UPDATED with video: “I’m still not quite sure who [members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association] are when I run into them, but I love seeing their faces, and let’s face it, they’ve managed to elect a female president,” Three Billboards star Frances McDormand star said pointedly tonight at the Golden Globes, accepting the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. “I’m just saying.”
Nominated for seven Golden Globes over the course of her career—most recently in 2015 for HBO’s Olive Kitteridge miniseries—McDormand’s last win came in 1994, when she shared a Special Award with the ensemble cast of Robert Altman’s Shortcuts. In addition to her Golden Globe recognition tonight, McDormand has taken nominations this season at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Film Independent Spirit Awards for her fiery role in Three Billboards.
Expressing her gratitude to writer/director Martin and McDonagh, as well as Fox Searchlight, “who allowed our film to find its audience,” McDormand then addressed the black tuxedo-wearing elephant in the room. “As many of you know, I keep my politics private. But it was really great to be in this room and to be part of a tectonic [shift] in our industry power structure,” she said. “Trust me: The women in this room tonight are not here for the food. We’re here for the work.”
In tonight’s Golden Globe race, McDormand emerged victorious against The Shape of Water‘s Sally Hawkins, The Post‘s Meryl Streep, Molly’s Game star Jessica Chastain and All the Money in the World‘s Michelle Williams. Looking at fierce competition for a slot in the Oscars’ Best Actress race, McDormand will contend with several of these actresses, in addition to other strong contenders battling tonight in the Globes’ Comedy/Musical Category, including Lady Bird‘s Saoirse Ronan, I, Tonya‘s Margot Robbie, Victoria & Abdul‘s Dame Judi Dench, and Battle of the Sexes star Emma Stone.
In Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black comedic drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, McDormand plays Mildred, the disillusioned and extremely angry mother of a young woman whose murder has thus far gone unsolved in her small-town American community. When local cops Dixon (Sam Rockwell) and Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) fail to catch the culprit, Mildred takes justice into her own hands, putting up a series of brutal and crass billboards in her neighborhood, calling out the police for their seeming indifference to a heinous criminal act.
Tonight, along with its nom for McDormand, Three Billboards was recognized with five other nominations—including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Performance-wise, Rockwell was the only other member of the cast to be nominated, and he also won, in keeping with the strong Oscar buzz his performance has generated. Elsewhere, McDonagh’s drama has been well-recognized at the SAG Awards and PGA Awards. Winning the predictive People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, the film also took the award for Best Screenplay at Venice.