List of 57 Actresses With Possibly Leading Roles This Year

key:
Actress Film
Oscar history of actress
Directed by Who (Oscar nominated performances they've directed?)
Description
Release Month If Announced: ALWAYS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Status of Film from IMDB as of 03/08/08 (obviously "completed"and "post production" have the best chance of actually arriving this year. But some filmmakers are fast and some "announced" could even arrive by Christmas, if the planets align for the filmmakers)

Please keep in mind: Many of the roles mentioned could also go supporting. The lines are ever blurred these days and you never know how adaptations or editing choices will size a role. Also any film could be delayed or scrapped or anything. It's one giant gamble.

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A-M / M-Z

 

HELEN MIRREN Love Ranch
3 nominations / 1 win
Directed by Taylor Hackford, Mirren's husband (winner: Jamie Foxx, Ray)
Mirren plays the madame of a brothel in Nevada. Joe Pesci plays her husband and business partner.
release: tba
filming currently -though IMDB lists it for 2009

JULIANNE MOORE Savage Grace OR Blindness
4 nominations
SG: Directed by Tom Kalin (none)
B: Directed by Fernando Meirelles (1 winner: Rachel Weisz, Constant Gardener)
What to make of Savage Grace? Its tough to say. It's a low budget heavy drama that might be too risqué or too indie for Oscar. On the other hand it could hit that sweet spot of critical approval covering for its non-mainstream balloting obstacle. If this is the return to form that people are waiting for then the sky is the limit. She plays a doomed and lonely heiress who married up. Her husband is distant and her son is too close. Presumably violence, tears, and psychosexual drama follow.
In Blindness,an adaptation of the classic novel by Jose Saramango, she plays the wife of a doctor (they're the two main characters) who falls to the mass epidemic known as the White Sickness. She sees for him as the world basically goes to hell.
release: May & Aug
SG: completed -delayed from 2007
B: post-production

SOPHIE OKONEDO Skin
1 nomination
Directed by Anthony Fabian (none)
from the IMDB "Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era." Sam Neill and Alice Krige are the parents
release: tba
post-production

ELLEN PAGE The Tracey Fragments
1 nomination
Directed by Bruce McDonald (none)
This was a write in vote that I hadn't covered. She plays a 15 year old searching for her little brother while naked under a shower curtain in this indie that's describes itself as "a stirring tragic comedy and a 21st century 'Catcher in the Rye'"
release: May
completed

GWYNETH PALTROW Two Lovers
1 nom / 1 win
Directed by James Gray (The Yards, none)
from the IMDB "A Brooklyn-set romantic drama about a bachelor (Phoenix) torn between the family friend his parents wish he would marry and his beautiful but volatile new neighbor." Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw are the two girls, though I'm not sure which is the volatile neighbor and which his parents want him to marry.
release: tba
post-production

ANNA PAQUIN Margaret
1 nom / 1 win
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan (nominee: Laura Linney, You Can Count on Me)
She was one of my 2006 April Fools Predictions but the film was delayed. At any rate this is the long delayed second film effort from playwright Lonergan. Paquin plays a young woman who witnesses an accident which throws her into an emotional tailspin.
release: tba
completed -delayed from 2006

SARAH JESSICA PARKER Smart People OR Sex & The City: The Movie
never nominated
SP: Directed by Noam Murro (debut feature, none)
SatC: Directed by Michael Patrick King (debut feature, none)
In People she's a doctor who romances Dennis Quaid, a widower, but it's an ensemble so anyone could be supporting. In Sex... she's Carrie Bradshaw fashion icon and Mr. Big lover in this return to her most famous role.
Release: April & May
completed
post production

MICHELLE PFEIFFER Cheri OR Personal Effects
3 nominations / 0 wins
C: Directed by Stephen Frears (6 oscar nom'ed performances, all women: Dench, Mrs Henderson Presents, Bening & Huston, The Grifters. Close & Pfeiffer herself for Dangerous Liaisons. Winner: Helen Mirren, The Queen)
PE: David Hollander (debut, none)
In Cheri she would play an aging courtesan in love with a young vain man (from the famous novel). In Personal Effects she is also paired with a younger man (Ashton Kutcher)
release: TBA (both)
C: pre-production. Some think this will happen quickly but I'm guessing 2009.
PE: post-production

