Yle Uutiset clarified the claim that the British actor, who received a surprise nomination for the movie To Leslie, and the director of Cabin No. 6, Juho Kuosmanen, were planning a joint project.
At the beginning of the year 2023, as the Oscar gala approached, a remarkable series of events was seen, when a group of Hollywood’s leading actors praised the low-budget film *To Leslie*, which is about an alcoholic mother hanging on the edge of life.
– Andrea (Riseborough) should win all possible awards and even the ones that haven’t been invented yet, Paltrow said.
When the Oscar nominations were announced on January 24, Riseborough was nominated for Best Actress. The nomination is the first in the actor’s career.
Who is Riseborough and how did he become the surprise name of the Oscars?
Appreciated and employed
At best, the actor has been involved in 3–4 films each year. Last year, in addition to *To Leslie*, the film version of the musical *Matilda* premiered, among others, in which Riseborough played the titular character’s grumpy mother, Mrs. Wormwood.
Despite his work pace and famous productions (e.g. Oscar-winning *Birdman)*, the actor has not become a big name.
The films in which he himself has played the main role have been low-budget productions, which, for example, have hardly been seen in commercial distribution in Finland.
It would seem that Riseborough’s roles have in common a psychological toss-up that anyone wouldn’t necessarily dare to do. Even the plot descriptions of the films are great reading.
In *Nancy* (2018) Riseborough is a con artist who pretends to be the daughter of an old couple who has been missing for 30 years.
In the sci-fi horror film *Possessor* (2020), he plays a professional killer who can use imaginary technology to \”take over\” other people’s bodies and perform bloody deeds through them.
In the psychological thriller *Here Before* (2021), the protagonist becomes convinced that the daughter of a neighboring family is his child who died in an accident and was reborn.
– Although the end of the film is more of a fairy tale than a country song, Riseborough saves a lot. The way he subtly brings out Leslie’s inner struggle in one solo scene, where the final resolution of her life is loaded, is shocking.
The Finnish director’s film convinced the actor
Last year, Riseborough visited Finland for work while filming the film *What Remains* in late 2021. The Chinese-Finnish co-production was filmed in the Turku region and Paimio, the film magazine Episodi reported, among other things.
– When you look at his (Kuosmanen’s) films, they sing, they are so full of character, so pure and funny, Riseborough said.
In addition, it was mentioned in the interview that Riseborough would be involved in Kuosmanen’s next \”as yet unannounced project\”. Nothing more was said about it.
Rantamäki answers Yle Uutisten’s inquiry that Riseborough is not in the series and has not been contacted. Casting for the series has not started yet.
– Sinun, Margot is a Finnish- and German-language series, in which people from these language areas are cast in time, Rantamäki says in an e-mail message.
Juho Kuosmanen answers the question about cooperation with Riseborough by email, that the project in question is already ready for Kuosmanen.
– I can’t say more about it yet, he says.
The lobbying commotion was to take away the Oscar nomination
The big stars’ campaign for the film *To Leslie* attracted attention in the media. The online publication of the film industry, IndieWire, pointed out that if the intention was to lobby the film as an Oscar candidate, it was late in the process.
Voting for the Oscar nominees ends in mid-January. The so-called \”Oscar season\ i.e. the big studios’ marketing campaign for their films, usually takes place between November and December.
It was noted that both Riseborough and many of the actors who praised the film were represented by the same entity, Creative Artists Agency (CAA). According to rumors, the actors were even bribed to market the film.
The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which distributes the Oscars, published a press release on January 27, in which it said it was investigating whether the Academy’s rules had been followed in the advertising campaigns of the award candidates.
The rules prohibit, for example, filmmakers from requesting direct support for their film from Academy members.
The release did not mention individual films by name, but in the media the report was connected to the film *To Leslie*. It was thought that Riseborough could lose his candidacy if violations were revealed.
However, no evidence was found that the perpetrators had contacted Academy members directly.
In the end, the Academy said on January 31 that no rule violations had been detected. In this connection, it was admitted that the report concerned *To Leslie*.