Michelle Williams covers the December issue of Elle UK, and these are the two covers (subscribers and newsstand). I don’t get it – why is she still doing the Mia Farrow thing when she’s promoting a film about Marilyn Monroe? Sigh… I want to like Michelle, I really do, but I’m really tired of her fragile-Mia-Farrow thing, and I’m really concerned that My Week With Marilyn is going to be a disaster. Yes, people are already claiming that she’ll get an Oscar nomination for it, but the trailer did not inspire confidence with me.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any excerpts from the Elle interview, but Michelle’s publicity for the film has begun in earnest, so I do have some highlights from other interviews she’s given recently.

Speaking to Marilyn’s ghost: “While we were filming, something came out in the National Enquirer that a psychic had spoken to her and that she approved of what we were doing and she thought I was doing a really good job. So maybe she likes it!”

On Marilyn‘s voice: “I studied tapes,” Williams said. “There’s really nothing that exists of her, that I could find anyway, that exists of her having a conversation with a friend…So there wasn’t a template that existed for her everyday vocal pattern, so at a certain point you have to make it imaginatively.”

Taking the role: “I was so apprehensive,” she says, “it was daunting living up to people’s expectations as well as my own expectations.”

Parallels with Monroe’s life: “There were so many connections and parallels for me in making this film. I was 30 when making the movie, the same age Marilyn was when she filmed The Prince and the Showgirl, the picture our film is based around. We filmed in the same studio at Pinewood where that movie was made. I had the same dressing room Marilyn had used and we also shot at the same house, Parkside, where she had stayed during filming.”

Wanting to know the real Marilyn: “I had always been more interested in the private Marilyn, and the unguarded Marilyn. Even as a young girl, my primary concern wasn’t with this larger than life personality smiling back from the wall but with what was going on underneath.”

What Marilyn’s experience was in England: “What Marilyn anticipated happening and what actually happened were two very different things and they created discord and unhappiness for her in England. She was expecting to go to London and make a movie with the most esteemed actor of the time and hoped it would bring her the respect that she deserved and craved. When she arrived she felt she was being mistreated and laughed at. Olivier sneered at her and didn’t treat her with the kind of attention she was hoping for but when you watch the film now, you can see Marilyn wipes the floor with the rest of the cast. They are all very stiff, mannered and archaic but if she were making that movie today there is nothing about her performance that has gone out of fashion or faded. She is very real, very in the moment and so beautiful.”

[From The Express UK & E! News]

Joyce Carol Oates’s Blonde describes a similar situation when Marilyn came to England having just married Arthur Miller – apparently, Olivier was a harsh taskmaster, and he thought Marilyn was the weak link in his film. When the film came out, though, Marilyn’s performance was the only thing people liked. So that part of Hollywood history seems authentic.

A new clip from My Week With Marilyn has come out – Michelle singing in the tub:

And here’s the trailer again and a new poster for the film:

Covers courtesy of The Fashion Spot.

People often confuse Michelle Williams and Carey Mulligan. I get it. They both chopped off their hair around the same time, both can be overly “precious” and too girlish and wispy. Both have sometimes sketchy styles. Both seem obsessed with “the Mia Farrow look” – meaning Mia Farrow’s most identifiable look in the 1970s, circa Rosemary’s Baby – the short hair, the school-girl style. Both Carey and Michelle are talented actresses with Oscar nominations under their belts, and their pick amongst the independent-film scripts (I actually think Carey is more mainstream than Michelle, though). And Carey and Michelle actually do look rather similar, although I would describe Carey as more “elfin” and Michelle as more standard-issue “pretty”.

But there are significant differences – one is British and one sometimes speaks in a hokey fake accent in interviews. One is moving past the Mia Farrow look and one isn’t. And… that’s about it, as far as superficial differences go. In any case, Michelle and Carey were both at last night’s Hollywood Film Awards. Both had short blonde hair. Both wore dark dresses (Michelle‘s is technically navy, but looks black in many photos). Both were promoting films that will likely be up for awards this year, and both received awards at the ceremony (Michelle for My Week With Marilyn, and Carey for Shame). And on and on…

Michelle must have gotten Stacy Keibler’s memo about sheer skirts, because Michelle wore this Nina Ricci gown that actually seemed uncharacteristically “sexy”. Usually Michelle hates to show off her figure. I don’t particularly like the gown, but I like that Michelle is trying to mix it up. I absolutely hate Michelle’s current cropped haircut, though.

Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan wore this black Bottega Veneta. If I’m doing a comparison with Michelle’s Nina Ricci, I like Carey’s so much better. I just think it’s a cute dress, appropriate for her age, and it’s sexy without being over the top. I like Carey’s current hair too – but I hate her makeup job here. The eyes are too dark and the lip is too nude.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Last night was the New York Film Festival premiere of My Week With Marilyn, the film that I’m not looking forward to. I mean, I’ll probably see it, but I’m not expecting Michelle Williams to blow me away as Marilyn Monroe, at all. Michelle’s dress was Christian Dior, and although I’m not crazy about a white dress on a pale-skinned blonde girl, I am thankful that Michelle wore something relatively sexy. I got tired of her style during the last awards season, when Michelle was mostly covered up in a series of vintage-y looking dresses that looked more appropriate for young girls. It’s nice to see her looking like an adult woman, and yes, this is a very Mia Farrow style from the neck up. It’s not just the haircut, either. Michelle really does look like Mia, right?

I’ve also included some photos of Michelle’s costar Eddie Redmayne, who I still think has a serial killer face. It’s something about the eyes and the too-high cheekbones – he looks “off” (to me). Jake Gyllenhaal also came out to support Michelle, but we don’t have any photos of it – you can see them together here.

Here’s the trailer again. Michelle’s Marilyn voice bugs even more the second time around.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I didn’t hate this trailer for My Week With Marilyn, the new film (based on the book and the allegedly true story) starring Michelle Williams as Monroe. The movie looks interesting, but… I’m very wary of Michelle’s performance now. The way the trailer has been cut, it’s like they don’t want to show us anything more than a second or two of Michelle’s take on Marilyn. Is it because of Michelle’s funky Marilyn voice? Because it already plucks my last nerve. Marilyn had a light, breathy voice that was so obviously a put-on, but it’s surprisingly hard for most women to duplicate without sounding like a–holes. Here’s the trailer:

I hate to say it, but to me, Michelle seems like the weak link. The film should fall on her shoulders, the film centers around her performance as Marilyn, and at the end of the day, I’m not sure Michelle has pulled it off. She’s just not vivacious enough. Sidenote: Her little wiggle and hip-pop looked jerky. One of the best movie lines about Marilyn in motion was from Some Like It Hot: “Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something.”

As for the rest of the cast – Eddie Redmayne’s face scares me. It’s always scared me. His cheekbones are too high, and he has serial killer eyes (IMO). Judi Dench looks adorable, Emma Watson looks meh (bangs!), but for the love of God, Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier never fails to make me giggle. Branagh has always thought he was the heir apparent to Olivier, he thinks he’s the next Olivier, and to see him play Olivier… it’s rough. The casting on this film is profoundly weird. But I do think the best/most interesting piece of casting was Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller. THAT is surprisingly good.

Photos courtesy of Vogue, header is a still from ‘My Week With Marilyn’.

Quite recently, we’ve witnessed a few sanctimonious statements coming from Hollywood actresses on the subject of parenting. First, Jennifer Garner decided that “[T]here’s no deeper want for a woman than to be a mother,” and Gwyneth Paltrow opined that “[M]otherhood gives your life real meaning.” At least this morning’s revelation from Julie Bowen — that she admits to hating her kids sometimes — gives us imperfect mothers some slight comfort that not everyone out there is pretending to be the ideal mother. Now, Michelle Williams covers the October issue of Hobo Magazine to promote the DVD release of Meek’s Cutoff, which Williams describes as a “feminist Western,” as well as My Week With Marilyn (for which she’s already done the drag dress-up thing in Vogue). In the accompanying interview, Williams makes some semi-loaded statements on motherhood, but I’m not quite sure whether or not they rise to the level of a Goop or Garner motherhood-superiority complex. Let’s jump in with some excerpts:

On Attachment To Characters: After I end a project I always feel a little crazy for a couple of weeks and realize that it was just a come down or hangover from the character that had its grip in me. It just takes a moment or two to detach yourself from it. Like after Blue Valentine I couldn’t take off my wedding ring for a couple weeks, it just didn’t feel right, but of course I’m not wearing that today. It eventually lets go of you, so that something else can take its hold and work its magic.

