepting the award. “You’re a brilliant writer. Thank you for the gift of LaVona. I did not see this coming. You did. You give new meaning to the word friend.”
Slideshow (2 Images)
The actress is almost unrecognizable in the movie behind a wig, large glasses and with a parakeet on her shoulder.
“He wanted to show people what else I could do, that I could play someone this far away from myself and yet make her real and grounded,” Janney said last year. “I have to say it’s hard to say you had fun playing someone so awful, but it was a fun challenge.”
Janney’s first passion was ice skating and she had hopes as a teenager of competing in the Olympics before an accident and the realization that she was too tall to succeed ended her dreams.
She later studied acting under Paul Newman at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and credits Newman’s late wife, actress Joanne Woodward with encouraging her career.
