THB #595: 23Wks2Oscar - Part 2: Acting
This is always an interesting time of year for predicting acting nominations, made all the more interesting because of the oddities I went into yesterday.
We have the releases before the end of August, the festival reactions, and a lot of key movies that have not been seen at all… yet. The thing about the acting slots is that they are much more dynamic that the Best Picture contenders. You can have an Oscar-winning performance in a bad movie. The “rules” that limit genre access to Best Picture can evaporate when it comes to a great performance. Really, you can push an Oscar nomination in acting with a few great clips and only half of the voters actually having seen the. movie. Acting nominations are more susceptible to campaigns that emphasize things other than the performance itself… like being an important statement or an “It’s time” push for a loved but unrewarded actor.
Two of the big footprint movies on the way, still unseen, are Gladiator II and A Complete Unknown. So, Timothee and Denzel and, I think, Paul Mescal, are the very easy calls. But even there… is Denzel the lead or is Mescal the lead?
But it gets a lot more complicated than that. Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Connie Nielsen, Derek Jacobi, and even little known Fred Hechinger threaten to be a highlight in the film that may become the “one that needs to get nominated.” This is the kind of thing that becomes very clear in a hurry… one screening can do it.
On A Complete Unknown, is Elle Fanning a female lead or a supporting actress? Edward Norton, Scoot McNairy, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Charlie Tahan, Laura Kariuki, and Michael Chernus all play music legends. Does Norton have “the great role” or is it one of the others… or none of the others?
On top of all that, even with some of the movies we have seen, there are all kinds f machinations that change the game. Netflix is committed to their slotting on Emilia Pérez. It seems likely, any way you cut it, that they can get a Lead and a Supporting nod… but can they land the 3rd actress? And are they undercutting their likelihood of winning either Lead or Supporting by slotting the way they are? How about Tilda and Julianne in the Almodóvar film… both leads? Sony Classics will campaign it as they choose… but audiences will have something to say about it. Will Denzel actually go Supporting? Which actress is the lead in the ensemble of His Three Daughters? I would say Carrie Coon… some would say Natasha Lyonne.
And then there are the vagaries that have nothing to do with the performances. Will the actor/actress campaign? A little? At all? What competition is there within the same distributor, favoring one performance that seems more “gettable” than another? Will some seem too hungry? Or not humble enough? Will there be an actor or actress who everyone just likes more than anyone else?
As I mentioned about Best Picture yesterday, there really is no Acting turn that gives me… or seemingly almost anyone… that “that one is a lock” feeling that I had last year when I saw Da'Vine Joy Randolph’s turn in The Holdovers or Oppenheimer in whole, though I had months of waiting for the rest of the field to be completely sure on Oppenheimer. Looking back further, I am actually a little surprised how rare that feeling has been for me. I called Green Book the minute I saw it… wasn’t my favorite film, but I could feel it, in the film and in the room. Flip side, I felt it on 1917 and ended up being wrong.
So on to it…
I will mark performances (*) that might still end up with a switched category.
BEST ACTOR
Obviously, there will be more than one nominee. But it is hard to imagine at this juncture that Chalamet is not the only real acting frontrunner to be nominated and to win. Haven’t seen the movie. But if he doesn’t fail - which I do not expect at all - he seems almost guaranteed to win. It’s an odd comparison, but it’s a bit like Joaquin Phoenix and the first Joker turn. There was/is nothing else in the field that seems to be challenging in all the ways this role is challenging.
The second group is today’s best guess at the rest of the category… but as of this writing, I have seen none of those 4 performances.
The third group holds 4 great actors who seem just a step behind in the likelihood of a nomination.
BEST ACTOR
Timothée Chalamet - A Complete Unknown
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