Leo lands a Superior role
OSCAR winner Melissa
Leo’s new movie is “Novitiate.” So nobody jinxes, nobody will say Academy Award in advance. I’m saying it anyway — she’ll get nominated for playing a Mother Superior. Like, oy, a really mother of a Mother Superior.
Melissa: “I grew up on the Lower East Side. Alternate lifestyle hippie parents. Not Catholic. I went to a Montessori school.
“Oddly, my Joan of Arc fascination was to play a woman of the cloth, dressed that way, a woman choosing to be wedded to God. The film’s set in early ’60s, a time of great unexpected change. Convent life’s not that today. This drama enters a space no- body sees anymore.
“An actor’s job is to use the tools at hand. Costuming being part of it, I actually invented my character’s wimple myself.
“During the shoot, I stayed in a convent. I spoke to nuns and learned to move with the crucifix tied to my belt, with hidden pockets to hold whatever, all the secret ways. One described how they attached the wimple then. The ancient condition for a woman cloistered was to put pins in their head. The top of their head had divots. Nobody knows that.
“Years ago, when I won my Oscar, they handed me a white cloth shawl for warmth. Stretchy, very high-quality light jersey. I brought that draping fabric to this set, found the right pin, pinned that same Oscar scarf backward and frontward so my hair wouldn’t poke out, and it’s the wimple my character wore in this film.
“I was handed this role only two weeks in advance. Having dreamt of such an opportunity, I was a bit baffled and confused. Expecting to play a godly, deeply humbled, wise gentlewoman, I did not mean for my character to be mean. But I followed the script’s route. You have to take the map presented to you.”
Reverend Mother Melissa, may the peace — and award — be with you.