There and Back Again (47 page)

The first of the major contests to announce its nominees was the Golden Globe Awards, generally regarded as a reasonably accurate barometer of the Oscar climate, if not exactly a predictor of the Academy Awards themselves. I was in the middle of a live interview on ABC's
Good Morning America
when the announcement was made.

“Wait a minute,” said the woman who was interviewing me. “We have breaking news. The Golden Globe nominations just came in.”

“Oh, yeah?” I tried not to betray a hint of nervousness, even though I could feel my heart suddenly racing.

Through her earpiece the news was delivered, and she repeated it back to me (and an audience of a couple of million viewers), reciting the nominations for
The Return of the King
.

“Best picture, best director, best song … and … best musical score! So, four! Four nominations.”

She smiled at me. I smiled back.

“Wow, that's great. I mean, best director—that's the one we all really wanted. We're pulling for Peter. He deserves this more than anyone.”

Meanwhile, inside, I was dying. I was surprised by how much it hurt. I could feel the blood rising in my face, the hair rising on the back of my neck. I think I recovered pretty well, though. I've analyzed the tape and thought,
Man, that was a tough moment
. I can detect a subtle change in my demeanor, a slight dip in the shoulders, a little twitch in the eyebrow, but I don't think it was noticeable to the viewers. When the segment ended, the interviewer was thrilled. She shook my hand and thanked me.

“Hey, Sean, nice job! That was great live television, huh?”

Oh, yeah, just terrific
.

But it
was
great television. It was honest and dramatic, and as a moment of masochistic self-discovery, it was meaningful. It made me wonder,
What am I really about? What do I want out of life?
The marketing folks at New Line were somewhat less philosophical and introspective.

“Those fucking assholes!” one of them said later that morning, referring to the mysterious Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which chooses the Golden Globe nominees and winners. “How dare they!”

Yeah, he was pretty pissed off. And legitimately surprised. New Line executives thought I was a shoo-in for a Golden Globe nomination, especially since they had been told that I was runner-up to Eugene Levy in the arguably far more prestigious and competitive New York Film Critics Circle Awards. I still don't know if that was true or not. I know only that the Golden Globes came and went, and the Oscar buzz began to diminish.

Next came the nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards. This was vastly more important to me because the nominees were selected by my peers in the union. Christine set the alarm for 6
A.M
. and we got up together and watched the announcements live on television. I was groggy and tired, and I kept telling Christine, “Honey, it's not going to happen,” not because I was hypersensitive or because I was trying to dilute the potential disappointment. I just had a feeling it wasn't going to happen. And it didn't. Although
The Return of the King
was nominated for best acting by an ensemble, the film received no individual acting nominations, which left me feeling somewhat conflicted: I was happy for the cast, and disappointed for myself. We deserved recognition in the ensemble category, of course, but I had clung to an unspoken hope that I'd get singled out and that perhaps a SAG nomination would start the trend toward an Academy Award nomination.

Christine gave me a hug and we walked together into the kitchen, where Ali was busily eating her cinnamon toast.

“Hey, guess what?” Christine said. “The nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards were just announced, and Daddy and the rest of the cast got nominated for the ensemble award.”

Ali looked up, fork in hand. “What does ‘ensemble' mean?”

Christine smiled. “It means you're part of a big group.”

Ali glanced at me and nodded soberly. “Oh,” she said, a trace of disdain in her voice. “It's so nice to be part of a
group.”

We were floored. Here was my seven-year-old daughter, reflecting my disappointment. So we laughed it off, and that was that. I took Ali to school and along the way reiterated my pleasure with the SAG ensemble award. That was important, I told her. It was meaningful. And this time she agreed.

