Oscar Volley: Best Supporting Actress Isn't Supporting Anything
Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 8:54AM The Oscar Volleys, in which various TFE members discuss specific categories, begin... now
Rossellini & Gomez are two of only five actual supporting actresses who MIGHT show up in the five-wide Supporting category... if they can get around about seven or eight leading ladies!
BABY CLYDE: The Academy can be a stuffy and old fashioned institution. Adverse to change and reluctant to move with the times, it’s taken decades of pressure to finally get a casting prize added. The poor stunt performers are still without a statue in their honor, so it’s come as a great surprise that a new award has been instituted this year a without any prior announcement or fanfare at all.
They’ve done away with Best Supporting Actress and introduced the ‘Best Lead Actress in a ‘Supporting’ Role’ category. To secure spots for all of those poor unappreciated A List, millionaire, billed above the title, Leading Lady Stars, they’ve been given their very own spill over category. This will ensure the ceremony has as many big names as possible and isn’t encumbered by character actors, theatre performers or anyone over the age of 50 that Tik Tokers won’t recognize...
It’s a brave yet necessary move. I mean god forbid Zoe Saldana or Ariana Grande should have to compete against their own co-stars. It’s an outrageous proposition. Next thing you’ll be asking them to drive their car into the Grand Canyon.
The only real question is whether selfish bit players from the likes of Isabella Rossellini or Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor will spoil the party? If they’d been awards worthy they surely would have been given more lines in the first place!!!
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in THE NICKEL BOYS
How are you feeling about this long overdue innovation, Eurocheese? Do you think it’s a Turning Point in Academy history or are you upset and chagrined by the studio’s greed and corruption???
EUROCHEESE: Fraud in award show placement? Say it ain't so! I have little doubt that we will be seeing four lead performances take the four acting trophies this year. It's not a commentary on the quality of the performances - Ariana Grande gave one of the best performances of the year, in my humble opinion - but it does lead to questioning how these decisions are being made. I have heard people say Ellis-Taylor and Rossellini have too little screen time to win... which of course means they are *actually* Supporting Actresses. Sigh.
All that being said, this is a surprisingly fluid category still when it comes to the five slots. I am confident in Grande and Saldana's chances. Another "Supporting" leading lady performance comes from Danielle Deadwyler, who is certainly in the mix, but her Globe miss for The Piano Lesson definitely stings. We also have co-lead in Margaret Qualley, the first will-they-or-won't-they indicator on The Substance's chances when Oscar nominations are read out on January 17th. Throw Natasha Lyonne's moving His Three Daughters performance in and it could be an all leading lady "Supporting" line up!
I feel increasingly confident about Rossellini in particular, though. The Conclave love is strong, and the Academy may jump at the chance to extend her a career-first nomination. Nepo baby power! (Excellent work from her though.)
I'm not sure where the Academy will land on Nickel Boys, though it has done well enough with precursors that I expect it to receive some love. Ellis-Taylor's scenes are my favorites in the film, so if they put the screener in, she could easily steal their hearts. Another "did they watch the film?" contender will be Felicity Jones in The Brutalist. Her reception has been weirdly muted in some corners (including Critics Choice), which begs the question of whether the voters watched (or maybe didn't love) the second half of the film.
Which combination of fraudsters, former nominees ,and icons do you see here? Are there any genuine character actresses in supporting roles that might sneak in?
BABY CLYDE: And that right there is the problem. So overwhelming is the attention garnered by fraudulent placement true Supporting players aren’t even being discussed! Every article or post about this category inevitably leads with the attention-grabbing names of Grande and Saldana. Publications need the clicks so don’t question the integrity of their inclusion, therefore legitimising this practice. You’d think the critics groups would come to the rescue but with awards already given to the likes of other leading ladies Deadwyler, Grande, Carole Kane they are clearly no more concerned than the disingenuous studios or craven publications. It’s hard to come up with alternatives because no one has been paying them any attention.
Joan Chen in DIDI © Focus Features. (Who was a strong contender until the leading ladies migrated to this category)
Obviously, Selena Gomez is still in the running but would be more so if her co-star wasn’t content to steal her place. Most appallingly the other star and Cannes award winner from Emilia Perez, Adriana Paz has been entirely forgotten about because of A-List shenanigans. Monica Barbaro has had great reviews for A Complete Unknown, as has Joan Chen for Didi but both seem completely out of contention. Michelle Austin in Hard Truths is exactly the type of performer this category was created for and yet she isn’t even in the discussion.
This was once frowned upon. Rosalind Russell point blank refused to be campaigned in Supporting for her supporting role in Picnic (1955) because she’d fought hard to be a Leading Lady and intended to stay one. When A-Listers Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift were nominated for their legit Supporting roles in Judgement at Nuremburg (1961) Louella Parsons criticized them for stealing the places of hard working character actors. She likened it to ‘a bank president reducing himself to title of bookkeeper in order to get a coffee break’. Imagine her dismay now!
What would she make of this current crop? Is there anyone else that can prevent their being at least eight Lead Actress nominees this year??
EUROCHEESE: Amen and hallelujah to your mention of Michelle Austin, one of my favorite choices in the category this year. Joan Chen and Adriana Paz would make for terrific picks, and while Selena Gomez's character isn't as fleshed out as I would like in her film, she does well with what she's given. Tilda Swinton has been getting attention for her role in The Room Next Door, but her hilariously difficult employer in Problemista would make for a wonderful addition here. I am also mystified why, despite love for its young lead and screenplay, My Old Ass hasn't brought accolades for Aubrey Plaza's titular interloper. That movie packs a punch because she helps sell its direction.
