Melissa Leo has said that winning an Oscar for her role in The Fighter “has not been good for me or my career”, adding that she “had a much better career before I won”. The actor, who took home the best supporting actress award in 2011, described the experience as losing her mind and accidentally swearing on live television, for which she is still sorry.
Leo, known for playing both sympathetic and villainous characters, said that after The Fighter she was only offered roles as “older, nasty women”, which she no longer wants to do. She expressed a strong desire to play “the princess” or “the glorious, kind, benevolent queen” in period pieces, noting that she can fit into costumes from the past, present and future.
A keen crafter, Leo revealed that her knitting has been eclipsed by pottery in recent years. She visits a local studio to work on a wheel and has made about a dozen knitted blankets, stored in a trunk. She hopes to return to television, where knitting is a good mobile craft during downtime.
On her work in the Equalizer films, Leo joked that those wanting to see her kiss Denzel Washington should whisper it into his ear, as kissing would have been “highly inappropriate” given their characters’ relationship. She also recalled her time on Homicide: Life on the Street, saying the mostly male cast did not invite her to bars because she was a single mother.
Leo said she found a path to playing Alice Eklund-Ward in The Fighter by identifying traits of her own grandmother in the real Alice. Despite the eventual Oscar win, she maintains she never dreamed of the award and is most interested in the process of acting, not the party afterwards.
