Power Couples: How Hollywood’s Big-Name Oscar Contenders Balance Life and Work | films

TTuesday’s Oscar nominations included, among a slew of announcements, interesting evidence of the strength of family connections that underpin major Oscar bids, with a number of the 10 films nominated for best picture featuring both members with high-profile connections working together on the same film. “Barbie,” the blockbuster doll-inspired film that seemed to be snubbed in the Best Actress and Best Director categories, much to the dismay of many, including Ryan Gosling, even has two of them. Star Margot Robbie and her husband Tom Ackerley are co-founders of LuckyChap Entertainment, the company that produced the film, while director Greta Gerwig is in the running for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside her husband Noah Baumbach.

The 2024 Oscar season seems to have been particularly favorable to this kind of partnership: The director-producer team behind Best Picture nominee Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, are also married, while Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Tritt is up for Best Picture . Original Screenplay Oscar with Arthur Hariri, with whom she has a long-term relationship and has two children. Elsewhere on the list, there’s May December writer Sammy Burch, who shares a “story” credit with husband Alex Mechanic, and Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, who co-directed and wrote Best Animated Short Film nominee Ninety Five Senses with His wife. Jerusha.

All of these are film industry veterans, working together (and not) on multiple projects over the years; It’s undoubtedly a coincidence, albeit a notable one, that so many find themselves preparing for the Oscars together. Anna Smith, film critic and host of Girls on Film, says she has a positive view of the phenomenon. “I think these are examples of real-life partners working very well together with a shared vision, or at least visions that complement each other. Baumbach and Ackerley strike me as feminist allies, and there is no doubt that Baumbach brought a useful and intelligent male perspective to the Barbie script, which he and Gerwig wrote while Living together in lockdown – handy!

It’s a form of creative collaboration that’s by no means new: In 1919, Mary Pickford, then one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, co-founded the United Artists studio with her future husband Douglas Fairbanks (also Charlie Chaplin and Birth of Off). Director of the Nation D. W. Griffith). Thomas and Nolan met when they were students at University College London, and have worked together since their first short film, Nolan’s Doodlebug. Robbie set up LuckyChap with Ackerley in 2014 with friends Sophia Kerr and Josie McNamara, while Gerwig and Baumbach met while filming Baumbach’s 2010 film Greenberg.

However, it is clear that the high-pressure environment of film production can pose particular difficulties for collaborators in the relationship as well. The consuming demands of filmmaking are difficult to manage, say Rebecca Harrell Tickell and Josh Tickell, who have directed a series of award-winning environmental documentaries, including The Big Fix, Kiss the Ground, and its subsequent Common Ground.

“Our marriage and family are so intertwined with our films and our mission that sometimes we can take the successes and failures a little too personally,” says Harrell Tickle. “Overall, this is a great source of strength,” Tickle adds. “The pitfall is that there is no separation between work, family life and love life.

While the risks of making films together are clear, it’s clear that in this Oscar run at least, we can see the positives. Nolan and Thomas have been making films together since their first short, while Robbie and Ackerley have leveraged their previous acting careers to branch out and support the careers of directors like Emerald Fennell and Megan Park. Despite their distinct authorial voices as high-profile directors, Gerwig and Bomback collaborated on a screenplay for Barbie, which was previously unlikely for either of them to produce alone.

The problem of how to resolve creative disagreements—without destroying personal relationships—is a specific one. “We mostly agree, or one of us can be flexible,” says Harel Tickell. “But if we strongly disagree, we usually have to take a moment and put our opposing views away from our employees. When we resolve disputes about our films, we each get a vote and what to do.” The film needs it to get a vote. Tickle points out that this can be a strength: “Miscommunication is inevitable, and there are of course moments when we don’t see eye to eye. But every so often a “third way” opens up, something none of us have seen, and this new path is where the creative genius lies.

In the end, though, the pros outweigh the cons, says Harrell Tickle. “Embracing our partnership makes us exponentially more effective than either of us as individuals.”