Golden Globe Nominees Colman Domingo, Rachel Weisz & More on Their Acclaimed Projects
| 12/29/23
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It was a big year for movies and TV centering stories about queer, BIPOC people, and women. Even with production closed for much of the year due to the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA striking for protections for artists, from Netflix’s Rustin, the overdue big-screen story of the Black gay Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin, to the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, stories of queer love, chosen family, and female agency abounded. Now The Golden Globe Awards are back in full swing after its voting body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was held accountable for its lack of Black members and often problematic journalism.
A bellwether of the Oscars, the Golden Globe Awards — with its table seating and free-flowing booze — has been a favorite among viewers. This year’s ceremony will be held on January 7, and many of the artists we’ve interviewed across film and TV this year are up for awards including Rustin’s Colman Domingo to Dead Ringers’ Rachel Weisz. Here’s what nominees had to say about their nominated work.
Aminah Nieves as Teonna Rainwater in 1923
Paramount+
Part of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe, 1923 stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as the patriarch and matriarch of a ranching family fighting to keep hold of their empire amid social change. Indigenous and queer actor Aminah Nieves spoke with us about how the series, nominated for Best Television Series Drama tells the authentic story of Indigenous people like her character, Teonna Rainwater, who were stolen from their families and forced into boarding schools run by sadistic nuns.
Steven Yeun as Danny and Ali Wong as Amy in Beef
Netflix
Early in 2023, Netflix’s Beef made a splash when a road rage incident between Ali Wong’s Amy and Steven Yeun’s Danny consumes them. The actors, nominated in the best actress and actor categories for a limited series, spoke with Advocate Channel about social media’s lie of perfection and the exhaustion to keep up with it, and how depression and masculinity intersect in the series.
Riley Keough as Daisy Jones in Daisy Jones & the Six
Prime Video
A breakout sensation, Prime Video’s Daisy Jones & the Six is a documentary-style fictionalized account of a Fleetwood Mac-esque super band of the ’70s that disappeared suddenly. From Will Graham, the queer co-creator of A League of Their Own, Daisy Jones & the Six delivered killer rock anthems and thoughtful storylines. Keough, along with costar Sam Claflin (rocker Billy Dunne), spoke with us about the show’s portrayal of strong women.
Rachel Weisz as Elliot Mantle in Dead Ringers
Prime Video
It was double trouble or double the fun (depending on your perspective) with Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz (a fave of queer women in Disobedience and The Favourite) starring as twin obstetricians, Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Alice Birch’s gender-swapped take on Bari Wood and Jack Geasland’s 1977 novel, Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg’s excellent film was released in theaters in 1988) is part body horror series, part queer love story, and part a satirical examination of the topical discussion of women’s bodily autonomy. Weisz’s sublime work in the series earned her a nomination in the Best Performance by an Actress, Limited Series category. In an interview with Advocate Channel Weisz and Birch touched on OB/GYN care and just how the queer the Mantle sisters are.
Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin and Johnny Ramey as Elias Taylor in Rustin
Netflix
It’s the year of Colman Domingo with his role as the imposing Mister in The Color Purple and his tour de force as Bayard Rustin, the architect of the 1963 March on Washington. The film, directed by George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), leans into the intersections of Rustin’s identity as a Black, gay man. Domingo, who’s been acting steadily since the 1990s, most recently in projects including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Euphoria, and Zola stands to make history as the first out Black gay actor to win major awards this season. He’s nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for the Globes. In in an interview with Advocate Channel, he discussed the obstacles Rustin faced walking in his authenticity.
Natalie Portman as Elizabeth and Julianne Moore as Gracie in May December
Netflix
At a certain angle, May December is about a horrendous tabloid personality a la Mary Kay Letourneau. But under the direction of New Queer Cinema legend Todd Haynes (Poison, Far From Heaven, Carol), a crackling script from Samy Burch, and searing performances from Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton, the film deftly takes its tabloid roots to new depths around trauma, rebirth, societal expectations of women, and the craft of acting. Oscar winners Portman (Black Swan) and Moore (Still Alice) chatted with us about transgressive women and crossing boundaries.
Alex Borstein as Susie and Rachel Brosnahan as Midge in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Prime Video
The award-winning favorite The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel took its final bow in its fifth season with one of the greatest TV finales of all time. Emmy and Golden Globe winner, Rachel Brosnahan, nominated again this year for Best Actress in a TV Series, Comedy or Musical for her role as the charismatic stand-up comic Midge Maisel, and Alex Borstein, who plays her queer manager and best friend Susie, spoke with Advocate Channel ahead of season 5. They touched on saying goodbye to the series and why their on-screen friendship is one of TV’s great love stories.
Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie in No Hard Feelings
Sony Pictures
It’s been nearly a decade since audiences got several years of double doses of Jennifer Lawrence with the Hunger Games franchise and her acclaimed portrayals in Silver Linings Playbook (for which she won the Best Actress Oscar) and American Hustle. Last spring, Lawrence starred opposite Disney Channel star Andrew Barth Feldman in the raunchy sex comedy, No Hard Feelings, in which her Maddie takes a job turning out Barth’s Percy, the uptight son of wealthy parents played by Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti. Lawrence and Feldman chatted with us about some of the headier themes of the movie, like class issues, and the joy of playing opposite one another.
Emma Stone as Bella in Poor Things
Searchlight Pictures
Screenwriter Tony McNamara faced a massive challenge adapting Poor Things, given the enormity of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, and judging from the result, he was clearly up for it. For his second outing with director Yorgos Lanthimos, following the success of 2018’s The Favourite, McNamara worked with Lanthimos on charting the growth of Bella, a child in a woman’s body whose intellect and politics evolve through many adventures, played with great zeal by a never-better Emma Stone. Of course, that logline merely scratches the surface of who and what Bella is as she devours as much as possible of knowledge, travel, food, and sex. McNamara spoke us about adapting the novel, working with Lanthimos again, and Bella’s sexual evolution and agency.
Though we chatted with the Ted Lasso star about her special, Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, the charismatic actress who played AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton for three seasons, happily spoke about her Lasso costars who figure prominently in the special. The multi-hyphenate star, nominated in the Best Supporting Actress, Television category, also shared why she’s an ardent ally of LGBTQ+ people.
From creator Ron Nyswaner, Showtime’s Fellow Travelers draws a through line from the McCarthy era and the Lavender Scare to the AIDS epidemic to today with its eerie depiction of history repeating. Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey star as clandestine lovers on Capitol Hill where they orbit McCarthy and Roy Cohn. Through characters played by Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts, Fellow Travelers investigates additional scrutiny Black queer people and drag artists historically face. Nyswaner talked to Advocate Channel about telling queer history at a time when craven politicians seek to erase our stories and why depicting gay sex on screen is a political act.