The not-so-sweet smell of success...
PAUL GIAMATTI, in London to bang the drum for his new film The Holdovers, said he had been asked not to wash during filming in order to better portray a curmudgeonly classics teacher, with an unfortunate disorder that makes him smell of fish, at a New England boarding school.
‘The hair and make-up people said, as far as you can, please don’t bathe, so that is what I did for all of you. They wanted me a little bit tacky, a little bit fish belly white, with greasy hair.’
Giamatti (right) came to the BFI on the Southbank hot-foot from winning a Golden Globe for his part in the film (reviewed by my colleague Brian Viner on Page 33) and being pictured chowing down on an In-N-Out burger afterwards, in his tux, with partner Clara Wong and his award.
The bookies have him behind favourite Cillian Murphy to win the Best Actor Oscar. The pair are also going head-to-head in the Baftas, as announced yesterday.
Of course, it’s not about the suffering . . . but Murphy arguably went to greater extremes than getting a little pongy to inhabit his character, eating as little as possible to look as cadaverous as scientist Oppenheimer was.
■ SPEAKING of the Oscars, a little bit of gloom is settling over the Barbie camp, after a relatively fruitless few nights at the awards.
Some think they may stop campaigning now as the massively successful film looks likely to be shut out of all the big awards.
They aren’t as gloomy as Bradley Cooper, though; whose efforts on behalf of the film he produced, directed and stars in — Maestro, about Leonard Bernstein — are also being ignored.