COMING THROUGH
ALMOST TWO DECADES INTO A CHAMELEONIC CAREER, TO LESLIE’S OSCAR NOMINATION HAS CATAPULTED ANDREA RISEBOROUGH TO CENTRE STAGE. WE MEET HER IN THE MIDST OF A DEFINING MOMENT
WORDS OLLY RICHARDS
Andrea Riseborough, photographed exclusively for Empire at Big Sky Studios, London, on 26 January 2023.
PHOTOGRAPHY ZOE McCONNELL
ANDREA RISEBOROUGH WAS AS SURPRISED AS YOU WERE WHEN HER NAME WAS AMONG THE NOMINEES FOR THIS YEAR’S BEST ACTRESS OSCAR. AT THE BEGINNING OF JANUARY, ALMOST NOBODY HAD EVEN HEARD OF HER FILM.
In To Leslie, she gives the best performance of her career, as a lottery winner who loses it all and becomes a homeless alcoholic. Released last year, it was ignored at the box office and not even part of the awards-season conversation, until Riseborough and the film’s director, Michael Morris, enlisted notable celebrities — Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Jane Fonda, Laura Dern and more — to spread the word for a film that made just $27,000 worldwide. The result was the biggest Oscar-nomination surprise in memory.
Riseborough’s appearance on the shortlist couldn’t have been predicted before January, but such recognition is long overdue: this is far from the first incredible performance by one of the most versatile actors working today. Since the start of her screen career in 2005, she’s disappeared into roles — from Birdman to Matilda The Musical to Mandy to Oblivion, she is never the same twice.
We met her in London, two days after the Oscar nominations were announced, to talk about the unlikely triumph of To Leslie and why Riseborough decided to stop being Britain’s most underrated actor and take the spotlight.
Congratulations on the nomination. How’s it feeling?
Wonderful. The day that it happened, [her partner] Karim said something to me that didn’t really sink in at the time: So many more people are going to see [2020’s] Luxor. So many more people are going to see [2022’s] Please Baby Please. [2018’s] Nancy. [2021’s] Here Before. It made me so happy. The day of finding out was so odd, because it was such a surprise. The second day was like finding it out all over again. Then the third day was realising how much this will mean for a lot of people and for a lot of films that were shot in about 19 days.