Michelle Williams covers the January issue of Elle Magazine, just proving to me that she’s really going to do a big Oscar campaign this season. Michelle has a supporting role in Manchester by the Sea, and many believe she’s one of the leading contenders for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, alongside Naomie Harris (for Moonlight) and Viola Davis (for Fences). I keep hoping that Viola’s Oscar won’t be snatched away by another actress, and I’m really hoping that Michelle isn’t that actress. People say she’s great in Manchester, and the film is already “the film to beat” for many of the big awards, despite Casey Affleck’s problematic history. Back to Michelle… she really wants the nomination, if not the award. She’s cool with doing a ton of magazine interviews to promote the film and her potential nominations. Which is fine with me too – I like to see her playing the game. Here are some highlights from her Elle interview:

How the tabloid onslaught made it impossible to experience an authentic life: “If you feel like people are watching you, it’s impossible to have an authentic experience of being alive. There’s a performative aspect and a guardedness, and that’s just death. I don’t know how to live like that, and I don’t know how to give a life to my child like that.”

On how she’s naturally open but learned to set boundaries for herself: “It’s not naturally my inclination to be a boundary draw-er. I’m like, ‘Open up all the doors and the windows and let everybody in.’ That’s the aim of my work, too.” But this isn’t acting. “It’s been a really, really long time since I’ve been in an interview. But I have better boundaries now. I feel less susceptible to emotional wreck-diving to come up with explanations for everything.”

On the inspiration that drove her performance in Manchester by the Sea: “Everybody talks about the silences in movies and how interesting they are but it’s a lot easier than connecting beat to beat, line to line, inside of a scene in real time in front of a thousand people. But when I went to make [Manchester by the Sea], I felt a little bit more freedom, more access inside of myself.”

[From Elle]

I was trying to remember when she last did a ton of press… she’s obviously given interviews for various stage and film projects over the past few years, but it has been a good three years or so since she’s done a big campaign and promotional tour. As for the rest of it… I always get the feeling that Michelle would be an annoying friend, you know? She’s the friend who you couldn’t tease (she would cry) or watch trash TV with (she probably doesn’t own a TV) or go out for a drink for a birthday celebration (she has to stay in and read poetry). It’s interesting that she talks about the “performative aspect” of living a public life, because I always get the feeling that she’s doing exactly that in interviews, that what she’s presenting to us is her performance of The Widow Ledger, you know?

Photos courtesy of Terry Tsiolis for Elle Magazine.