NATALIE PORTMAN Brothers
1 nomination
Directed by Jim Sheridan (several nominees from In America, The Field, and In the Name of the Father. Winners: Daniel Day Lewis and Brenda Fricker, My Left Foot)
She plays the Connie Nielsen role in this adaptation of the fine Danish drama about a woman whose husband goes missing in Afghanistan and the brother-in law who moves in to comfort her and help out
release: December
post-production

ANNA SOPHIA ROBB Sleepwalking
never nominated
Directed by Bill Maher
A young girl copes with her mother's abandonment
release: tba
completed

JULIA ROBERTS Fireflies in the Garden OR Duplicity
3 nominations / 1 win
FitG: Directed by Dennis Lee (debut feature, none)
D: Directed by Tony Gilroy (3 from Michael Clayton his debut)
In Fireflies a family is torn apart by an unexpected tragedy. Co-starring Ryan Reynolds and Emily Watson. In Duplicity, a corporate spy thriller, she is paired with her Closer husband Clive Owen.
Release: Fireflies (summer, tba), D (tba)
FitG: post-production
D: filming but currently aiming for 2009

MEG RYAN The Women
never nominated
Directed by Diane English of Murphy Brown fame (debut feature, none)
In this remake of the classic melodrama / comedy from the 30s, Meg takes on the Norma Shearer role. She's a classy woman whose husband is cheating on her with a tramp. Her friends and frenemies are pulled into the divorce mess
release: October
post-production

GABOUREY 'GABBY' SIDIBE Push
never nominated
Directed by Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer, none)
An illiterate pregnant teen who has led a very difficult life is invited to enroll in a special school in the hopes of turning her life around. Based on the novel of the same name.
release: tba
post-production

KIRSTEN STEWART Twilight
never nominated
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Holly Hunter, 13)
Kirsten moves to a new town to live with her father and falls in love with a vampire. Say what? Probably not Oscary but Harwicke is a director to watch. She's not really predictable you can't say...
release: tba
filming

MERYL STREEP Doubt OR Mamma Mia!
14 nominations / 2 wins
D: Directed by John Patrick Shanley (none)
MM: Directed by Phyllida Lloyd (none)
Meryl has two Broadway adaptations for 2008. In Doubt she plays the nun (a TONY winning role on Broadway) who suspects a priest of molesting a child. In Mamma Mia she's a mother whose daughter wants to know who her father really is in the musical fiction concocted from ABBA's discography that's become so famous on stage.
release: (doubt) Dec (mamma mia) July
D: filming
MM: post-production

TILDA SWINTON Come Like Shadows OR Julia
1 nom / 1 win
CLS: Directed by John Maybury of Love is the Devil fame (none)
J: Erick Zoncka of The Dreamlife of Angels fame (none)
In ...Shadows, a MacBeth revision she plays... you guessed it: Lady MacBeth, one of the greatest roles in all of fiction. In Julia she's Julia, a very bad woman, kidnapping a child to extort money
release: tba (both)
CLS: pre-production but probably heading for 2009
J: completed, looking for a distributor

CHARLIZE THERON The Burning Plains
2 noms / 1 win
Directed by Guillermo Arriaga (he has written nominated roles from 21 Grams and Babel)
She's the daughter in this estranged mother/daughter bonding drama from the writer of 21 Grams and Babel. Kim Basinger is her mother.
release: tba
filming currently -but IMDB is listing as a 2009 feature

UMA THURMAN Life Before Her Eyes
1 nomination / 0 wins
Directed by Vadim Perelman (nominees: Ben Kingsley & Shohreh Agdashloo, House of Sand and Fog)
Uma plays a troubled woman with survivors guilt. As a young woman (when she looked like Evan Rachel Wood) she survived a Columbine style event
completed -delayed from 2007. played at Toronto in the fall