On Her Life: I’m always trying to figure out what kind of life I want to live. What do I want to do? Where is the best place to be? How do I want to spend my time What situations optimize my parenting? Which really is the most important thing in my world. That’s the question that I’m asking. “How do I ive my life and workin a way that makes me the best parent I can be?” I think it’s the ultimate creative act. If this doesn’t turn out well then there is no success or awards in the world that can make up for it. So I’m always wondering what that balance is, and where it is. Like today we were in Los Angeles and we were starting to get followed by the paparazzi and it unhinges me in a matter of seconds. While nothing is physically harming you, emotionally I find it so traumatic. It completely shakes me, and terrorizes me. I find myself all of a sudden crying and screaming, so I realized this is not the best place for me to be the best parent I can be. It gets a little blown out of proportion in your mind. I’m not equipped to deal with it, to have a sane and rational approach to it.

On Acting: I often dream of quitting acting. Walking away and becoming a laundress or a sous chef, or maybe writing other people’s love letters for a living Clearly, I don’t like to be in charge. And thinking of quitting is just keeping going in disguise. When you have options, anything is bearable. It’s when a situation is inescapable that it becomes hell. It seems to me that as soon as you get good at something, it is a sure sign that it is about to walk out of your life because it ceases to hold your mind and creative energy hostage.

[From Hobo Magazine via ONTD]

Parenthood as a creative act? The mere statement sounds bad if one reads it out of context, for sure. Yet I think that Michelle isn’t so much saying that parenting is the most important thing in the entire world and that everyone should drop everything and immediately procreate. Instead, I think she’s a pretty high-strung brand of mother who continually worries about the child that she already has and probably isn’t looking to make any more in the near future. She simply wants to do right by her child, but her phrasing is a bit awkward. As to Michelle’s purported desire for a new profession as a laundress or writer of love letters, that’s easier said than done, right? As if she’d actually enjoy working long hours as a washmaid for very little pay … perhaps she should just make a movie about that sort of life. Then, she can wash it out of her system a few weeks after filming ends just like taking off the wedding ring after Blue Valentine.

Photos courtesy of Hobo Magazine

Here’s the thing: I like Michelle Williams (not love, but like) but casting her as Marilyn Monroe is just… awful. Michelle was cast as Marilyn in My Week With Marilyn, a film based on a book from a production assistant who worked with Monroe in England, while Monroe filmed The Prince and the Showgirl with Lawrence Olivier. Monroe had just married Arthur Miller, and he traveled to England with her, and Monroe and Olivier famously hated each other. I get that the “behind the scenes” story is interesting, and I’m not generally opposed to the film being made, but would it have killed them to get someone more vivacious and sexy to play Marilyn? Instead, we have Michelle Williams, who… let’s just say it, is a girlish, affected hipster with no sex appeal.

These photos tend to prove that in spades – Michelle, still in character as Marilyn, covers the new issue of Vogue. The cover is especially terrible, and the rest of the photos – well, Michelle just looks like a cheap Monroe impersonator. I’ve seen drag queens do a better, more realistic Marilyn. This seems like the kind of stunt Linnocent would pull. Anyway, the full slideshow is here, and the full article is here. Here are some highlights:

MW’s hipster cred: She gestures with small, slim, expressive hands as the conversation ranges from her affinity for dresses from the 1930s and long-discontinued Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils (“I love things that are old and beautiful and tell a story, even if it’s a sad one”) to the novels of Vladimir Nabokov, whose notoriously complex Ada is a favorite. “I think Nabokov once said that genius is finding the invisible link between things,” she tells me. “And that’s how I choose to see life. Everything’s connected, and everything has meaning if you look for it.”

Turning 30: “I feel like something has changed for me, but it’s a new change, so it’s going to be hard for me to describe,” she says. “Maybe it has something to do with turning 30. I don’t feel as shy or nervous or self-conscious. I have more confidence that I can handle what life brings me. I don’t feel scared to have an idea and express it.” She adds, “I feel giddy about it because it’s a complete transformation. It’s like I’ve found my voice.”

Playing Marilyn: “As soon as I finished the script, I knew that I wanted to do it, and then I spent six months trying to talk myself out of it,” she says. “But I always knew that I never really had a choice.” And, she adds, “I’ve started to believe that you get the piece of material that you were ready for.”

On Marilyn: “Everybody has their own idea of who Marilyn was and what she means to them,” Williams says. “But I think that if you go a little bit deeper, you’re going to be surprised by what you find there.”

