Tatiana S. Riegel has done a fantastic job on the film, ‘I, Tonya’. Read more about the film editor, her net worth and other interesting facts.
Who is Tatiana S. Riegel?
Tatiana S. Riegel is a famous American film editor, who shot to fame with her independent films like ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, ‘The Way Way Back’ and ‘I, Tonya’. Riegel received an ACE Eddie award for “Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Non-Commercial Television”. Tatiana S. Riegel had assisted late editor Sally Menke for a long time. Sally Menke was the editor of seven films directed by Quentin Tarantino. Riegel has a younger half-sibling, actress Eden Riegel and screenwriter/voice-actor Sam Riegel. The Riegel family has been in the acting industry since decades and they have produced more than a dozen ‘webisodes’ for the very popular Internet series of 2008, ‘Imaginary Bitches’. Riegel became a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2014. Tatiana S. Riegel edited the movie, ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ released in 2009. ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ was a 2009 British-American war parody comedy film directed by Grant Heslov. In 2014, she edited the film, ‘Million Dollar Arm’. The film, ‘Million Dollar Arm’ was about a sports agent who stages an unconventional recruitment strategy to get talented Indian cricket players to play Major League Baseball.
Awards and nominations
Tatiana S. Riegel has won many awards during her career as an editor. She won the ACE Eddie Award “Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Non-Commercial Television” for ‘Pu-239’ in 2006. Riegel also won an award for the movie, ‘There Will Be Blood’ in 2007. She was the Second editor – *Part of team nominated for Academy Award* – “Best Editing”, film was also nominated for ACE Eddie “Best Editing”, and for “Best Picture” of the year. She won American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy or Musical for the film, ‘I, Tonya’ in 2017. She has been nominated for the Oscar 2018 for the same film in the similar category.
Net worth of the film editor
The net worth of Tatiana S. Riegel is $1.3 million.
In an interview with the editor of the film, ‘I, Tonya’.
When Riegel was handed the filmed scripts, she assembled the myriad of puzzle pieces beautifully into a touching story of the Ice Skater Tonya Harding. An interview with her was taken just before she was a few days away from her Academy Award nomination. At that time, Tatiana S. Riegel had no idea that she was nominated for an Oscar 2018 for her film, ‘I, Tonya’. She was infact, more consumed with the realization that she may never get another opportunity to work with a unique and complex film as this one again. She said, “I have to say, I’m a little bit worried that films I work on in the future won’t be as much fun as this one was, or as challenging.” The script of the movie was very challenging. It adopted an unorthodox structure and method of storytelling of the rise and fall of the figure-skater, Tonya Harding. The story had made headlines in 1994, when allegations of an assault plot against her Olympic rival, Nancy Kerrigan, were made against Tonya Harding. Although many documentaries and films were made after this infamous incident, the movie, ‘I, Tonya’, delves deeper into the psyche of Tonya and her strange relationship with her mom. The movie does not make any definite statements whether Tonya knew in advance about the assault plot or not. Her estranged husband and his associates were charged for their plot of disabling Nancy Kerrigan but whether or not Tonya was involved in the plot or not was not attempted to be shown in the movie. Later on, Tonya had admitted about having found out about the plot and not saying anything after that. She still denies her involvement in planning the attack. Riegel pointed out during the interview, “the story is told from the perspective of the real Tonya Harding and [ex-husband] Jeff Gillooly, both of whom were interviewed by the writer [Steven Rogers]. But they had wildly contradictory points of view about what happened. So that was the take that we took in how to present the story. That is the unique thing about this [real-life] story — we will never know [the exact truth].” The movie has an amazing live-action footage, visual effects and stunt shots in order to recreate the famous skating scenes, on-camera interviews and archival footage. She added, “We had three [main] elements—on-camera interviews, voiceovers, and breaking the fourth wall [in terms of characters giving POVs],” In the script, that dialogue was all written for on-camera. For editing, that sort of became the delicate dance of how to use [those elements] and when. So it was a question of trying different things. It became a question of planning all that out: what do you want to see versus what do you need to see, and what works best with the [corresponding] imagery.” At the end of the day, Riegel feels “this was a fascinating way of telling the story because of the characters. For me, the primary thing is always emotion and character. This is a really tragic story, filled with tremendous emotion, and I think no one will walk out of this movie feeling the same way about [Harding] as they did when they walked in. I love that part of it.”
Tatiana S. Riegel has a unique way of putting a movie together that imparts a flawless and natural look to the script. She should definitely get more films like ‘I, Tonya’ as she certainly is a very talented film editor.
