FRANCES MCDORMAND

She is a woman of few words, and clearly not an actor who feels the need for ego gratification through public attention. But when she speaks, people listen. With two words —”inclusion rider”—during her 2018 Oscar acceptance speech for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Mcdormand sent Hollywood scrambling to their phones to google what it meant. They soon learned she was referring to the guarantee of a level of diversity in casting and production staff. Thus, her words paved the way for the town to lean in on making much-needed change, and the notion of the inclusion rider caught on quickly.

Mcdormand then became a producer of Nomadland, signing on to star, which helped to empower writer/director Chloe Zhao, who became only the second woman ever to win Best Director. The film, which shone a light on a disenfranchised group, also won Best Picture and brought Mcdormand her third Oscar. Mcdormand will next star with Denzel Washington in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, and will produce and star in Women Talking, directed and scripted by Sarah Polley. Based on the 2018 novel by Miriam Toews, and inspired by a recent events, it tells the story of a group of women in a Bolivian Mennonite colony dealing with systemic sexual abuse. —Mike Fleming Jr. ★