Perhaps an even hotter category?
The lead actress in a limited/anthology series or TV movie.
So what is it about a true story that makes it so hard to resist?
Awardist Limited series actresses roundtable: Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout), Anne Hathaway (WeCrashed), Adrienne Warren (Women of the Movement), Beanie Feldstein (Impeachment), Emmy Rossum (Angelyne), Jessica Biel (Candy), Julia Garner (Inventing Anna), Elle Fanning (The Girl From Plainville).(CCW) Nicole Rivelli/ Netflix; Beth Dubber/Hulu; Apple TV+; Steve Dietl/Hulu; Tina Thorpe/FX; James Van Evers/ABC; Tina Rowden/Hulu; Isabella Vosmikova/Peacock
We’re all students and observers of human behavior.
I mean, I’m assuming that’s why you ladies love what you do.
And I’m just so curious about that.
Amanda Seyfried in ‘The Dropout’.Beth Dubber/Hulu
And there’s so much to mine when your character is someone who has existed or is existing currently.
ADRIENNE WARREN:There’s so much that we can learn from each other.
And that’s super satisfying.
Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway in ‘WeCrashed’.Apple TV+
I know I am.
Or an aspect to themselves is ‘fake it till you make it.’
And where is that line where a truth that youintendto happen doesn’t come true?
Tony Vaughn, Adrienne Warren, and Tonya Pinkins in ‘The Women of the Movement’.ABC/James Van Evers
When do you communicate that to people, or when do you keep doubling down and betting on yourself?
And when part of dreams are based in delusion inherently, how do you navigate that?
And the idea that you could create and commit to this version of fantasy was really fascinating to me.
Julia Garner in ‘Inventing Anna’.Aaron Epstein/Netflix
Because you’re never going to capture every little nuance.
And we are so much more than just kind of a two-dimensional number of things that happen to us.
Adrienne, this is not the first time you have played a real character.
Hamish Linklater and Emmy Rossum in ‘Angelyne’.Isabella Vosmikova/Peacock
WARREN:They’re very different people, but I approached them the same.
And for me, it was about the truth of honoring their stories and who they are.
I think that is part of my purpose, as an actress here on this planet right now.
Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp and Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky in ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’.Tina Thorpe/FX
And that is in all of my work after that.
And it’s never actually been about them.
It’s never actually been their story or their choice.
Jessica Biel in ‘Candy’.Tina Rowden/Hulu
They cry too."
And that pain is just as resonant for all of us.
So there’s like a silliness to them and kind of this dark secret conspiratorial aspect to them.
Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter in ‘The Girl From Plainville.'.Steve Dietl/Hulu
You’re like, I’m going to decide this is what she was thinking.
I might not know, but you have to decide it.
It just felt like this was, for me specifically, the most work I ever put into something.
GARNER:Yeah, I’m just getting activated by that question.
Because they are alive too.
And it’s kind of one of those things that they’re are such interesting characters.
Like in a way, I mean, I was kind of stressed out.
FANNING:Were you thinking more about the real person?
GARNER:Yeah, the real person.
Like, I hope that they’re going to like how I portrayed them, in a way.
SEYFRIED:At one point I was just like, “F— her.”
We have to collaborate over here; like, she’s over [there].
It’s so much trickier than I thought was going to be.
I’m also creating my version of who she was.
My character, we’re existing in that world, in that moment of her life back in 1980.
Social media was nonexistent.
So I had a different experience with that.
What are they going to think?"
FELDSTEIN:I had such a unique experience becauseMonica [Lewinsky]was a producer on the show.
So she loves it.
I can’t respond."
Because I think this might be bizarre for me.
And then I was like, “I mean, that’s why you’re incredible.
And you’re in control in every situation you’re in.”
And that, I think there’s a freedom in that.
And everything everybody said, I hear and yes, I had my version of that.
And so I had this real awareness every day.
We wanted to show that without judging how close they came to the mark that they set for themselves.
So I think that’s the main thing in a way.
And it’s going back to what you’re saying with the humiliation, you know.
Elle,theGleescene, where Michelle is in the mirror were you already a fan of the show?
Did you go back and watch that a lot to get down that Rachel Berry delivery in that moment?
