Golden Globes In Depth - Actress In A Drama

29 December 2007

- Cate Blanchett – Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Julie Christie – Away From Her - Jodie Foster – The Brave One - Angelina Jolie – A Might Heart - Keira Knightley – Atonement

Cate Blanchett

Aussie actress has a great 2007 with her early movies Babel and Notes on a Scandal won critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the latter.This autumn saw her reprise her Academy Award nominated role as Elizabeth II in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Elizabeth I’s rule is being challenged by King Philip II of Spain who wants to restore Catholicism to England.She is prepared to defend her empire and go to war. But she is struggling to balance her royal duties with her unexpected feelings for Sir Walter Raleigh.

Sadly the film didn’t do well at the American box office but faired much better in the UK.

Blanchett will next star in Todd Hayes’ I’m Not There, Bob Dylan biopic a role she is more likely to have success with come the award season.

Julie Christie

Julie Christie, the British movie legend, is the first of our two British actresses to be nominated in this category.

Christie achieved success in the mid sixties but during the twenty first century she has worked steadily starring in Troy, Finding Neverland and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

In Away From Her Christie stars as Fiona who, along with her husband, must face the fact that her forgetfulness is Alzheimers.

She is moved into a nursing home and for the first time is almost five decades the couple under-go a separation.

But her husband is devastated to discover that during the ‘no visitor’ for the first thirty day policy Fiona has forgotten him and turned her attentions to another man.

Christie received rave reviews for her performance and has won Best Actress and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, Washington D.C Area Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review.

Jodie Foster

2007 saw double Oscar winner Jodie Foster returns to the big screen in The Brave One, her first film since 2006’s Inside Man.

In The Brave One Erica Bain’s world comes crashing down after her and her fiancé David are attacked, David id killed and Erica left for dead.

In her struggle to cope with the loss of David she becomes somebody else starting a string of vigilante killings.

The movie didn’t go down well with the critics with Brian Webster of the Apollo Guide calling it an ‘aimless revenge porn.’

She is a rank outsider for the globe with her nomination coming as a bit of a surprise. Foster will next star in Nim’s Island, which is currently in post-production.

Angelina Jolie

It seems that in 2007 Angelina Jolie couldn’t put the rubbish out without some sort of media circus: I suppose when you are one half of the world’s most famous couple what can you expect.

As of lately Jolie has been seem somewhat as box office poison with The Good Shepherd, Mr and Mrs Smith, Alexander and Sky Captain and the World of tomorrow all failing to set theatres alight.

But her performance as Marianne Pearl in Michael Winterbotom’s A Mighty Heart has achieved critical acclaim.

The film is based on Marianne’s account of her wall Street Journal reporter husband Daniel’s kidnap and murder in the Middle East.

We will next see her star alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in Wanted.