Becoming Marilyn: Williams spent six months immersing herself in all things Monroe. She read biographies, diaries, letters, poems, and notes, pored over photographs, listened to recordings, watched movies, and tracked down obscure clips on YouTube. “I’d go to bed every night with a stack of books next to me,” she recalls. “And I’d fall asleep to movies of her. It was like when you were a kid and you’d put a book under your pillow hoping you’d get it by osmosis.” Her turn from indie waif to Hollywood sex goddess involved working with a choreographer to perfect Monroe’s walk and gaining weight to approximate her curves. “Unfortunately, it went right to my face,” she says, puffing up her cheeks to illustrate. “So at some point it became a question of, Do I want my face to look like Marilyn Monroe’s or my hips?” (She opted for the former and filled out the latter with foam padding.) In the end, she says, “it felt like being reborn. It felt like breaking my body and remaking it in her image, learning how she walked and talked and held her head. None of that existed in my physical memory, and I knew I needed as much time as possible to make it part of me.”

Sex appeal: “Any messages that I got as a child about what it is to have a woman’s body or to be sexual were all negative—that people wouldn’t take you seriously or that they would take advantage of you… The expectation to be beautiful always makes me feel ugly because I feel like I can’t live up to it,” she says. “But I do remember one moment of being all suited up as Marilyn and walking from my dressing room onto the soundstage practicing my wiggle. There were three or four men gathered around a truck, and I remember seeing that they were watching me come and feeling that they were watching me go—and for the very first time I glimpsed some idea of the pleasure I could take in that kind of attention; not their pleasure but my pleasure. And I thought, Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that when she walked down the beach.”

On the paparazzi, and her daughter: “That’s what seems the most rotten thing about it to me,” she says. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to make her feel safe and protected, and to extend her childhood for as long as possible.”

On Heath‘s death: “Three years ago, it felt like we didn’t have anything, and now my life—our life—has kind of repaired itself… Look, it’s not a perfectly operating system—there are holes and dips and electrical storms—but the basics are intact.” Still, she says, in a fundamental way nothing will ever be the same: “It’s changed how I see the world and how I interact on a daily basis. It’s changed the parent I am. It’s changed the friend I am. It’s changed the kind of work that I really want to do. It’s become the lens through which I see life—that it’s all impermanent.” Williams shuts her eyes, then opens them again and says, “For a really long time, I couldn’t stop touching people’s faces. I was like, ‘Look at you! You move! You’re here!’ It all just seemed so fleeting, and I wanted to hold on to it.”

Her love life: Williams speculates that she may be drawn to stories about the vicissitudes of romantic love because “relationships have always seemed very mysterious, and therefore worth exploring. I’m single, so it’s still kind of a mystery—a worthwhile mystery, one that I want to be on the scent of.” She confesses that she misses having a guy around when it’s time to haul wood at her house upstate. But, unlike Monroe, she doesn’t define herself through the men in her life: “I’m not lonely, and I think that has a lot to do with what’s on my bedside table rather than what’s in my bed.”

[From Vogue]

Yeah, I don’t even believe she’s single. I think she’s dating Cary Fukunaga, the director of the latest version of Jane Eyre. I just think she doesn’t want to talk about who she’s dating, which… I kind of wish she would just say, “I don’t want to talk about it” rather than lying. We’re not going to hold it against her if she’s dating, for the love of God.

Photos courtesy of Vogue.

I think I saw something about this last week, and I was going to write about it and then I… forgot? Michelle Williams aims to be rather boring and uncontroversial, so it’s not like we have to talk about it every time she has a date. Especially when she generally dates nice-ish guys with little to no drama. Take her on-again/off-again relationship with Spike Jonze – it could have very easily been a “controversy” but it just wasn’t. They were together. They got pap’d sometimes. His ex-wife never said anything and everybody wished them well. I figured it would be the same for Michelle and her new boyfriend too. His name is Cary Fukunaga, and he’s a director. He was responsible for putting my lover Michael Fassbender in the role of Mr. Rochester, so Cary is ALL GOOD in my book. He’s Swedish and Japanese, and he’s really tall. And he’s pretty hot too.

So, why am I writing about them now? Well, the Enquirer has a weird little story about why Michelle is hoping this relationship works out. Something about Sweden.

Three years after his overdose death, Heath Ledger’s former girlfriend Michelle Williams has found new love with a guy who she believes can help her finally move past the tragesy. Michelle has been spotted out with Swedish-Japanese director Cary Fukunaga, 33. And sources tell the Enquirer that the two have forged an unbreakable bond because of his Swedish roots.

So how does it involve Heath? Michelle was in Sweden filming Mammoth when she got the shocking news of his accidental drug overdose in January 2008.