FANNING:Yeah well, I mean, I’d seenGlee, but I wasn’t a Gleek.
And she was very much a loner in high school and in her life.
And I think she sought out those books andGleein particular to be the star of her own show.
So it was very technical.
Beanie, if Monica hadn’t been involved inImpeachment, would you have been involved?
You know, Monica was like a meal for society to feast upon.
She was just meat.
She wasn’t a person.
So I could only have ever been a part.
I know she liked to sing.
And she grew up down the road for me, and we’re both Jewish.
I was like, I think I could play Monica Lewinsky, but I didn’t understand why.
And she was really ripped apart by our media and our society, like as a game.
And so it was an honor to show the human behind that.
It’s just a good two-dimensional portrait versus the bad one that was given to us for so long.
Has to be the real thing."
WARREN:I was terrified to play this role for many reasons.
I don’t know if I would’ve done it if the family wasn’t somewhat involved.
And I think I would’ve just asked maybe, “What makes you happy?”
Because I can’t even tell you besides her son.
I don’t know what makes her happy, what makes her tick.
Because so much of it was about the story.
Her story is wrapped up in what was done to her and her family.
And I just, I want to know about her, more about her.
I have to get to work.
I have to get to work, to find justice for my boy."
That was literally it for every scene.
And so in a way, I’m like a little jealous because I don’t know.
I don’t know enough about her.
Just that 33-year-old woman.
I don’t know enough about Mamie still.
BIEL:It’s a fabulous question, but it’s a really hard one to answer.
Did she threaten you first?"
I just don’t know if I would have the guts to ask that blatant question.
I don’t know.
She lost her female crew.
She lost her bud.
She lost her bestie.
And I deeply feel that if that person hadn’t left, that what happened would not have happened.
And why she drew them on like that ‘cause it was makeup and I have my theories.
I thought it was like kind of armor in a way because she looked like so many different people.
But I think she was such a kind of fairy nymph at that time in court.
She really had this delicate face.
But that’s my theory.
I guess I would ask that.
But I liked that feeling I never got to do that before.
HATHAWAY:My question would just be pretty practical.
And she helped me organize Rebecca’s life into three distinct sections.
And Amy will find out as much information as is available.
So I would just love to know what she was up to for this period of her life.
No one really seems to know, there’s a mystery around it.
Amanda, did you meet Elizabeth Holmes?
SEYFRIED:No, no.
I wasn’t given the opportunity to meet her because she was in litigation.
And she did say she would love to have coffee with me after the trial.
SEYFRIED:And I was like, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
She said, “It’s very, very weighty.
And it’s with you all the time.
I’m never doing it again.”
I know everyone’s experience is different, but are there any aspects of that you would relate to?
Would any of you show of hands not care to play a real person ever again?
[No one raises their hand.]
You’d all do it, it seems.
WARREN:I definitely need a break.
[Laughs]
SEYFRIED:I feel like I only want to play real people.
Now at this point, I’m like, “I’ll take anybody.
Just say a name and I’ll go study that person.”
Because I think it was so fun.
They don’t have their story in their life.
They’re not from the same part of the country.
And it’s not the same.
And so I was like, “Okay, this is a character for me.
This is not this woman.”
And I got freedom in that too.
SEYFRIED:What about if there was a season 2 for anybody, any of your characters.
Would you do it again?
[Julia and Adrienne emphatically shake their heads no; Elle slowly nods yes.]
I don’t know what there would be to tell.
ROSSUM:A Christmas episode.
Just imagine if Elizabeth and Anna [are] in jail.
In jail, that’s season 2.
HATHAWAY:Oh, my God.
What if we all played our parts, but that’s the movie?
GARNER:That’s the movie.
HATHAWAY:We’re all those characters together in one.
SEYFRIED:Definitely a fever dream.
HATHAWAY:There’s dancing.
GARNER:They’re all in the same prison.
BIEL:Oh my gosh.
WARREN:And Mamie’s the lawyer, Mamie’s definitely a lawyer.
SEYFRIED:And Monica is too.
FELDSTEIN:Yeah, Monica [could be] a lawyer.
There’s a multiverse in which that could definitely exist.
