Oscar season is on the horizon, and if there’s one thing the Academy loves, it’s when pretty ladies stretch their thespianic muscles by playing poor white trash. Just ask Charlize Theron, Renee Zellweger and (twice) Hilary Swank, all of whom have scored the gold by playing poverty-stricken, uneducated, hillbilly-accented types.
That’s why every A-through-D lister in Tinseltown is clamoring for the role of America’s foremost trash, newly convicted human rights violator Pfc. Lynndie England.
Beady-eyed, jowly, chain-smoking, knocked-up, and ultimately a scapegoat for men much smarter and more powerful than she, Lynndie represents a perfect opportunity for the right glamour gal to uglify herself and show her range in a timely biopic. The PEN15’s Hollywood tipsters have supplied this list of likely contenders for the role:
Fairuza Balk: Fairuza has made a career of exposing America’s poor, slutty dark side, whether it’s as Edward Norton’s white supremacist fuckbuddy in American History X, a serial killer in the miniseries Murder in the Heartland, or the goth chick you hated in high school in The Craft.
Taryn Manning: In order to fully convey the agony of war, an actress must be able to tap into her own resources of personal trauma. Luckily, Ms. Manning - who has England’s raised-in-a-trailer look of dead-eyed vapidity down cold - recently underwent a harrowing near-death experience.
Samantha Morton: She’s one of the best actresses in the world, and she has the haircut.
Chad Lowe: A chance to beat his wife Hilary at her own game, and he has the haircut.
Hilary Swank: Because no husband of hers is gonna stand in the way of Oscar #3, bitch.
Amy Sedaris: The woman who built a sitcom around a 46-year-old high school freshman/junkie whore could surely win our sympathy as a 22-year-old single mom serving time in a military prison while nursing a crush on her commanding officer.
Scarlett Johansson: Because she’s Hollywood’s It Girl!
Jodie Foster: Nah, too femme.
I vote Balk! She’s creepy