{"id":91226,"date":"2017-02-25T20:21:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T01:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=91226"},"modified":"2017-02-25T20:21:11","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T01:21:11","slug":"arrival-director-feeling-high-hopes-but-no-pressure-ahead-of-oscar-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/25\/arrival-director-feeling-high-hopes-but-no-pressure-ahead-of-oscar-night\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Arrival’ director feeling high hopes but no pressure ahead of Oscar night"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cI would love to win, and I hope we win one or two, that would be fantastic,\u201d Villeneuve told The Canadian Press on Saturday. (Photo: Filmaster\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL \u2013Denis Villeneuve is certainly crossing his fingers for \u201cArrival\u201d to become an Oscar winner on Sunday, but the Quebec filmmaker says he won’t be disappointed even if he walks away empty-handed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to win, and I hope we win one or two, that would be fantastic,\u201d Villeneuve told The Canadian Press on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will cross my fingers, I will be excited, I will wish until the last second, but if it doesn’t happen I will still be smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadian director says he’s taking a serene approach since getting eight Oscar nominations for an \u201cintellectual sci-fi\u201d film like \u201cArrival\u201d was \u201cfar from a given.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film, which is adapted from Ted Chiang’s novella \u201cStory of Your Life,\u201d stars Amy Adams as a linguistics expert who goes through a transformative experience as she tries to communicate with aliens who’ve arrived on Earth.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Renner plays a theoretical physicist in the Quebec-shot film, which explores how intuition, instinct and humility help communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking a film that plays with the notion of time, that has an intellectual approach and depends on intense audience participation… our chances were slim,\u201d Villeneuve said in a phone interview from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

It will be the second trip to the Oscars for Villeneuve, who was nominated in the best foreign-language film category for \u201cIncendies\u201d in 2011.<\/p>\n

This time, \u201cArrival\u201d is tied with Barry Jenkins’ \u201cMoonlight\u201d for the second-most nods, including nominations for best picture and best director.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa La Land\u201d is in contention for a leading 14 awards, with nominations for best picture, best director and best actor for London, Ont., native Ryan Gosling.<\/p>\n

Despite being up for the big honours this time around, Villeneuve, 49, insists he isn’t feeling any pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking movies for me is a life. It’s not something I do to win prizes\u201d he said. \u201cThe hardest part of my job is to last, to stand the test of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the next breath he says that while he says he doesn’t mind \u2013and even relishes \u2013his underdog status this time around, he does have ambitions to claim an Oscar eventually.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll get there. But its fine if it’s in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cI like the idea that it’s not now, of going step by step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Villeneuve says Sunday’s ceremony will come as a relief after his intense schedule over last few months, which included juggling festivals, awards shows and media appearances for \u201cArrival\u201d with working on his next project, a sequel to \u201cBlade Runner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s been a great experience, but I’m happy it’s ending,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m going with a smile. No matter what happens tomorrow, I feel like we’ve already won.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2013Denis Villeneuve is certainly crossing his fingers for \u201cArrival\u201d to become an Oscar winner on Sunday, but the Quebec …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":91227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[15776,740],"class_list":["post-91226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-arrival-movie","tag-oscars","mauthors-vicky-fragasso-marquis","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}