Melissa Leo Says Winning An Oscar “Has Not Been Good For Me Or My Career”

Academy Award-winning actress Melissa Leo is reflecting on the accolade she received for her supporting role in the 2010 David O. Russell boxing biopic The Fighter, saying it was detrimental to her professional and personal life.

In a Q&A published in The Guardian, the Frozen River star answered fan-submitted questions, including one about her 2011 Oscar triumph.

“One loses one’s mind,” she said. “I had won a lot of prestigious awards for The Fighter that season, and sat in that great gigantic theatre thinking: ‘Well, it certainly is possible.’ Kirk Douglas came out to present the best supporting actress award, opened the envelope and called my name. I was so delighted to meet him — that was all I was thinking about.”

She continued, describing the scene: “I turned to the house, which in most theaters, you can see by looking a little above your own eyesight. In the Dolby Theatre, you have to raise your chin like you’re about to scale Mount Everest. Every single actor, director and producer you recognize, is staring you in the face. I then cursed, and I’m still sorry I cursed. I fucking curse all the time, but you cannot curse on network television. Thank God for the 10-second delay, which was introduced for fucking idiots like me. Having said that, winning an Oscar has not been good for me or my career. I didn’t dream of it, I never wanted it, and I had a much better career before I won.”

The Fighter centers on the life of pro boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), who is managed by his mother Alice (Leo) and trained by his older half-brother/former boxer Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale).

Of the role, Leo said, “I accepted because David really, really wanted me to be his Alice. Then I met the real Alice Ward, who came from a very different socioeconomic background than my mother’s mother, but there was something of my mother’s mother in her, so that’s where I found a path towards becoming her. I was no more than 10 years older than the majority of the nine people who played Alice’s children, but that’s movies for you.”

Leo — who is also known for her roles in Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, The Equalizer franchise, Oliver Stone’s Snowden and the HBO series I Know This Much Is True — added in her responses that she’s “happy to play what I’m offered — apart from after The Fighter, when all I was offered was older, nasty women. I don’t want to do that any more.”