Andrea Riseborough Interview: Working with Nic Cage & Christian Bale, Making To Leslie & More

Andrea Riseborough is one of the most exciting creators out there right now. If you can’t get behind that statement, odds are, you haven’t seen enough of her one-of-a-kind filmography. From Birdman to Battle of the Sexes, Black Mirror, Mandy, Possessor, and then some, Riseborough is consistently taking on bold projects, completely vanishing into her roles, and showing a willingness to take her work to the nth degree to bring the trustiest version of her characters’ experiences to the screen. All of that is on display yet again in one of her latest releases, To Leslie. Inspired by screenwriter Ryan Binaco’s own mother, To Leslie stars Riseborough as the title character, a woman living in West Texas who hits big playing the lottery. While the initial hope is to put that money towards making a better life for her son, Leslie succumbs to her struggle with alcoholism and winds up homeless. Having hurt the people she’s closest to repeatedly, Leslie’s left with no one to turn to until she meets Marc Maron’s character, Sweeney, a local motel clerk who’s willing to give Leslie another chance. Riseborough’s work in To Leslie is, by far, one of the best performances of 2022. Given how I feel about that film and her entire body of work, she’s been a Collider Ladies Night dream guest. Now, in celebration of her Independent Spirit Award nomination for To Leslie, that dream becomes a reality. Fifty minutes isn’t enough to get through Riseborough’s entire resume, but we did cover a good deal ranging from her earliest inspirations to her collaborations with Christian Bale and Nicolas Cage, all paving the way to one of her best performances to date, her work in To Leslie. 00:00 Dicey Questions 07:53 Earliest Inspiration 12:39 Studying at RADA 15:20 Questions About Acting Worth Asking 18:32 Recognizing How Far She Could Push Herself 24:05 Happy-Go-Lucky, Peter O’Toole 26:56 Fear of Being “A Bit Crap“ 31:22 Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage, Allison Janney 37:14 To Leslie 45:00 Awards Season #awards #andreariseborough #christianbale BREAKING NEWS, REVIEWS & MORE: SUBSCRIBE: FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL