Amy Adams will be moderating a “To Leslie” Q&A on Tuesday evening. Add her to the long list of Oscar voters that have publicly backed the film, and Andrea Riseborough’s performance, in recent days.
In fact, EW’s Dave Karger has decided to include Riseborough in his top five predictions for Lead Actress. Smart man. Riseborough has also cracked the Gold Derby top ten at #9. Smart people.
Oscar voters Kate Winslet, Judd Apatow, Lindsay Lohan, Ellen Barkin, Allan Cumming, and Joe Mantegna all came out today in support of “To Leslie”. Winslet went as far as to call Riseborough’s performance the “greatest female performance on-screen I have ever seen in my life.” Jesus.
“To Leslie” was made in 19 days with a budget of under a million dollars. There was no marketing budget, and the distributor messed up award submissions. There’s now a grassroots campaign to push for an Oscar nom.
Of course, the social media grinches have decided to pull the race card and pronounce the Riseborough campaign as RACIST! Here’s just one of many examples I keep stumbling onto, this guy’s name is Steve:
“It’s interesting that in a year with so many potential and plausible WOC contenders - Deadwyler; Davis; de Armas; Yeoh; Wei; even Plaza - there’s a sudden last minute campaign behind a random white actress in a largely ignored film.”
Oh, spare me the bulls**t. The Andrea Riseborough campaign has been the most exciting thing about this awards season and it’s not even close. To imply that these actors and actresses are doing this because they are racist is madness. They’re not racist, they’re just part of a cult that happens to be composed of all white women. Big difference.
I’ve already stated how I’m fully backing this peculiar Riseborough campaign. However, I need to add something: #tolesliemovie is a small film with a big heart. @andreariseborough gives the performance of the year and @allisonbjanney, @marcmaron, @realowenteague, @andreroyo and Stephen Root are all incredible.
Cory Finley, a talented filmmaker, has directed three films so far: "Thoroughbreds" (2017), "Bad Education” (2020), and "Landscape with Invisible Hand.”