LOS ANGELES — Counting her latest work in “Equalizer 2,” Melissa Leo has more than 130 TV and film credits dating back to the mid-’80s. Along the way, she’s picked up an Oscar and Golden Globe for her work in “The Fighter,” plus another Oscar nomination for “Frozen River,” three Primetime Emmy nominations (with one win) and a list of other honors that is too long to print.
Despite all the work and attention from her peers, Leo knows it’s not as easy to put a face to her name as with other actors. She’s even had to explain to a few journalists they have seen her in a lot of projects.
Leo’s career is a cornucopia of roles that are often miles different from her last work. In “Equalizer 2” she plays a determined and efficient government official who is a close friend to Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), the man who equalizes the world when the helpless need a friend. She’s also starring in the Showtime series “I’m Dying Up Here,” where she plays a comedy club owner in the ’70s.
“A variety of work is what interests me in acting,” Leo said. “Because I am a female, I have so many more ways in which to disguise and change myself from my breast size to my hair color to the kind and amount of makeup I wear.
“These are very obvious character choices that can make a huge difference, and I like to play with those things. I love to play with those things. I don’t mean to pick and choose such different roles, but it is my pleasure.”
Her mission has always been to stay true to the actor she has been all her life, and that means being able to slip in and out of different looks. Leo is happy she’s been able to land so many roles, but at the same time she’s convinced she has been passed over for even more work because she’s not well known.
“Equalizer 2” director Antoine Fuqua is one of the few directors who has hired Leo for more than one project.
“I think others begin to see me as the character I am playing for them. So when they are doing a different thing, they don’t think of me,” Leo said. “It’s all part of the job and really a compliment in the long run.”
Because she’s so invested in creating every role, working with Fuqua is perfect for Leo because the director is open to his actors’ ideas. Even when he was involved with staging a major action sequence, like the final showdown in “Equalizer 2” that takes place during a hurricane, he made certain Leo got time with those who could answer her questions.
Along with the two “Equalizer” movies, Leo and Fuqua worked together on the 2013 release “Olympus Has Fallen.” That film, where Leo played the secretary of defense, gave her a chance to be more physical than usual. Fuqua puts her through some challenging moments in “Equalizer 2.”
“It was a delight for me to get to play the physical moments,” Leo said. “I have done a little stage fighting over the years, but I am not an action picture star. I have done very little of it.
“I was concerned about doing the action scenes because I had been in a car accident seven months earlier and had a shoulder injury. It was getting better, but I was very concerned that I would be insufficient in the fight. I worked with a body worker and through yoga that I do to make sure the shoulder was well enough that I could do whatever he asked of me in that sequence.”
One of the first times Leo got to be physical with an acting role was when she played a ballerina in the original “Equalizer” TV series from the mid-’80s. Leo said the biggest lesson she learned from being on the TV series was how important it is for an actor to ask questions.
“It’s an actor’s job to ask the questions,” Leo said.