*   *   *

The Academy Award nominations were announced on January 26. I did nothing special to prepare, nothing to sway the Oscar karma. More than a decade earlier, when I discovered that my first short film was being considered for a nomination, I had driven up into the Hollywood hills with a couple of colleagues and sat there in front of the Hollywood sign and swore to the movie gods. “I promise to use an Academy Award for good, not for ill!” The nomination was really meaningful to me then. It was important, and the next morning when the announcements came out and I wasn't nominated, I was really disappointed. I moved on, and two years later I got nominated for
Kangaroo Court
, and that was a great moment. But it was funny. Weeks before that nomination, I wasn't even thinking about it. Christine and I were in college, working hard. My mind was elsewhere. I found out about the nomination through a phone call from the writer of the film. And that led me to wonder, Is there a moral here? Like, if you're thinking about it and hoping for it, it won't happen, but if you're really about the business of doing something more meaningful and valuable with your life, then that kind of acknowledgment will come to you.

It's like watching a sporting event. You sometimes wonder if you can have an impact on the outcome simply by watching it or not watching it. It's about superstition, and it's fundamentally ridiculous, although I think we all fall prey to it once in a while. Maybe I did. More than just a little bit. But I wouldn't call it more than a recurring fantasy. I tried as much as possible to divest myself of the speculation and oddsmaking, although the barrage of information was hard to avoid. I received dozens of calls and messages saying, “You deserve a nomination.” Online polls were enthusiastic in their support of Sam. Critics were divided. There seemed a reasonable chance. The night before the nominations were announced brought more phone calls: from studio executives, family members, agents and managers and publicists. Joel Stevens, my manager, wanted to know where I'd be in the morning, when the nominations came in, so that he could get in touch with me immediately.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'll call you.”

I made no specific plans. The nominations were to be announced on live television at 5:30
A.M
. Pacific Standard Time. There was no need to set the alarm. I figured if I woke up comfortably and the sun was already rising in the sky, I'd have my answer: no nomination. If there was a nomination, someone would call. Either way, I wouldn't have to live through it in real time.

I woke up a few times during the night, and as dawn approached I began actively dreaming. I was in that fugue state where you're half asleep, half awake. I dreamed that I got nominated; then I dreamed that I didn't get nominated. When the cycle completed itself, I opened my eyes, lifted my head, and saw that the room was empty. The house was quiet. Outside, darkness had given way to light. I looked at the clock: it was 6:53.

And I knew.

I rolled out of bed, put on my bathrobe, and wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, where Christine was standing at the center island, looking over some paperwork, sipping a cup of coffee. Our eyes met for just a second. Christine shook her head. I nodded, smiled, and walked into another room, my office, and turned on the TV. The pain was not acute. It was more like,
Okay, well, let's see who got nominated.

You know what? They were all good. Really good and deserving actors in strong, memorable performances: Djimon Hounsou (
In America
), Tim Robbins (
Mystic River
), Benicio Del Toro (
21 Grams
), Ken Watanabe (
The Last Samurai
), and Alec Baldwin (
The Cooler
). Can I honestly say that my work was any more deserving of recognition than theirs? Can I point to one of those men and say,
Why him and not me?
Absolutely not. In fact, I could look at that list and ask, Where is Eugene Levy? Where is Paul Bettany (
Master and Commander
)? That's the thing about the Academy Awards: they are almost by definition unfair. There is no objective standard by which to measure great acting. Never has been, never will be. Most actors understand the inherent flaw of the Oscars, but give themselves over to it anyway—especially if they're lucky enough to get nominated. I won't lie: it would have been a kick to sit there in the Kodak Theater on Oscar night and hear my name read aloud, to hold my breath and try to maintain my composure as the envelope was opened. That's a dream for any actor. But now that it hadn't come true, well, I was oddly unaffected.

Time to get on with the business of life.

Others in my orbit were less sanguine. That day brought dozens of sympathetic phone calls from friends and relatives and business associates. My mother was the most persistent. She was in Los Angeles working on a movie, and she left a bunch of messages on my cell phone. Mom was all wrapped up in the Oscar race, far more than I was. I later found out that there was even a story in Mom's local newspaper detailing her efforts to bring good fortune my way. She'd purchased a statue of Sam from Weta, and in the days leading up to the unveiling of the nominations, she'd placed the statue just inches from the Oscar she'd won decades earlier for
The Miracle Worker,
in the hope that it would bring good luck. Not surprisingly, Mom was a wreck when she learned I hadn't been nominated. She hadn't slept all night and had stood in front of the television at 5:30 in the morning screaming her lungs out as the nominations were announced.

