Perhaps the biggest surprise in this year’s Oscar nominations – aside from the many naysayers – was the inclusion of Andrea Riseborough in the Best Actress category for her performance. To Leslie.
The surprise does not come from the quality of the game – Riseborough is a great player – but rather from the selection.
To Leslie, in which Riseborough plays a single mother who wins the lottery, is a low-budget independent film that made $27 thousand at the box office. Distributor Momentum Pictures doesn’t have the kind of money to build an awards season campaign, and Riseborough hasn’t been short of Oscar bellwethers like nominees for the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
So how did Andrea Riseborough get an Oscar nomination? To Leslie?
The appointment of Riseborough is the result of a word of mouth campaign with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton, and many others.
According to the period written by Rain(Opens in a new window), the campaign unofficially began on January 10, two days before Oscar voting began. Paltrow has made appearances and written about To Leslie(Opens in a new window) to his 8.2 million followers. Norton also wrote about Riseborough’s reaction.
The tweet may have been deleted
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The number of famous people(Opens in a new window) showing Riseborough’s performance increased in the following days, with supporting actors including Susan Sarandon, Helen Hunt, Melanie Lynskey, and Alan Cumming. Tweets about the film often include the words “a small film with a big heart,”(Opens in a new window) his promotion good part(Opens in a new window) through memes(Opens in a new window) and conjectures of related words.
Oscar voting closed on January 17, just seven days after the Riseborough show team got off to a flying start. However, the campaign was successful: Riseborough won To Leslie (the film’s only nomination) after the shortest and most underrated Oscar campaign in history.
To Leslie available to rent or buy on Youtube,(Opens in a new window) Apple TV(Opens in a new window)Prime Video(Opens in a new window)etc.
