Actress Files: The Morning After

Who else woke up early and bleary-eyed? Hopefully not for the sole reason that the Garland piece was so long that it kept you up all night. Compared to several of the other pieces, and certainly to the performance, I admit to being disappointed in what I turned out in the time I had. Maybe, à la the film, I'll have to mercilessly chop big portions of unnecessary text and just replace them with still photos! When, one day in the future, it's possible to pick this project back up and revisit some of the performances I'd already seen a while ago, I'll wrestle with the problem of why it's so much harder to comment on the very best ones without just sinking into descriptive reverie. But Star Is Born fans everywhere can hopefully relate to that temptation. Now that I've fixed the initial snafu that was prohibiting comments on the Garland post, you can tell me so. Or, if you're finding that one of the pieces has especially lingered with you, I'd love to know which one.

Two more things: in the even more distant future, I'll probably develop some combo of the year profiles and these longer individual performance reviews as a proposal for a complete, printed book. Concrete evidence that an audience exists for that book would be a huge asset, so if you can imagine buying such a thing, and you're just dying to know what I've got to say about everything from Meryl Streep's Sophie to Ali MacGraw's "never having to say you're sorry," please leave a comment on this post or else e-mail me here. Meanwhile, Blogger has made their archiving protocols even less user-friendly than they formerly were, so this page is the easiest place to have a look back through where we've been since April, if you ever get the hankering.

I have wanted to see all of these performances since falling head over heels for the first two that ever crossed my path—Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, both when I was in the fourth grade. So, I'm really excited to have capped off that recreational goal, and I definitely feel ready to move on to some other projects. You know how Faye looks in this famous, wonderful photo from the morning after she won her Oscar—like she finally got what she wanted, but a day later, she's already immersed in a strange combination of satisfaction, skepticism, and fatigue? I'm kind of in the same place. Derek and I decided to commemorate the moment—he is represented by the camera flash in the screen of my no-it's-not-a-flatscreen TV—and we hereby officially invite Faye to come have tea with us.

For now, thanks to everyone who has read so loyally and commented so generously on these Actress posts! Blogging definitely won't be daily for the rest of the summer, and posts will take some different turns when they do crop up. For one, I'm eager to talk up whole films and not just performances for a while—hopefully, some good ones will pop up that are worth the effort, but I won't be surprised, or sad, if I wind up diving into the vault to find some inspiration. Happy actressing, everyone!