Pieces of a Woman’s Vanessa Kirby received a Golden Globes nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama). Alas, Andra Day walked away with the award for her role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday. But here’s what we know about the Kirby and Pieces of a Woman.
What is Pieces of a Woman?
Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf headline Netflix’s Pieces of a Woman as characters Martha and Sean. It is directed by Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo. He is best known for his work directing the movies White God and Jupiter Moon, along with being an international theater and opera director.
Writing the script for Pieces of a Woman is Kata Weber, an actor and filmmaker who previously worked with Mundruczo on the two aforementioned movies. The production has a long list of executive producers with two notable ones being Martin Scorsese and Sam Levinson (Euphoria, Malcolm & Marie).
Netflix describes Pieces of a Woman as “Martha and Sean are a Boston couple on the verge of parenthood whose lives change irrevocably when a home birth ends in unimaginable tragedy.”
This tragedy begins a long journey for Martha. While handling her debilitative grief and loss, she must also direct attention to her struggling relationship with Sean and an unpleasant court trial with her midwife.
Since its release, Pieces of a Woman has been highly rated and praised for its “impressive performances” and “raw central character.”
The filmmakers shared a statement at the time of the movie’s release where they wrote, “With Pieces of a Woman, we wanted to create an authentic story about tragedy and learning to live alongside that grief.”
They added, “Loss forces us to step beyond the boundaries of understanding or control, but with it comes the ability to be reborn.”
Who is Vanessa Kirby?
Vanessa Kirby plays the main character, Martha, in Pieces of a Woman. This award-winning actress has had a career for the last ten years, spanning television and movies, as well as theater.
Prior to Pieces of a Woman, Kirby starred in the main role of Princess Margaret in Seasons 1 and 2 of Netflix’s The Crown and as Alanna Mitsopolis in Mission: Impossible Fallout. She is also slated to be performing in the next two movies of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Kirby is very passionate about her role as Martha. In an interview, she expressed that she “felt so strongly that it [the story] needed to be told.” She had read the script in an hour and felt as though the role would challenge her.
She shared, “I’d been looking for a part that scared me. This completely terrified me. It was a story that I hadn’t ever seen before on screen.”
For this role, Kirby has been nominated for eleven awards with three still pending. Thus far, she has won awards from the Venice Film Festival and the New Mexico Film Critics.
Pieces of a Woman is currently streaming on Netflix.