For the first time in exactly 40 years, Amy Madigan is back in the Oscars race.
She’s nominated for Weapons, and with her turn as Aunt Gladys, joins the pantheon of actors nominated for iconic horror performances — Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs), Kathy Bates (Misery), Ruth Gordon (Rosemary’s Baby), and Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), among them.
“It’s been a really unusual, unexpected, really fun ride,” Madigan told us this morning of her journey with Weapons. “I’m happy for the film, I’m happy that people recognized Aunt Gladys, and she would be very, very happy with all of this, trust me. She would be very happy to get the acclaim.”
Last nominated for 1985’s Twice in a Lifetime, a romantic drama where she starred alongside Gene Hackman, Ann-Margret, and Burstyn, Madigan said this awards campaign has been a whirlwind, as her first in the age of social media.
What will stick with her from her time with Weapons, she hopes, is the confidence embodied by her villain character. “This is a woman who knows what she has to do, and she does it,” Madigan said. “Now, granted, some of her methods might be a little unusual. But she has that, and I think all women in our business should have more of that confidence, myself included. So if I can take that away from it, I’ll say this is a win for Aunt Gladys and for me.”
While there has been talk about a Weapons prequel centered on Madigan’s Aunt Gladys since the film broke out as one of this year’s buzziest horror films with over $269M in worldwide box office receipts, the actress had little to share there.
“You know, I leave it with Zach, what he said. He’s got some ideas and we’ve talked a little bit about it, but he’s finishing up work [on Resident Evil] and we’ll see what happens down the road,” she told us. “If that happens, that would be really exciting, but you know, I don’t have any answers to that kind of a thing.”
Most recently signing on to star in , an Apple thriller from director James Ponsoldt, as we first reported, she said of the project, “What’s really exciting is I get to work with Jason Segel and John C. Reilly, who are really great actors. It’s a very, very unusual story about a sponsor and a sponsee in the AA program. I think it’s got a lot of surprises in it so I’m really looking forward to that.”
Madigan added that the status of The Ploughmen, a film to be directed by her husband Ed Harris where she’s on board to star, is up in the air, though the Kim Zupan novel adaptation is still active.
“We’re just always waiting for someone to pull the trigger and give us that little hump that’s going to go over the top on it,” she said. “Until something’s real, I don’t like to say too much about it. But hopefully that will be happening. Maybe this [nomination] will help it, I don’t know.”
In Weapons, from writer-director Zach Cregger, a small town is thrown into paranoia and terror when an entire classroom of children mysteriously disappears on the same night. Madigan’s Aunt Gladys may or may not be involved with the disappearances.
Starring alongside Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, and more, Madigan won a Critics Choice Award for her performance and has also scored nominations at the likes of the Golden Globes and the Actor Awards. Her competitors at the Oscars for Actress in a Supporting Role include Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas from Neon’s Sentimental Value, Wunmi Mosaku from Warner Bros.’ Sinners, and Teyana Taylor from Warner Bros.’ One Battle After Another. This year’s Oscars are set to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on March 15, airing on ABC.
