Virtuosos Award 2012

Reviewed by Sandra Andersson. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

On February 3 this years Virtuosos Award was held at the Arlington Theatre. This year the Virtuosos Award honored sex actors for their performances last year, the night started with the moderator Dave Karger telling the audience that one of the winners, Melissa McCarthy, unfortunately was ill and could not attend.

Then it was finally time for the winners to take the stage one by one for an interview with Dave Karger. Before each interview we are introduced to the actor by a clip with their breakthrough performance from last year.

First man out for the interview was Demián Bichir, who is honored for his role as Carlos in A Better Life. For this role he is also nominated for an Oscar for best actor. During the interview Bichir told the audience that he gained 20 pounds for the role as Carlos and that he did all his stunts by himself.

First woman for an interview was Rooney Mara for her role as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Mara told us that she thinks it’s hard watching herself and that she sees every scene in the film in a different way than the audience. She told the audience that it took three days to shoot the subway scene and that it’s feels wrong to see it on film in just a few minutes.

Patton Oswalt was honored for his role as Matt in Young Adult. Oswalt is also an stand-up comedian and made the audience laugh several times when he was on stage.

Andy Serkins surprised everyone when he walked out on the stage without his shirt on, he is honored for the role as Caesar in Rise of The Planet of The Apes. Other than the role of Caesar Serkins have also portrayed Gollum in the lord of the rings and tells the audience how it is to play an animal/ creature on screen.

Last out for the night was Shailene Woodley, at the age of 20 she had her breakthrough performance as the role of Alexandra against George Clooney in The Descendants, for which she was honored at the Virtuosos Award.

After the interviews all the actors honored during the night was brought out on stage again to ask some questions to the five of them together. Following the questions the night ended when director Chris Weitz came out on stage and presented the awards to the actors.