Julie Delpy is up against Amy Adams, Greta Gerwig, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Meryl Streep for Best Actress in a Comedy at this Sunday’s 2014 Golden Globe Awards and Frenchflicks is rooting for the French nominee to win for her flawless performance in Before Midnight, the third film in the romantic whirlwind that is Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. Here’s why!

She’s hilarious:

What’s unique about the Before series—a European-set Franco-American love story between Céline (Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke)—is its effortless ability to genre-blend, finding the perfect sweet spot between comedy, drama, and romance. In between the relationship squabbles, the tension-breaking jokes and jabs are like a breath of fresh air. As Céline’s personality verges on the cynical and edgy, Delpy does not shy away from dark humor—within the first ten minutes of the movie, she’s making cracks about cat-killing and bulimic kids. The character’s jealous side is also very often a source of humor. For instance, Delpy does a spot-on impression of an American bimbo when mocking Jesse’s assumed immature preference in type of women. Not even the heroic Jean of Arc is safe from Céline’s sarcasm, summing up her unenviable fate as a girl who burned at the stake and died a virgin. Best of all, Delpy manages to take the edge off of the film’s climactic heated hotel fight scene, by comfortably firing off feminist arguments while topless.

She co-wrote the series:

From the start, the trilogy was very much a collaborative effort between Delpy, Hawke, and Linklater. For each project, the three reportedly locked themselves in a room for weeks to hammer out the film’s outline and write the screenplay. Thanks to Delpy’s input, the films are able to sustain a very strong female point of view.

She performed under unfavorable conditions:

The creating of most indie films lacks all of the Hollywood glitz and glam of a big budget studio blockbuster, and the Before series is no exception. With a modest budget of roughly 3 million bucks and two short weeks to shoot, the process was extremely intense. Adding to the stress factor was the script’s notoriously long takes jam-packed with dialogue and little to no action. The car scene, for example, is a single 14-minute shot that required two days of their schedule to nail perfectly. Not only is the script verbose, it is securely locked down once the writing stage is finished, meaning no room for improvising during filming. On top of all this, Delpy is performing in her second language. The entire process is so draining, the actress has joked that everyone involved needs the nine-year gap between films just to recover!

Sophie Weiner