In the Old Hollywood days there was a stigma attached to being a supporting player - Bette Davis famously insisted on being lead in every picture, and given her battles with the studios throughout her career, it's not hard to understand why. Today "get an Oscar, any Oscar" has led to juicy smaller roles being snapped up by top-billed stars, and every year we see this lean more towards "support" under the guise of co-leads not being THE ONLY lead of the movie. I do think we still have Oscar winning character actors fitting the classic mold - Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons come to mind - but there is no emphasis on making sure this type of performance or actor regularly shows up. Was this ideal ever perfect, though? I think staying out of Supporting may have been a matter of pride for actors early on. How do we separate the categories now when headliners want any Oscar?
Leonie Benesche in SEPTEMBER 5 © Paramount Pictures
Maybe we should separate out our predictions for the category and what we would want in a true line-up of supporting roles. I'll start up with my ideal list: With Grande and the His Three Daughters ladies competing in lead, I'd take Michelle Austin's empathetic sister in Hard Truths, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor's struggling mother in Nickel Boys, Aubrey Plaza's peek into the future in My Old Ass, Isabella Rossellini's observant nun in Conclave and Tilda Swinton's domineering boss in Problemista. Runners up: Leonie Benesch's German translator in September 5, Joan Chen in Didi, Lesley Manville's psychedelic doctor in Queer and Emily Watson's terrifying nun in Small Things Like These. What would be your ideal five?
BABY CLYDE: Every January I determine to take note of my favourite performances throughout the year but always forget and then when December comes round and it’s time to start making lists, I’ve forgotten all but the most obvious. Thus, my picks are definitely not definitive but I’m 100% on board with Tilda Swinton who is an absolute riot in Problemista (Even more so if you’re British and note her bonkers West Country accent. What a choice!!!). I’m also on board the previously mentioned Michelle Austin in Hard Truth and Joan Chen’s beautiful work in Didi, the one name that was in the mix before the category got overtaken by carpetbaggers.
After those three I’m going obscure. I’d nominate Deniz Dumanlı as the trans lawyer helping to search a for Georgian woman’s missing niece in the rapturously received, little seen Crossing, Levan Akin’s follow up to my favourite film of 2019 And Then We Danced. I’d also nominate the extraordinary Elizabeth Chisela as the alcoholic cousin Nsansa in festival fave On Becoming A Guinea Fowl. The best drunk acting since Oscar nominated Susan Tyrell on Fat City. I’ve no idea if those last two are even eligible but my lineup would be an all timer.
One last name I would like to mention is the astounding Katy O’Brian in my #1 film of 2024 Love Lies Bleeding. I don’t think she should be in the running because I consider her to be a co-lead, but she’s miles better than all of the other Leading Ladies in contention, so I wish she was frauding along with them.
It’s still early but at the moment I’m predicting that the end result won’t be as bad as we fear.
Predictions (Ranked in Order of Least to Most Fraudulent...)
- Isabella Rossellini – Conclave
- Felicity Jones – The Brutalist
- Margaret Qualley - The Substance
- Danielle Deadwyler – The Piano Lesson
- Ariana Grande – Wicked
I’m currently leaving Saldana out, because despite hitting all the right nominations she’s not sweeping like I’d feared and her chicanery may be too blatant for even the notoriously ambivalent Actors brand to overlook. Having said that I’m only confident in Rossellini and Grande.
EUROCHEESE: All season, I felt like the surprise miss was going to be Felicity Jones. My five guesses:
Truly Supporting:
- Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys
- Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Leads in Disguise:
- Ariana Grande, Wicked
- Margaret Qualley, The Substance
- Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez
I don't know if they'll put in their screeners for The Piano Lesson and another fraudulent co-lead, Saoirse Ronan in Blitz, has seen her movie get zero traction. This line up is likely to go 5/5 with Best Picture (or at least the top films in discussion) and that feels like their style these days.
Lovely chatting with you as always.
Happy holidays, readers! May your Oscar nomination dreams come true. We hope you enjoy this Oscar Volley series which will be arriving daily now.
Reader Comments (3)
I'm all for Isabella Rossellini getting her Ruby Dee-in-American-Gangster moment, but I find it hysterically funny that THIS performance is the one true supporting performance we are all confidently predicting.
It'll be 4 leads and the curtsey heard round the world.
I've felt the same as you Clyde about Zoe - but i'm not sure if it's just wishful thinking. She actually is pretty great in Emilia, and they haven't had a problem with blatant fraud in the recent past.
Despite the lack of precursor attention thus far, I’m still not counting Monica Barbaro out. Voters will definitely be watching that screener, and it’s totally plausible that once the movie is actually released to the public, the buzz around her performance could significantly increase. Just as a point of comparison, Lesley Manville didn’t really get much precursor attention at all for Phantom Thread until towards the very end of the nomination season when she got in at the BAFTAs and then showed up on Oscar nomination morning.
One of the thing I find most insulting about Wicked is all the "live singing" talk.
Sure—the vocals were recorded on the set instead of a studio. But they've been tortured into glossy, tinny, Glee-style "perfection" in post production. I'm not saying they fixed bad notes (although I'm sure they did) but the vocals frequently sound like AI. That's not a compliment, we know what a voice sounds like and what a computer sounds like. This is not Tom Hooper's Les Mis with the intentionally crunchy on-set singing, it's the FaceTune version of that.
The idea that people are pricing "flawless live vocals" into the estimation of these performances is wild to me.