On Tuesday morning, just before the 2010 Academy Award nominations were announced, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher couldn’t get his TV to work. He scrambled to his computer and searched for the online broadcast of the nominations, his ears perking up for his name to be called.
He found a feed and waited. “After the first couple of names were mentioned, I somehow didn’t think mine would be,” Fletcher said.
Seconds later, Fletcher’s name flashed across the screen. He was stunned. He was nominated for best adapted screenplay for “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” the story of a semi-literate teen girl from Harlem in 1987 that has captivated audiences since the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Precious is physically and sexually abused from infancy by her mother and stepfather. After Precious becomes pregnant again, she’s forced to leave school, her mother demanding she go on welfare.
But Precious resists. She wants a better life, one filled with education and love. With the help of a devoted teacher at an alternative school and a caring social worker, she weaves a new life from the tatters of her previous one.
The film has been nominated for best picture. Gabourey Sidibe is a best-actress nominee, Mo’Nique, best supporting actress, and Lee Daniels, best director.
Fletcher finds much common ground with “Precious.” His struggle to enter the entertainment industry resembles her humble beginnings. And through dedication, they both found their true calling. “Precious” was the first screenplay Fletcher had adapted, a job he given to him by Daniels after viewing his mid-’90s 23-minute short film “Magic Markers.”
“I really didn’t believe him,” Fletcher said. “I had heard ‘no’ so many times over the years that I thought even if he meant it, he said it too quickly.”
Fletcher said he fell in love with “Precious” from page one.
“It was such a complete and fulfilling experience. I was just cast under its spell.”
Fletcher was drawn to “Precious” because the story touches on some many common threads that connect all people. The marketing slogan used to promote the film, “We Are All Precious,” was an apropos way for the audience to identify with a girl whose life, from the outside, seems unremarkable. It’s the commonalities, the dreams, the ambition and the hardships that kept the audience — and Fletcher — clinging to “Precious.”
“I love stories that have such specific characters and specific places, yet are about things that are so universal,” he said.
Fletcher loves Precious — the character and the film — because he understands being invisible, an overarching theme in the story. Before “Precious,” his career was largely off the radar in the entertainment world. “I was searching for my voice and my place in the film industry,” he said. “In large part, she reminds me of myself.”
Stars Among Those Who Lost Their Homes In L.A. Area Fires; Jamie Lee Curtis Pledges $1M To Relief Effort
Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, and R&B star Jhené Aiko, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week's Oscar nominations have been delayed. And tens of thousands of Angelenos are displaced and awaiting word Thursday on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city's most famous denizens. Thousands of structures have been destroyed but damage assessments are just beginning. More than 180,000 people are also under evacuation orders in the metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena, a number that continues to shift as new fires erupt. Late Wednesday, a fire in the Hollywood Hills was scorching the hills near the famed Hollywood Bowl and Dolby Theatre, which is the home of the Academy Awards. That fire had been largely contained without damage to Hollywood landmarks. Here are how the fires are impacting celebrities and the Los Angeles entertainment industry: Stars whose homes have burned in the fires Celebrities like Crystal and his wife, Janice, were sharing memories of the homes they lost. The Crystals lost the home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that they lived in for 45 years. "Janice and I lived in our home since 1979. We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can't be taken away. We are heartbroken of course but with the love of our children and friends we will get through this," the Crystals wrote in the statement. After her learning her Pacific Palisades home was lost in the fires, Melissa Rivers says she was... Read More