First Man: Claire Foy Targets Oscar Name by Stereotype of Breaking the Woman

Claire Foy only really loses it once in Damien Chazelle's film "First Man". Stuck at home, she listened to her husband, Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), on the occasion of a new test of his imminent space flight, via a video box connected to NASA's Janet Armstrong's stream of Foy is horrified to discover that her audio file has been suddenly disabled. The test inevitably went awry and NASA officials made the executive decision to cut off Janet and the Armstrong family, apparently to save them from any possible trauma.

Janet does not have it. Frenzied, she runs away from home, gets into her car and goes straight to the NASA base in Houston. There, she unleashes years of anger and frustration in front of Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler), director of flight crew operations at NASA. "All these protocols and procedures give the impression that everything is under control," Janet shouts. "But you are a group of boys who make models of balsa wood. You do not have anything under control! "

Chazelle's fourth film is naturally devoted to Neil's mission – and to the emotional wounds that fuel both his work and his reserved nature – but Foy's underrated performance serves as a compelling counterpoint to similar stereotypes of "waiting woman". At her place". "I've never had to fight for it because it was always present in the script," Foy said in a recent interview with IndieWire. "I did not need to feel obligated to defend her, to give her a voice or to make her known."

Foy began her own research on Janet, who died just months before the movie began, and found a character as brave as her husband. At the beginning of the film, it's Janet who assures Neil, nervous, that her new concert with NASA "will be an adventure", a notion that she never seems to fear.

"She was a little out of the ordinary, in the sense that she lived every day in her own way," said Foy. "Even though Neil was doing this extremely dangerous thing, I think she knew very early that she could not be left alone or left alone. She had to live her own life in order to stay in this world, in this marriage. She had to make sure that if she was left behind, she and her children would be fine. She taught swimming, she was incredibly active in the community and everyone said how wonderful she was. She was able to take care of herself. "

"First man"

Daniel McFadden / Universal / Kobal / REX / Shutterstock

Although Singer's script provides a road map for Foy and Gosling's work, an early rehearsal period with Chazelle allows them to further shape their characters as they please. "Sometimes we did not take the book instead and we dialogued completely with the written dialogue," she said. "At other times, we would use this as a kind of skeleton to which we would hang and which would guide us through a scene, but we would somehow move in and around her."

The real Janet spoke a lot about community involvement. In 1964, she founded and helped coach the Texas-based synchronized swimming team El Lago Aquanauts (she had been a synchronized female swimmer at college age), a performance that only the film indicates. "First Man" also does not show Janet helping to train another key group – the Astronaut Women's KIT group (Keep-In-Touch) – but her ability to support her female companions for periods of time. more and more tragic comes alive. Foy.

In one scene, Janet stays at the funeral of an astronaut to help clean up while an angry Neil was walking in the night. Janet later comforts another heartbroken wife as other members of their community literally turn away from her. At every moment, Foy discovers Janet's humanity and uses it to give the film an emotional focus. While some spectators have complained that Chazelle's film is too cold or reserved, Foy tells the story with all his heart, just like the character for the Armstrong family.

"First man"

Universal images

As Neil's missions become more and more public, so do the requests to Janet and the young sons of the couple. Journalists take over the Armstrong family, a photographer walks away as Janet and the kids wait for Neil's latest news and everyone seems to want a note from Janet, who raises her questions during one of the most stressful of his life.

Foy knows this experience too well, as her visibility has increased through her work on the popular Golden Globe series The Crown and her transformative role in the upcoming film "The Girl in the Spiderweb". ".

"I connected to Janet 's experience, in that I feel that the pressure on these women and families has grown to become the image that NASA wanted for them and that it is the only way to go about it. America wanted to see project, "said the actress. "They did not want reality, that is, they were terrified, most of the time, their husbands would not come back."

The actress said that she had been taken with Janet's "kind of immediate understanding that she was not going to give them what they wanted, she did not want to play the game." height, and she would not disclose any personal information. " in particular: "She was very private and she remained very private, which requires an enormous self-awareness and self-respect not to be drawn into this kind of exposure."

As Foy prepares for a busy rewards season, she works overtime to stay sane. When asked if she found it easy to get rid of her characters, Janet Armstrong, Lisbeth Salanders and Queen Elizabeth, she got caught. "I find it very easy to return to my normal state," she says, interrupting. "It's not a normal life, I mean, but the work stays with me."

"First Man" is now in theaters.

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