Roughly two-thirds through “Misty Green,” Rosalind Eleazar takes a breath and lets a rendition of “One Night Only,” from the musical “Dreamgirls,” rip. The characters around her go quiet, and the crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Chris Rock‘s film made its world premiere, were enraptured. But when Rock and his cast took the stage for a post-screening Q&A, the crowd made their appreciation for her work known with cheers and applause.
Onstage, Eleazar explained why she fell in love with Misty and was “really desperate” to play the part.
“It was such a raw and honest take on the darker side of our industry,” Eleazar said about reading the script for the first time (and charming the crowd with her British accent). “She’s such a complex and such a contradictory and flawed character, and I’m sort of drawn to characters that are difficult to love, and the way that Chris wrote the individual relationships with such precision and nuance.”
“The moment I read the script in London, I was desperate to do this part. So I did whatever I could,” Eleazar said, before realizing what she’d accidentally insinuated, since Misty Green will indeed do anything for a role. Rock and the crowd chuckled as she hastily recovered: “Normal things! Just like Zooms and stuff.”
