Thursday, January 22, 2009
Film Congrats to Nashville Native for Benjamin Button Oscar Nominations
Posted by Jim Ridley on Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:06 AM
Photograph of Laray Mayfield by Alan Messer
That ringing sound you hear is Laray Mayfield's cell phone going haywire. The Middle Tennessee native, who spends half the year here, was casting director on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which just picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Picture along with nods for Brad Pitt as best actor and Taraji P. Henson as best supporting actress.
It's the latter that has to come as a real triumph for Mayfield, who says she wept when Henson auditioned for the role of Pitt's surrogate mother in her office. She first saw Henson in Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow:
I saw Hustle & Flow, and besides thinking it was an amazing piece of filmmaking, I literally fell in love with Taraji, and I thought early on back then, boy, if Benjamin Button really does happen, she's somebody I really want to introduce to David, because she really embodies Queenie. Which is really odd, when you think about it, because she was playing a much different character.Mayfield has been a close friend and collaborator with Benjamin Button director David Fincher (another nominee) since his days as a music-video director with Propaganda Films in the late 1980s. Since 1999's Fight Club, largely at his urging, she has served as his casting director.
We'll have a full interview with Mayfield in next week's Scene. For now, congratulations.
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