Sunday, February 22, 2009

Rooting for the home team at the Oscars

Okay, the Oscars are tonight. Two actors with Rhode Island ties and theatre credentials - Viola Davis and Richard Jenkins - have a chance to take home little golden statuettes. So good luck to them both!

Coincidentally, the two films for which they received nominations - Davis for Best Supporting Actress in Doubt and Jenkins for Best Actor in The Visitor - are two of the relatively puny number of Oscar-nominated films I managed to see. And both performances were terrific.

Davis grew up in Central Falls, studied at Rhode Island College and appeared in several productions at Trinity Repertory Company. She left Rhode Island for the bright lights of New York City, where she studied at Juilliard and won a Tony Award in 2001 for her role in the August Wilson play King Hedley II.

Jenkins became a member of Trinity Rep's acting company in 1970, appearing in more than 40 productions and serving as artistic director for four seasons. He's worked steadily in movies and television in recent years, most notably as family patriarch Nathaniel Fisher in the HBO series Six Feet Under.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

I loved The Visitor!

Esther said...

Oh yeah, I agree. What a great little film. The Station Agent, by the same director, is also good.