“Heath’s death changed Michelle’s life forever and she will never forget where she was at that moment when she got the news,” revealed a close source. Michelle is convinced that Cary, the director of Jane Eyre, is a lucky omen for her, divulged the insider.

“She is a very spiritual person and believes that dating a Swedish guy brings her full circle and gives her closure. Michelle has high hopes that Cary could be the one to help her move past Heath. She fears losing another guy to drugs. She’s so happy that Cary loves life and doesn’t need drugs or other substances.

Perhaps the biggest factor in the relationship is Matilda Rose, her 5-year-old daughter, who Michelle hopes will bond with Cary. Added the insider: “What Michelle wants more than anything is a happy like for Matilda.”

[From The Enquirer, print edition]

It feels like the Enquirer was just stretching for some kind of connection between these two. Enquirer Writer #1: “He’s Swedish. Was Michelle ever in Sweden?” Enquirer Writer #2: “YES! Go with that.” I think Michelle is part or half Swedish too, incidentally. I’m surprised they didn’t mention that.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News & WENN.

Michelle Williams covers the May issue of Interview Magazine, and these are some of the photos from the shoot… the full pictorial is here, with the full online interview cover story excerpt. Can I just say? I want to like Michelle, but I’m not now and I have never been the kind of woman who appreciates wispy, girly, fragile-seeming women. They grate on my nerves, honestly. I want them to stop talking in their baby voice, stand up straight, eat something with substance and burn every article of clothing with a Peter Pan collar and/or lace paneling. That’s what I want for Michelle… I want her to be or seem stronger, more substantial as a person, less delicate.

So… back to the photo shoot. How else are you going to photograph her? Pale blues, whites, every photo looking like it might break. It gets boring. Michelle is promoting her new film, Meek’s Cutoff, a movie about “three couples in 1845 who, while traveling through the Oregon desert by covered wagon, begin to suspect that their guide, Stephen Meek, has led them astray.” Here are some highlights from the interview:

VENDELA VIDA: I know you were born in Montana, but are you of Scandinavian descent?
MICHELLE WILLIAMS: I’m Norwegian.

VIDA: I thought so, because Ingrid is your middle name and your mom has a Scandinavian-sounding maiden name: Swenson. Did you ever hear Norwegian in the household, or did you ever go back to Norway?
WILLIAMS: No, I’ve never been, and my mom didn’t speak it. We made a lot of lefsa, a Norwegian dessert, to compensate. I was talking to my grandma on the phone maybe a month ago, and she said, “Did you ever hear this story about Inge? Inge Jacobin?” I said, “No, but it’s a great name, Inge Jacobin. Tell me about Inge Jacobin.” Inge Jacobin would be my great, great grandmother, I think, and she was a stowaway. At 15 years old, she got on a boat from Norway, made it to Ellis Island, and then hopped on a covered wagon, and that’s how they got to Montana. I found that out after I made Meek’s.

Living on her own at the age of 15: “It gave me so much comfort. Why did I have that urge? I think it was Inge Jacobin’s bones kicking around in me… I went to L.A. At that point my family was living in San Diego, so it wasn’t as big an undertaking as Inge Jacobin’s. I hopped around from crappy apartment complex to crappy apartment complex in the Los Angeles area.”

On making a home: “I had always been kind of obsessed with making a home of my own and was always drawing rooms that I wanted to live in, down to pictures on the wall and the faces that would be in the photographs, and how the couches would be situated. I just remember moving furniture around a lot. I remember that the tool included with the Ikea furniture promised to assemble everything but didn’t. It was all light wood, by the way. Norwegian looking, the sales guy told me. I sat in frustration with a lot of cardboard boxes around me, eating Clif bars for dinner because I couldn’t cook. I was making house, but at night, because no one was there telling me to go to bed. I still have a hard time giving up on the day and admitting exhaustion.”

Working with Meek’s Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt for the second time: “You know the safety you feel when a man asks you to marry him? It felt like she doesn’t just want to date me. She wants to marry me.”

