Nate Lessler

My name is Nate, I’m from Seattle and I’m a senior FMS major. In class on monday, we discussed the numerous texts/ways through which we interpret stars (as also discussed in the reading). But personally, I think my perception of stars is greatly based specifically on the films they appear in. This is due to the fact that films are the primary form of texts that I consume, and because of my interest in film I follow movie news far more than celebrity news. Thus, my love of stars often derives greatly from their choice of projects, the quality of those projects, and the quality of their work in those projects. But I don’t live in a cave; there are obviously other forces at work influencing my opinion. However, I think that my perception of stars is based greatly in my perception of them as actors and the films they are in. I assume this will likely change as the course progresses, I just wanted to note it before I introduced my stars.

It’s hard to choose just two favorite stars, as there are so many I really like, but the first two that I think of off the top of my head have to be Jennifer Lawrence and Jack Nicholson. I know Hari totally already did Jennifer Lawrence, but I would feel bad if I didn’t give her a mention. I first saw her in The Burning Plain at Seattle International Film Festival in 2009. Although the film wasn’t great, I do remember really liking her performance. I became a BIG fan of her after seeing her in Winters Bone at the same festival the following year. I believe her character in Winter’s Bone is one of the best protagonists in the past decade of American film. She has followed the success of Winter’s Bone with a handful of diverse (yet all very strong-willed and independent) characters. I think she also has a great range, just look at the difference between her performance as Ree in Winter’s Bone and her more recent performance in Silver Linings Playbook for which she deserves, and will likely win, an oscar. She also helped to carry The Hunger Games and is one of the reasons I think the film is better than the mediocre book it is based on. She has started to have more of a celebrity image over the past year (see Hari’s post as he already went into that) but I don’t think that has really had much of an effect on my opinion of her.  I came across this quote by her (or at least, attributed to her) that in many ways sums up her image and also relates to class on monday: “There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others. I want to build myself.”  This raises the question: to what extent to stars have the possibility to build themselves? Obviously, I think the answer has varied over the past century, but I think it’s interesting to consider.

Jack Nicholson has been around for decades, and although he definitely had a golden era that coincided with the New Hollywood and the films of the 70s, he still manages to remain well-known today (despite doing both fewer and weaker films). He has been in a bunch of films that I absolutely love (including Chinatown, The Departed, Easy Rider, The Shining), he gave a face to the rise of BBS, and is a phenomenal actor. Although he often plays characters that are -in one way or another- mentally unstable, he has never conformed to a specific type of role or genre of film. He also looks like a badass with sunglasses.

I also really like: Emma Stone, George Clooney, River Phoenix, Katharine Hepburn, Ryan Gosling, Claudia Cardinale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anna Kendrick, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And tons more. I feel bad leaving them all out.