And the Oscar Goes to…

When actress and comedian Catherine O'Hara passed away earlier this year, fans around the world were left devastated. Her charm, versatility, and comedic prowess made her a household name, including in the house of Heeb. In 2007, Heeb called on the Academy to recognize O’Hara for her performance in the Purim-centric comedy For Your Consideration.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER INDEPENDENT PICTURES

The Heeb Vault is a weekly email series featuring subsversive Jewish content from the early 2000s, originally published in Heeb Magazine.

BY JOSHUA NEUMAN

PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER INDEPENDENT PICTURES

‍This article was originally published in HEEB #12, Spring 2007.

At the time of writing, names like Emma Thompson (Stranger Than Fiction), Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal) and (prepare to retch) Sharon Stone (Bobby) were being bandied about for the 2007 Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Most likely, Catherine O'Hara's tour de force in last winter's For Your Consideration as Marilyn Hack—a faded actress portraying Esther Pischer in film-within-a-film Home for Purim––will be (no Jewish holiday pun intended) passed over.

Independent, Jewish pop culture magazines aren't the only ones making the case that O'Hara's performance is Oscar-worthy. Entertainment Weekly, MTV and Rolling Stone have also chimed in on behalf of the Toronto-born actress. "I'm having a lot of Marilyn moments and it's scary," O' Hara recently told Heeb. "Life is imitating art." Adds co-star Bob Balaban, who plays Home for Purim scribe Philip Koontz in the film, "I can't say it when I'm in front of her, but I would be so surprised and disappointed if Catherine doesn't get nominated."

In For Your Consideration, debut feature director Jay Berman (played by director and co-writer Christopher Guest) steers cast and crew through an independent film about the Pischers, a gefilte-fish-out-of-water Jewish family living in Valdosta, Georgia in the 1940s. Hacks's (O'Hara's) Pischer is at death's door and her last request is for her family to reunite for her favorite holiday. When Internet-generated rumors begin circulating that Hack's performance may be Award-worthy, the committed actress cannot help but get caught up in the buzz. Over the course of the film, we see her transform into a statuette-seeking missile. O'Hara has a signature ability to portray characters with boundless egos: from insufferable self-centered parent Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988) to impossible-to-please boss Carol Ward in Six Feet Under (2003-2005). But her Hack seems deeper, more complex than the earlier characters.

"Marilyn is a little like Catherine in that she is pretty much a sweet and decent person," says Balaban. "Of course, the buzz would never change Catherine; she's far too grounded for that."

"I hadn't heard of Purim before we made the film," admits O'Hara, of the wacky Jewish holiday of three-sided cookies that commemorates the barely-thwarted plan of a Persian vizier to exterminate the Jews. I ask O'Hara if Purim is now her favorite Jewish holiday. She contemplates the question for a second or two, giggles to herself and decides, "Nope. It's the Oscars."

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