The actress is a revelation away from the
ensemble pack. By Mary McNamara
Every year, the forces of the universe align and some wonderful character actor who has spent years honing his or her craft in small roles gets to step out of the ensemble and shine, shine, shine.
This year’s midcareer supernova was Ann Dowd. Previously best known for her work in the film Compliance, Dowd put in hypnotic and astonishingly diverse performances in big TV dramas: The Leftovers, True Detective and The Divide.
Briefly appearing as the abused, damaged sister of True Detective’s serial killer on HBO, she was grimy, pathetic and seriously disturbing. As the mother of a death-row convict in The Divide on WE tv, she was Boston-Irish charming and sociopath chilling.
But it was in The Leftovers that she blew up the joint. Consistently stealing the show from her better known costars (including Amy Brenneman, and that’s hard to do), Dowd both lifted and anchored an intentionally and often maddeningly opaque narrative. More important, she reminded the world that some of our finest actors were the ones standing stage left to the star.
And she did it almost entirely without the benefit of dialogue.
The Leftovers, which concluded its first season on HBO and is based on the book by Tom Perrotta, chronicles life in a small Northern town years after 2% of the population has mysteriously vanished. Having missed out on what many consider the rapture, those left behind struggle to make sense of it all.
Some of the more traumatised have formed a group called the Guilty Remnant (GR). Clad in white, sworn to silence, smoking and surveillance, they travel through the town in pairs, watching with silent disdain any attempt to live a normal life.
As the season progressed, the group became more provocative and increasingly divisive; a major thread involved Brenneman’s Laurie Garvey, who joined the GR to the horror of her husband, Kevin (Justin Theroux), the chief of police.
Patti was the local GR leader and Laurie’s mentor, and with her bright blue eyes and mournful mien, Dowd was able to evoke the impossible: zealous, charismatic detachment.
The growing popularity of slower-paced dramas on television has given rise to a whole new form of acting: roiling stillness. Increasingly, our flat-screens are filled with faces that manage to convey huge and often violent emotions with very little movement. Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife, Damian Lewis in Homeland, Jon Hamm in Mad Men, Aden Young in Rectify, Michael Kitchen in Foyle’s War.
Where others might choose more physically expressive performances, these actors find power in stillness. The universe in a glance, the big reveal in a single gesture.
Like them, Dowd did more with silence than most performers could have done with a Shakespearean monologue. In scenes in which Patti did little more than scribble a few words on a pad, Dowd made her a study in contradiction, wise and insane, loving and ruthless, tranquil and furious, and utterly distraught.
When she was in frame, you could not look away.
Which was good for the show, since Patti was, intentionally or not, the make-or-break role. The series contemplates the fragile nature of reality; tweak it just enough and the whole concept unravels.
In the universe according to Perrotta and co-creator Damon Lindelof, some go into survival mode, patching things up or quickly knitting together a new mythology, while others, like Patti, surrender utterly to the revelation of nothingness.
In a show that celebrated the fine line between subtle and extreme, Patti was both; to enjoy The Leftovers, you had to believe in her, and Dowd made that exquisitely easy.
So it was quite a shock when (spoiler alert) Patti died in Episode 8. Dowd has been compared by many to Margo Martindale, another wonderful character actor who lifts all boats around her. Watching Patti die, it was hard not to think, with strangely fresh bitterness, of Martindale’s Mags Bennett on Justified, who was a Patti-like revelation and also condemned to death.
Justified never again hit the bar the Mags season set, and though Patti’s death scene was very good and quite important to Theroux’s character, The Leftovers sacrificed its queen to make the play. On the bright side, Dowd is now free to be showered with starring roles, and about damn time. — Los Angeles Times/MCT
Kim wants two
children at least
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who has been brought up with five siblings, says she would love to have at least one more child with her husband Kanye West if not more. The duo is already parents to a daughter named North.
During an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Kim not just took the ice bucket challenge, but also revealed she wants a sibling for North, reports dailymail.co.uk.
“I just went to San Diego to give my pregnant sister a break. I took care of my niece, nephew and my daughter,” the 33-year-old told the chat show host in reference to older sister Kourtney and her children Mason and Penelope.
“To bathe all three, feed them, get them in pajamas and down for bed I was literally like crying. It was so hard. Three kids. I don’t know how my mom did it with six,” she said of her mother and manager, Kris Jenner.
“So it was really, really hard so I’ll go for two, but then again I have so many siblings and I love it. They’re my best friends. I would want that for my kids. So I’m going to do two and see how it is,” added Kim.
Kim has four sisters — Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian, half-sisters Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner and a brother — Rob Kardashian. — IANS
Ian defends girlfriend Nikki Reed
Actor Ian Somerhalder defends his girlfriend Nikki Reed after receiving negative comments about the Twilight actress online. Somerhalder’s fans recently decided to use his image sharing website comments section as a forum to bash his new girlfriend, Reed, reports contactmusic.com.
Instead of dismissing the negative banter, Somerhalder wrote back to the fans in a lengthy online rant, telling them, “You Hate Nikki Reed? Really? Do you know her? Hmmmm, I’m not sure that you do. Look on her Instagram feed or twitter and all you will see is a compassionate and beautiful human being. Please put your negative energy elsewhere. You don’t even know the person you’re talking about.”
He added: “Do you care about me? Ask yourself that question. What’s the answer? Is it yes? If it is — then please be happy for me. Stop this nonsense — you’re spreading horrible energy into the world.”
“Do some research of the person you say sucks or you hate. You’ll find that she’s a magical person doing great things in the world.”
Somerhalder and Reed sparked romance rumours in July after they were photographed spending a weekend together. — IANS
