Frances McDormand is nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." Here she is with Bill Pullman in "Crazy in Love," the first movie made from one of my novels.  She played Clare, giving the character an edge that made the secret she was keeping all the more shocking.  When Martha Coolidge (our great director) shot at the Bremerton Naval Hospital, Frances and I both gravitated to the WWII vets who were patients there. One of them gave her a hat from the ship he'd been on, and she wore it for the rest of the shoot. (The Coen brothers—her husband Joel and Ethan were with her, adding to my surreal thrill-factor.) Here is the great cast—Bill Pullman, Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands, Julian Sands, and Frances. (Seriously, can you imagine?) So I will definitely be watching the Oscars tonight--fingers crossed for Frances (not that she needs it.)