CARICE van HOUTEN Dorothy Mills
never nominated
Directed by Agnes Merlet (none)
She plays a psychiatrist dealing with a teen girl accused of murdering a baby in this psychological thriller. The girl is diagnosed with multiple personality disorder but is the diagnosis correct?
release: TBA
post-production

KERRY WASHINGTON Lakeview Terrace
never nominated
Directed by the controversial Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty, The Shape of Things --good performances but too hard for Oscar love so far)
An interracial couple (Kerry & Patrick Wilson) is terrorized by a local cop (Samuel L Jackson)
release: September
post-production

EMILY WATSON Within the Whirlwind
2 nominations
Directed by Marleen Gorris of the Oscar winning Antonia (none)
This is a biopic about the Russian professor's Eugenia Ginsburg life under Stalin and time in a concentration camp
release: tba
filming currently -though it's shooting for 2009 apparently

NAOMI WATTS Funny Games OR The International
1 nomination
FG: Directed by Michael Haneke of Caché fame (none)
TI: Directed by Tom Tykver of Run Lola Run fame (none)
In Funny Games, an english language remake of Haneke's own film of the same name, she plays a wife and mother who is terrorized by two sociopaths playing games with her family. Her role in The International is less clear but Clive Owen plays an interpol agent and it's a drama about international arms dealing.
release: March and August
FG: completed
TI: post-production

SIGOURNEY WEAVER The Girl in the Park
3 nominations / 0 wins
Directed by David Auburn (none)
Sigweavie is one of the trinity of noticeably unOscared multiple nominee holdouts from the 80s (the others are Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer –if any of the three hate the Academy they're forgiven). In The Girl in the Park she plays a woman traumatized by the disappearance of her toddler daughter many years earlier. She thinks she may have found her again when she meets Kate Bosworth. From the writer of Proof
completed -delayed from 2007. played at Toronto in the fall

RACHEL WEISZ The Brothers Bloom
1 nom/1 win
Directed by Rian Johnson of Brick fame (none)
She plays an eccentric heiress and she's the target of two con artists. But it could be a supporting role obviously since the boys are the title characters. Or maybe she's the lead and it's a Fabulous Baker Boys situation. Who knows.
release: October
filming

KATE WINSLET The Reader OR Revolutionary Road
5 nominations / 0 wins
TR: Directed by Stephen Daldry (nominees Julie Walters, Billy Elliott and Julianne Moore,The Hours. winner: Nicole Kidman, The Hours)
RR: Directed by Sam Mendes (nominees: Annette Bening, American Beauty, Paul Newman , Road to Perdition. winner: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty)
Kate is leading the way in two adaptations of famous novels from two Oscar-bait directors both arriving in December. a bookish prestige Kate glut. In The Reader which takes place between 1956 and 1984 she is Hanna Schmidt, a German train conductor. Ralph Fiennes becomes fascinated with her and struggles to understand her past in WW II. In the equally buzzy Revolutionary Road she is married to her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in the northeast in the 50s and they're having marital problems.
release: December (both)
TR: filming
RR: post-production

RENEE ZELLWEGER Leatherheads OR Chilled in Miami
3 nominations / 1 win
LH: Directed by George Clooney (nominee: David Strathairn, Good Night and Good Luck.)
CiM: Directed by Jonas Elmer (none)
Two romantic comedies. In Leatherheads, a period piece about a football teams she plays the romantic interest. In Miami, she's a businesswoman who relocates to a small town in Minnesota (gee, the slick city type rebuilding life in a small town? We haven't seen that before, he said sarcastically). Globe nod would seem like a gimme if either of the movies is any good--they'll nominate her for anything, but for that spring release date or the maybe no release this year at all.
release: April (LH) TBA -but possibly 2009 (CiM)
LH: completed
CiM: post-production but aiming for 2009 possibly

ZIYI ZHANG Mei Lanfang
never nominated
Directed be Chen Kaige
This was a write in vote that I hadn't covered. It's a biopic about China's greatest opera star. However, it's Leon Lai who is playing the title character, a male opera star known for female roles. Her character is Meng Xiaodong
post-production

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