On the 19th century costumes, and peeing in public: “The dresses . . . I miss that. The only part of your body left exposed to the sun were your hands. My hands have aged at a rate disproportionate to the rest of my body because of being out there in the hot sun for two months. You couldn’t keep sunscreen on your hands; you were just sort of filthy all the time. But the dresses, they were ingenious for so many reasons. They actually do keep you quite cool, because they’re cotton, and they also provide cover. Privacy is important to women, and when you’re on the trail like that, so little is afforded. But with the dress, you can actually go to the bathroom in private. It provides an incredible shield. You could literally be in a conversation with somebody and just sort of drop down . . . I can’t believe I’m talking about this. I read once that when James Dean was feeling inhibited on set, he went off into a corner and urinated. I thought, How interesting! Then having that experience of peeing in private underneath the dress . . . [laughs] At first I was really scared. You’re out there in the desert all day. I mean, what are you going to do when you’re a girl? It’s hard. We were scared about snakes and all these creatures and critters, and it finally just became this weird joy to be out there, just stuck behind the bush . . . I can’t believe I’m still talking about this.”

Working with the camera: “One of the best things—and something I’m grateful for every time I walk onto a film set—is my six and a half years on Dawson’s Creek and the experience it afforded me in how to get comfortable with the camera. Best acting classes I ever took.”

[From Interview]

There’s a lot more in the piece at Interview – Michelle talks at length about Blue Valentine, which I still haven’t seen. Michelle talking about dreams and stories and stuff. In this interview, she sounded pretty substantial, so I’ll have to give her credit for that. Her words contradict the wispy vibe I get from her in photos and television interviews.

Oh, it’s great that she remembers her Dawson’s Creek roots! REPRESENT.

Photos courtesy of Interview.

Back in the day, Michelle Williams and director Spike Jonze were an item. This would have been… circa 2008-09. I think they got together in the summer or 2008, and they had split by the fall of 2009. By some accounts, the relationship was pretty serious, and Michelle allowed Spike to spend time with Matilda, and Michelle and Spike even discussed marriage (he was already divorced from Sofia Coppola). What I always found kind of strange about their relationship is that Michelle never made any kind of reference to this year-long affair publicly. I mean, if she wants to keep her dating life private, God bless, but in interview after interview, she continued to put herself out there like The Widow Ledger, which seemed… odd, considering she was in a serious relationship with another man.

Anyway, Michelle and Spike split a year and a half ago and Michelle still never really made a reference to it. I figured it was a amicable split, and hoped they were still friends. The Mail reports this morning that they broke up in 2009 because Spike dumped her, and now he’s trying to win her back:

Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams is poised to rekindle her romance with film director Spike Jonze – 18 months after she was left heartbroken when they split.

Spike invited Michelle to see electro band LCD Soundsystem in New York earlier this month in a bid to woo her back.

But actress Michelle, who has a five-year-old daughter Matilda by late Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger, wants to take things slowly.

‘Spike realises he made a huge mistake leaving Michelle and he desperately wants her back,’ says a source.

‘They are making a tentative go of their relationship again but Michelle is nervous. Spike broke her heart the first time around.

‘He’s promised that he’s a changed man who is ready for commitment, but Michelle has told him to prove himself before she can trust him again.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I really hope this is true, because despite some stories that I’ve heard about Spike, I think he seems like a nice guy, and I think he was probably really good for Michelle. She’s a strange one, though. I doubt that in real life, she’s anything like the persona she’s created in public. Still… I remember when Spike wandered around looking like a dirty hipster. Nowadays he’s looking rather clean and pretty. Let’s hope this story is true!

Archive photos of Spike & Michelle courtesy of Bauer-Griffin & Pacific Coast News. Additional photos courtesy of WENN.

Michelle Williams was hands-down one of the best dressed women on the Oscar red carpet. This white-silver Chanel was exquisite. After the Golden Globes debacle where she wore that daisy-and-seashell Valentino, Michelle needed a fashion win. The Chanel fits Michelle beautifully, it was glamorous and exciting, and Michelle added so much to the dress with her platinum pixie and her perfect makeup. Michelle was a trooper too – you could tell that the beading on the dress was super-heavy, but Michelle walked in that thing like a champ. Anything for fashion, bitches! My only complaint is that Michelle kind of ruined it with her mouth. Something funky was happening with her mouth during her red carpet interviews – she was talking in that little-girl voice that she sometimes pulls, and she even had a very “affected” lisp. I wondered if she had gotten something done to her lips or mouth, honestly, and I swear it looked like she had some lip herpe or something for a moment.

Another thing I loved: Michelle’s date. Her date was her BFF Busy Phillips. Old-school Dawson’s Creek in the hizzy! I don’t know who did Busy’s dress, but it’s nice too. I so love that Michelle brought a girlfriend as a date. That’s adorable, in my opinion. And you know Busy is probably a great Oscar date too!

Photos courtesy of WENN.