Interview's 11th annual two-minute oscarworthy performances: Sheila Benson picks the minigems that should get their own golden statues

Interview, April, 2003 by Seila Benson

As we mark our 11th year of picking the movies' one-scene wonders, a few things to note. We've varied them a little--standing still is deadly. We have our first ensemble nominees, and one with the barest sliver of an appearance, yet the center still holds: Recognition for actors not likely to find it anywhere else, who pour art and soul into the briefest of roles. Their characters live after their moments are past, and, especially this year, these roles are forever molded to these actors:

1. LOIS SMITH, tending her carnivorous greenhouse in Minority Report, who brings a soft canniness to her role as mother of the Pre-Cogs.

2. PATRICK BAUCHAU, heartthrob of the ladies who lunch, who is worldliness itself as Jodie Foster's ex in Panic Room, even--or, perhaps, especially--when tied up.

3. VIOLA DAVIS, in Antwone Fisher, whose mute eloquence as the mother who abandoned Antwone proves that a great actor doesn't need words to convey a shattering range of emotions.

4. PAUL HANSEN KIM, Robin Williams' assistant in One Hour Photo, so touchingly stalwart as the only person in the glaring, impersonal SayMart to appreciate his boss' fussy perfectionism.

5. EILEEN ATKINS, a noted Virginia Woolf interpreter, who gives ironic subtext as the West Village flower-shop owner who starts Meryl Streep's fateful day in The Hours.

6. LOURDES PEREZ, SOLEDAD ST. HILAIRE, LINA ACOSTA, and SANDIE TORRES, as the magnificently uninhibited seamstresses of Real Women Have Curves, whose salsa striptease rocks their sweatshop.

7. BILLY CONNOLLY, as Michelle Pfeiffer's poisoned lover in White Oleander, whose eerie resemblance to Joe Eszterhas really makes you worry about her sanity.

8. CHAVELA VARGAS, in Frida, whose cigarette-and-whiskey-drenched voice singing "La Liorona" resonates with every one of her 84 years of life and lovers, including Kahlo herself.

9. LEE GARLINGTON, as Jake Gyllenhaal's furious mother in Lovely & Amazing, not amused to hear that she and Catherine Keener share a taste in bathrobes--and her son.

10. ABDALLAH MUTULU, the real-life Ndugu in About Schmidt, who is a presence without a performance. The 6-year-old Tanzanian boy's haunting eyes and stick-figure drawing touched audiences as well as Jack Nicholson's Schmidt.

Sheila Benson is a Seattle-based film writer and critic.