Jenkins is the toast of the New York’s music scene, spending a fortune on the best musicians, composers and conductors in the city.
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If the too-strange-to-be-made-up film telling of Florence Foster Jenkins’ life isn’t quite as good as its pedigree, it’s certainly not the fault of Meryl Streep.
But somehow – and nearly miraculously – the picture, which opens Friday, truly comes alive when the leads are joined by costar Simon Helberg.
As a kid, actor Simon Helberg (TV’s The Big Bang Theory) didn’t need anyone to tell him he wasn’t going to make it to the National Basketball Association. “And I’ve wanted to work with him forever”, she remembers.
“Peering into other people’s relationships, it’s nearly always not what you think it is from the outside”, Streep said at a NY press conference promoting the movie Tuesday.
Well, another wise woman, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, once had embroidered on a pillow, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here to me”, and we know what side we’re on. “I was thinking, ‘I’m in awe!’ And that is exactly where he was”. Helberg provides the comic relief and is wonderful.
That it uses a wealthy heiress to make such a populist statement is somehow fitting in this election year when a real estate billionaire who has never held public office is running for president of the United States.
“He was excited and thrilled to be in this place, but also [thinking], ‘Oh my gosh, this woman can’t sing!”.
“I’m a awful actor”, Grant said with his usual self-deprecating charm.
When director Stephen Frears approached Streep about starring in Florence Foster Jenkins, she knew it would be a “yes” before even reading the script. And then there’s Helberg’s Cosmé.
“It was a sadistic thing Stephen Frears did”, Helberg said, with a laugh, of the live performances. Even more astounding was the fact that Chopin didn’t know at the time that Helberg is a very talented pianist. I didn’t think one way or another, actually. He seemed to have been a very naive man. “I want to do something new, so I’m looking around”. I was shaking. and I thought, I don’t like this feeling.
“But he also has a great strength, because he confronts these people honestly”. The critics were kept away by Jenkins’ loyal companion, British-born actor St. Clair Bayfield. Sometimes, it’s nearly right but slips away, like an aerialist just missing the trapeze bar and falling, spectacularly, to a net far below. “Most of them already are washed up by 10!”
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If I ever have to play a person who is overcome with fear and terror I go back to that moment because I hadn’t had any trouble singing in the Christmas concert, but standing in the living room in front of my whole family – all my annoying brothers and my cousins and everybody looking at me – I just went insane.
