by Abe Fried-Tanzer
A good number of pundits agree that Thomasin McKenzie has an outside shot at scoring a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance as a teenage girl living on the outskirts of civilization with her father in the critically-acclaimed Leave No Trace. I’d like to posit a different theory – that she may end up as a surprise nominee for Best Actress.
Now, I don’t think this is likely, but I’d be ecstatic if it happened. Nathaniel is very big on calling out category fraud when he sees it, and there’s more than enough of that to go around this year. It’s actually just as puzzling to see McKenzie called a supporting actress as it is to see her costar Ben Foster classified as a supporting actor. They’re both leads, sharing screen time and the focus of the narrative...
The Best Actress competition this year seems to have four safe contenders, with Melissa McCarthy solidifying her chances after a rough start earlier this awards season to join Olivia Colman, Lady Gaga, and Glenn Close. For the fifth slot, it’s anybody’s guess. Emily Blunt might seem strongest, but what about Toni Collette, Nicole Kidman, Elsie Fisher, or Yalitza Aparicio? They will all garner votes but how many?
We know McKenzie’s performance is respected. She’s been nominated already for breakthrough prizes and in youth performance categories. She’s contending as a supporting actress at the Independent Spirit Awards and with other groups. A few bodies – the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, the Dublin Film Critics Circle, and the Seattle International Film Festival – have classified her as a lead actress where she belongs.
When I saw the film at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and McKenzie walked out on stage with the cast and crew, I did not expect her to share that she was from New Zealand. The 18-year-old Wellington native puts on an impeccable American accent, and like Damian Lewis when he accepted the Emmy for Homeland back in 2012, she seemed to know that most watching her wouldn’t be aware that she hailed from somewhere other than the United States.
Thirteen years ago, Keisha Castle-Hughes, star of Whale Rider, a drama about native Maori culture in New Zealand, earned a SAG nomination for Best Supporting Actress after a similar trajectory of breakthrough prizes. When the Oscar slate was announced, hers was among the names called for Best Actress, an impressive promotion (to the category in which she always belonged) for the-then-13-year-old actress.
That 2003 Oscar season had the distinction of delivering one of the most unexpected lineups before crowning the most predictable winners in many years. It’s worth noting that the Best Actress list only preserved two of ten (!) Golden Globe nominees and three out of five of SAG’S choices, while Blunt and the four frontrunning nominees this year have all been cited by the Globes, SAG, and the BFCA, indicating considerably more accord.
That said, Leave No Trace is quietly building momentum, something that Whale Rider never did aside from Castle-Hughes’ performance. Both films come from female directors, and Debra Granik seems like the woman with the strongest shot to crack the Best Director field at this point.
McKenzie would definitely be classified as a dark horse for a nomination of any kind, but the last time a young actress from New Zealand had some degree of awards buzz, she ended up becoming the youngest-ever Best Actress nominee (until Quvenzhané Wallis was nominated in 2012). Statistics don’t mean everything, but history might repeat itself, and any Oscar voters looking for a truly standout lead performance should look no further than McKenzie.
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