Friday, October 3, 2014

Shout out for Paula Malcomson




I've been busy the last few days, and am still a bit short of time.  Anyway, a couple of nights ago I watched the season 2 finale of "Ray Donovan," a  terrific Showtime series that I have watched from its beginning.  One of the characters is Abby Donovan, the protagonist's wife.  The part is a juicy role, played by Paula Malcomson.  She is simply mesmerizing in this role, especially in the last several episodes where the character gets amped up and hubris closes in on her.  It's some of the finest acting I've seen.

I have always enjoyed Paula Malcomson, starting with her major role as "Trixie" in 36 episodes of the legendary "Deadwood" series.  Then I saw her later playing the part of an Irish woman in "The Sons of Anarchy" in a 10 episode story arc taking place mostly in Ireland.  It turns out that Paula is indeed an Irish actor, having been born in Belfast.  I was totally on board with her performance in that milieu. You can read all about her and her filmography right here.

As you can see, she also plays the role of Mrs. Everdeen in the Hunger Games movies.

But, circling back, it was her role as Abby Donovan that in the end had me shaking my head and saying to myself, this woman is a fierce, powerful actor, with a range of emotions that merits our admiration.  Some of the scenes with Liev Schreiber (Ray) are so intense they are almost unbearable.



1 comment:

Lally said...

amen brother, I got to chat with her a bit when I did that episode of DEADWOOD I was on and she's as down to earth and unpretentious as you would expect but isn't always found in Hollywood...