Janet McTeer on the Oscars

Janet McTeer: 'In the second minute I go bonkers'

Janet McTeer has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in Albert Nobbs. 

"The expat British star of The Woman in Black talks about gothic horror, awards season madness and cross-dressing with Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs

When Janet McTeer gets homesick in New York, she does as many expats do: she reaches for the Downton. "It's fantastic," she says, over boiled eggs and soldiers on the Upper West Side. "I am completely addicted. Did you see that scene when Maggie Smith almost falls out of the chair? I pressed rewind on that so many times. It made me laugh until I peed myself. And that hadn't happened in a very long time."

Like Downton Abbey, McTeer is proving a durable UK export. She is currently scaring up a storm in The Woman in Black, a moody gothic adaptation of the novel by Susan Hill, which serves as a vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe's emergence into a post-Potter world. McTeer plays a grieving mother whom viewers quickly twig is completely deranged. Her approach is game, rompy. She sinks her Rada-honed fangs into the scenery with abandon, but her character is never cartoonish, always sympathetic. "I tried to be extremely real and normal for the first minute," she says, "and then in the second minute I go bonkers."
The Woman in Black is the high-profile, high-grossing, high-camp title in what's shaping up to be a year of McTeer. The high acclaim is Albert Nobbs, for which both she and Glenn Close have earned Oscar nominations for their roles as women who live as men in 19th-century Dublin – in McTeer's case, complete with wife. Though McTeer's gruff-voiced house painter won't fool audiences for long (after about half an hour, a show-stopping flash confirms things), it's a great fit. Aged 50, classically trained McTeer is as limber at this kind of leap as she is at ease with The Woman in Black's nouveau Hammer horror.
"There are some roles that are a no-brainer. You just have a sure, instinctive 'Yes!' I could have looked at Albert Nobbs and been all logical about it. But there just wasn't a choice. You look at it and go: 'Of course!'" Her gut proved right. She's fresh back from yet another awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Well, fresh-ish. "It was a crap flight. I'm too tall. You can't lie down." (She's 6ft 1in.) Generally, though, she's having a blast. "You either dread it [the awards season] or decide it is going to be fun."

Janet McTeer with Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman in Black. McTeer is notably unpretentious uncompany. Born in Newcastle, raised in York, she took a job aged 16 serving coffee in the York theatre. She could meet boys and see shows for free. "I remember thinking: 'Wow. This is where I belong.'" But her relaxed attitude to celebrity also stems from the fact that this is her second bite of the cherry. In 1999, McTeer won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination as a strung-out single mother in the Sundance hit Tumbleweeds, a part she landed off the back of the Tony she picked up for a Broadway transfer of The Doll's House.
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Read the full article... the guardian

Janet McTeer is modest about her Oscar nod for “Albert Nobbs”

Hubert Page - Janet McTeer

“Janet McTeer. Up for Best Supporting in “Albert Nobbs.” From England’s Newcastle upon Tyne, reared in York, educated at Queen Anne School, trained at the Royal Academy, honored with an OBE, Tony nod for B’way’s 2009 drama “Mary Stuart.”

“I learned of my nomination sitting in the ‘Today’ show green room. I was surprised because, without a doubt, I haven’t a chance. I haven’t seen every nominated film because I’m traveling so much and cannot see all that stuff on a tiny screen on a plane. But I’ve seen ‘The Help,’ and it can only be Octavia.

“My husband’s an American not in our profession. We live in New York. I actually tend to live wherever I land and now, for another five weeks, I’m filming TV’s ‘Damages.’ I do mostly British projects, and for family reasons and life reasons Britain’s my home, where I have a lovely garden. Two actress friends watch the house and put milk in the fridge.

“Anyway, only a small pond between New York and London. I love many things here. It’s un-judgmental. It’s a creative hub. New Yorkers are either the nicest or the rudest. And if the apartment’s small and I feel claustrophobic, we escape to the country weekends, where I hope to spend a few hours watching the nominated movies.
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Read more: New York Post

AARP Magazine's 11th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards Gala - Ceremony

Actress Janet McTeer speaks onstage at AARP Magazine's 11th Annual Movies for Grownups Awards Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on February 6, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California.aption

Janet McTeer at the 31st Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon

Janet McTeer poses at the 31st Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. The 84th Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 26

Janet McTeer among the Oscar® Nominees to be Honored At Awards Luncheon

"HollywoodNews.com: Eighteen of the 20 nominees in the acting categories will be among more than 150 Oscar nominees who will gather at noon on Monday, February 6, at the Beverly Hilton when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honors this year’s Oscar contenders at its annual Nominees Luncheon. Additional confirmations are expected to come in over the weekend.

From the Best Actress and Actor categories all the nominees – Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Rooney Mara, Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, Demián Bichir, George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Gary Oldman and Brad Pitt – are expected to attend. Kenneth Branagh, Jonah Hill, Nick Nolte, Max von Sydow, Bérénice Bejo, Melissa McCarthy, Janet McTeer and Octavia Spencer will represent the Supporting Actor and Actress categories.

Three of the five nominees in the Directing category – Michel Hazanavicius, Alexander Payne and Martin Scorsese – also are expected to attend...."

Read the full article...   Oscar® Nominees to be Honored At Awards Luncheon