“Your mother has called eight or nine times,” Christine said. “You'd better get in touch with her.”

So I phoned her, and of course she was devastated. “I'm sorry, honey. It's so unfair. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Mom. Don't worry.”

The truth is, I didn't value the nomination to the extent that she did. In my heart of hearts, I was okay. The Academy snub, as it was sometimes called, became a big subject of discussion in my corner of the universe, primarily because the studio had invested a lot of money in its Oscar campaign, and because there were legitimate career ramifications. Ultimately, though, in terms of what's really important, I discovered that it wasn't all that valuable to me; it wasn't that big a deal. All of this I communicated to my mother, who seemed at once bewildered and relieved.

“Oh, Sean,” she responded proudly, “you're so well adjusted.”

I'm trying, Mom … I'm trying.

EPILOGUE

As I write this in the early spring of 2004, I can honestly say that my life has never been better, never more filled with hope and promise. The awards season came and went, and I found myself taking great pride in the accomplishments of everyone involved in
The Lord of the Rings
. We won the acting ensemble award at the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Awards, and I was almost surprised by how good it felt to stand there on the stage, to be part of a team and to be recognized as a team. There was legitimate honor to it. And there was dignity in the sharing of it.

Bernard Hill spoke first on our behalf, and then introduced me as “the next president of the United States.” I used my brief time at the microphone to implore my fellow SAG members to put aside the bickering and partisanship that too often divide a labor movement, and that threaten the core of SAG. It didn't come across too well on television, but I was challenging the stars in the room to be more involved. Before I could complete that sentiment, however, I was nudged out of the way by John Rhys-Davies. A few media accounts focused on that event, as if it signified a rift in the Fellowship. But it didn't. John sometimes referred to us as the “dysfunctional ensemble,” and he was right. To an extent we were a family, and I don't know of any family that isn't dysfunctional. John was just being John, and I love him. (Although not evident in the broadcast, it was amusing the way John bumped me; it was the perfect bookend to Bernard's introduction of me, and I responded well. Off camera, but well.)

But that's not what I will remember about the night. I will remember holding the award and carrying it around all night, and remarking on how heavy it was, and thinking that it represented the exact weight of the accomplishment. There was no regret or sadness about the Oscars, only satisfaction that we had been honored as a group, which was precisely the way it should have been.

If John hadn't bumped me offstage, here's what I would have added: “To the fans who were disappointed that I personally didn't get nominated for an Oscar, please understand that given the disparate talents that came together in the making of
The Lord of the Rings
, nothing could be more meaningful to me than a Screen Actors Guild Award in the ensemble category.”

Granted, it would be nice if ensemble performances were recognized at the Academy Awards, and perhaps that will happen in the future. Still, it's hard to imagine Oscar night being any more rewarding than it was on February 29, 2004, when
The Return of the King
won eleven awards, tying the all-time record. And unlike
The Return of the King
, neither of the previous record holders,
Ben Hur
(1959) and
Titanic
(1997), had the distinction of winning in every category in which it was nominated.

The parade of Kiwis began early, with predictable and entirely deserved recognition in a host of technical categories. This didn't surprise anyone. Whatever else one might have thought about the trilogy, it was hard, if not impossible, to deny that it was a triumph of technological and design achievement. Not until the award for best adapted screenplay did I start to get nervous. You could feel the room starting to get sick of everyone associated with
The Lord of the Rings
about two awards before that, and as the nominees were read, I looked over at Philippa Boyens. Philippa is such a rock; she's so emotionally strong and stable that it's easy to take her for granted. Now, though, as we reached the category in which she personally was nominated, I had this horrible sinking feeling that the night was going to shift and it would all come down on her head. Philippa's category would represent a sea change, and from that point on, with the technical awards behind us, the night would belong to one of the other nominated films, either
Mystic River
or
Lost in Translation
.