Oscar Winner Frances McDormand Explains Turning Down Press Request For 10 Years

 Two time Oscar winner, Frances McDormand has explained why she has avoided the press for a decade during her career.

McDormand who rarely grants interviews, spoke to the New York Times in a new piece and she explained why she spent ten years avoiding the negative spotlight that typically comes with stardom. 

 

Her breakout in Hollywood came with 1996's Fargo, produced and co-written by her husband Ethan Coen. 

After her role gave the actress her first Academy Award, she hired a publicist and instructed him to decline nearly all press opportunities that come her way. 

"I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor's career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to," said the 63-year-old actress. 

"It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn't."

In new film, Nomadland, the actress plays a woman seeking out a transitory life in a van after losing her financial standing and says her lack of press life is responsible for her success.

"That's why it works," Frances continued. 

"That's why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I've created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life."

At one point in the interview, while walking along the small coastal town where she lives but that she declined to publicly identify, the star gestured to a few people enjoying the beach with their dogs.

"I don't mind being their movie star," Frances told the reporter. "I'm just not going to be yours."