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Julie Christie received a Best Actress Oscar Nomination in 2008 for her role as "Fiona Anderson" in the movie "Away From Her."

This is Julie Christie's fourth Academy Award nomination in the Best Actress category.

Her other nominations were for Darling (1965), for which she won an Oscar, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and Afterglow (1997).

Arguably the most genuinely glamorous, and one of the most intelligent, of all British stars, Julie Christie brought a gust of new, sensual life into British cinema when she swung insouciantly down a drab northern street in John Schlesinger's Billy Liar (1963).

The appeal of "Away From Her" lies in the casting as much as in the story. Oscar-winning actresses Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis were joined by Gordon Pinsent and Michael Murphy, both award-winning actors in their own right. Says Weiss, "Having actors who we are all familiar with is crucial to the story because we have to feel connected with them from the beginning."

Julie Christie was the first, and only, person to be considered for Fiona Anderson, the charming, vulnerable woman who is described in Munro’s story as "ethereal, light and sly."

"Julie is captivating, magnetic and stunningly beautiful," says Polley. "She has the sharpest mind and this piercing gaze into other people. She’s full of life and wonder and curiosity, and it’s impossible not to fall in love with her. But you’re always chasing her because she’s with you one second and not the next – and that was exactly my experience with the character of Fiona in the short story."

"Julie surpassed all of our expectations," avows Urdl. "Fiona has to be vibrant and with it, and then you have to see her deterioration. Julie has the ability to do that without appearing forced. She is so present and yet there is something ephemeral about her."

About "Away From Her"

"Away From Her" is the lyrical screenplay adaptation of celebrated author Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." A beautifully moving love story that deals with memory and the circuitous, unnamable paths of a long marriage.

Married for almost 50 years, Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona's (Julie Christie) commitment to each other appears unwavering, and their everyday life is full of tenderness and humor. This serenity is broken only by the occasional, carefully restrained reference to the past, giving a sense that this marriage may not always have been such a fairy tale.

This tendency of Fiona's to make such references, along with her increasingly evident memory loss, creates a tension that is usually brushed off casually by both of them. As the lapses become more obvious and dramatic, it is no longer possible for either of them to ignore the fact that Fiona is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

About Julie Christie

Trained for the stage at Central School, after an Indian childhood and English education, she first became known as the artificially created girl in TV's "A for Andromeda" (1961), before making her cinema debut in 1962 in two amusing, lightweight comedies directed by Ken Annakin, CROOKS ANONYMOUS and THE FAST LADY. She then went on to perform in seasons at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Schlesinger cast her as the silly, superficial, morally threadbare DIANA OF DARLING (1965), for which she won the Oscar, the British Academy Award and New York Critics' award, and which is now powerfully resonant of its period, and again as Thomas Hardy's willful Bathsheba, in FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967), with other 60s icons, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates. Her Lara intermittently illuminates David Lean's DR. ZHIVAGO (UK/US, 1965) and the color cameras adored her.

Notwithstanding her beauty, she continued to make the running as a serious actress in demanding films such as Joseph Losey's THE GO-BETWEEN (1971), as the bored upper-class woman who ruins a boy's life by involving him in her sexual duplicities; Nicolas Roeg's DON’T LOOK NOW (UK/Italy, 1973), with its famously erotic love scenes between Christie and Donald Sutherland; she then appeared in Uncle Vanya on Broadway directed by Mike Nicholls and in three US films with Warren Beatty: Robert Altman's MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), as a tough Cockney madame out west, (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award) SHAMPOO (1975) and HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978).

She was greatly in demand, but became much more choosy about her roles as her own political awareness increased. This means that some of her later films – MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR (d. David Gladwell, 1980) and the documentary THE ANIMALS FILM (d. Victor Schonfeld, 1981),

THE GOLD DIGGERS (1984), Sally Potter's feminist take on several Hollywood genres - were seen by comparatively few people.

However, the talent and the beauty remained undimmed in such British films as RETURN OF THE SOLDIER (d. Alan Bridges, 1982), Kenneth Branagh's HAMLET (UK/US, 1996) as Gertrude, and, in the US, AFTERGLOW (d. Alan Rudolph, 1997), for which she was Oscarnominated. In 1995, she returned to the stage in a revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times directed by Lindy Davies to laudatory reviews.

Best Actress Academy Award Nominations

Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose
80th Academy Awards 2008 Oscar Best Actress Winner

"Thank you life, thank you love, and it is true, there is some angels in this city." -- Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard won the 2008 Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the singer Edith Piaf in the film La Vie En Rose.

This is Marion Cotillard's first Oscar and first Academy Award nomination.

Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
80th Academy Awards - 2008 Oscar Best Actress Nomination

Cate Blanchett's fifth nomination and the second in this category. Cate was also nominated for her leading role in Elizabeth (1998). Her supporting role nominations were for The Aviator (2004), for which she won the Oscar, and Notes on a Scandal (2006). She is also nominated this year in the supporting category for I’m Not There.

Julie Christie as "Fiona Anderson" in Away from Her
80th Academy Awards - 2008 Oscar Best Actress Nomination

Julie Christie's fourth nomination in this category. Her other nominations were for Darling (1965), for which she won an Oscar, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and Afterglow (1997).

Laura Linney as Wendy Savage in The Savages
80th Academy Awards - 2008 Oscar Best Actress Nomination

Laura Linney's third nomination and the second in this category. Laura was nominated for her leading role in You Can Count on Me (2000) and her supporting role in Kinsey (2004).

Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff in Juno
80th Academy Awards - 2008 Oscar Best Actress Nomination

Ellen Page's first Academy Award nomination.

80th Academy Awards 2008 Best Picture Oscar Nominees

"No Country For Old Men" is a mesmerizing thriller from Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the acclaimed novel by Pulitzer Prize winning American master, Cormac McCarthy.

The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones.

Juno
2008 Oscar Best Picture Nominee

"Can’t we just kick it old school? I could just put the baby in a basket and send it your way. You know, like Moses in the reeds."

Meet Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) – a confidently frank teenage girl who calls the shots with a nonchalant cool and an effortless attitude as she journeys through an emotional nine-month adventure into adulthood. Quick witted and distinctively unique, Juno walks Dancing Elk High's halls to her own tune - preferably anything by The Stooges - but underneath her tough no nonsense exterior is just a teenage girl trying to figure it all out.

Michael Clayton
2008 Oscar Best Picture Nominee

"Michael Clayton" Garnered nominations for best picture, best director, best actor, best supporting actor best supporting actress and best original screenplay

George Clooney stars in the title role of Michael Clayton, a "fixer" at Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, a top Manhattan law firm.

A former criminal prosecutor from a working-class neighborhood, Clayton is an anomaly at the white-shoe firm; in spite of his 15-year tenure, he has not been promoted to partner and probably never will be.

His boss, Marty Bach, sees Clayton as an invaluable asset to the firm, but only in his "niche," one that is relegated to cleaning up the firm’s sticky situations quickly and quietly.

There Will Be Blood
2008 Oscar Best Picture Nominee

"There Will Be Blood" Received nominations for best picture, best director and best actor.

A sprawling epic about family, faith, power and oil, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is set on the radical frontier of California’s turn-of-the-century petroleum boom.

The story chronicles the rise of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon.

80th Academy Awards 2008 Oscar Winners

Best Picture

Best Actor

Best Actress

No Country wins Best Picture, Best Director. Daniel Day-Lewis wins best actor for his role in "There Will Be Blood". Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton Win Supporting Role Academy Awards, Ratatouille awarded Oscar for Best Animation Feature