Sarah Polley on the roller-coaster ride of Oscar season: ‘As of next week, I’m going to be in sweatpants’

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In spring 2022, when Sarah Polley’s film Women Talking was coming together in the editing room, her producer Dede Gardner, an awards season veteran, told her, “You’re going to go on an amazing ride now.”

The roller coaster started uphill at the film’s world premiere in Telluride on Sept. 2, and through twists and dips, it’s still racing – from Polley’s appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to countless industry meet-and-greets, from the BAFTAs to the SAGs to the Golden Globes, from the Gotham Awards in New York to festivals in Palm Springs and Santa Barbara. And it won’t end until 11 p.m. ET on Sunday, when the final Oscar is handed out. (Women Talking is up for best picture and best adapted screenplay.)

It isn’t the first time Polley, 44, has taken this ride. In 2008, her film Away from Her also was up for two Oscars. (It won neither.) “But there weren’t nearly this many events back then,” Polley said in a phone interview on Tuesday – two days after winning at the Writers Guild of America awards, and three days after her cast won an Independent Spirit prize.

For nearly seven months, awards events have been “pretty much my full-time job,” Polley continues. “It’s surreal and strange. Especially since the people I’ve been spending time with” – her nominee posse includes Michelle Yeoh, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ruben Ostlund, Martin McDonagh, Kazuo Ishiguro and Tony Kushner – “also feel that way. Everyone is walking around in a dreamlike state.”

She fangirled over Bette Midler, did a panel with her hero Roxane Gay, discovered a selfie of one of the Daniels (Scheinert, co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once) that he’d accidentally taken on her phone, and was first delighted and then slightly horrified when the other Daniel (Kwan) told her that her experimental documentary Stories We Tell was a big influence on him … in film school. She was thrilled by Till star Danielle Deadwyler’s electrifying speeches, and dropped her Independent Spirit award, a crystal block, on someone’s foot. “They got a big bruise,” she says ruefully.

The main thing Polley’s learned? “Just enjoy the experience. The people with the lowest expectations are definitely having the best time.” Here are some of her take-aways from the amusement park.

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Flats are more fun. “I made a strong commitment to never being cold and never having sore feet. Which means no high heels are involved, and my arms are always covered. I’ve been meditating and exercising, but I do that every day anyway. As of next week I’m going to be in sweatpants – you won’t see me out of an elastic waistband for many years. But none of this is anything like the stamina it takes to make a film, or to raise three little kids.”

Tom Cruise has strong hands. “The Oscar nominees’ lunch – it’s a childlike thrill to stand in that group of amazing filmmakers. For the group photo, they call the nominees up one by one, for like an hour and a half. Tom Cruise was smiling, yelling and clapping so hard for each person. There was a moment I realized, ‘Everyone is looking at Tom Cruise clapping hard, so he has to keep doing it.’ He literally can’t stop or everyone will think, ‘Tom Cruise didn’t clap for only me.’ All I could think about was, ‘How painful are his hands right now?’ ”

Always read the monitors. “At the Critics Choice awards, some of the categories were announced on screens during commercial breaks. I was in the middle of telling Hildur [Guonadottir, Women Talking’s composer] what I thought was a hilarious joke. I heard people yelling around me, but I would not be interrupted. Someone yelled, ‘You both won!’ When Claire Foy [a star of Women Talking] found out we won, she started screaming and screaming. Suddenly Henry Winkler appeared out of nowhere, and his presence instantly resolved her hysterical screaming fit. Then we went to the press lineup to get our pictures taken. I said, ‘Hildur, come into my picture!’ Someone yelled, ‘Okay, but she won for Tar!’ I was like, ‘What?! You won for Tar?’ Oh my god.”

Don’t campaign. “If you get into sales mode, it’s just a bunch of days that run together and you haven’t done anything worthwhile as a human being. But if you’re alive in the room, you can learn a lot. I’m interested in everything I’m seeing, everyone I’m talking to. Also, when I hear ‘so-and-so is campaigning so hard,’ I now realize, no, they’re just showing up where people who invested money in their film’s success are asking them to. They’re not in charge of this.”

It’s not all fun and games. “A lot of people have dreamt about being nominated since they were little kids. There can be a fevered look in their eyes, where you realize they’ve wanted this for so long, it might be psychologically disastrous for them to not get it. If you’re lucky enough to get close to that thing you’ve always wanted, holding onto yourself can be tricky. There has to be a constant check-in with yourself about why you want it. I’ve seen people who started out balanced come apart. There are people who become addicted to this process, who make movies just so they can do this. The big danger is when you start wishing other films ill. That’s where you really get lost.”

Crying might be justified. “I always found it amazing how many people cry when they win an Oscar. Now I realize that 80 per cent of that might be because they’ve been through an eight-month campaign, they haven’t been earning any money, they’ve been going to events for way longer than it took to make the film, the film is a distant memory, and in a minute it’s going to end and they’re going to have to drum up some work. In my 20s I was so cynical for so long, but those circuits blew out and I have this beginner’s mind now. I’m really seeing the difference awards make to movies people might not otherwise see. At a time where films and theatres are dying, awards help to keep them alive. I’m also seeing people’s lives changed, and other people who’ve been forgotten coming back into view. It’s not simple.”

It’s all material. “I go home every night and take copious notes. This experience may turn into my next project, a limited series or film. Some of the world’s best filmmakers are e-mailing me their stories, sending me texts at all hours of the night, running up to me across event floors with anecdotes. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Special to The Globe and Mail

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