by Nathaniel R
Jonathan Bailey in WICKED FOR GOOD
This post's titular prompt question is not quite the same as "Who will be Oscar nominated this coming winter?" but having a big year in your career never hurts in gaining awards traction... or at least momentum for a future year. Will Jonathan Bailey's suddenly A-list career (with two potential giant blockbusters in a span of five months) convince Oscar voters that his SAG nomination last year should be mirrored with an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor? Will Sinners cultural dominance this spring help Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo land their first overdue Oscar nods early next year or will the zeitgiest move on?
These are just a couple of the questions I've been asking myself about the upcoming Oscar races for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor but there's more after the jump...
Ethan Hawke as diminutive musical theater giant Lorenz Hart in BLUE MOON
Will Andrew Scott's current rapid trajectory as a highly prestigious actor land him an Oscar nomination via Blue Moon in which he plays composer Richard Rodgers of Oklahoma! fame. He surely wasn't that far from the shortlist for All of Us Strangers two years back. He won an award at Berlinale for his performance but the lead is actually Ethan Hawke playing his former musical theater partner Lorenz Hart? Will SPC campaign well enough to make them both happen?
And speaking of building on momentum or "afterglow" from past triumphs, will the Jeremys (Allen White & Scott) be able to capitalize on their recent statue/nomination triumphs (Emmys, Globes, Oscars, etc) to be up for Oscars together as star and manager in the Bruce Springsteen bio Deliver Me From Nowhere ?
Lewis Pullman in THUNDERBOLTS*
Since we know very little about the upcoming Mona Fastvold movie Ann Lee (from much of the team behind The Brutalist) other than that's it's a musical about the religious leader Ann Lee (played by Amanda Seyfried) I'm also curious what Lewis Pullman's role will be like. If it's a good size and meaty role can he capitalize on being so much better than he had any right to be, and turning so many heads in Marvel's Thunderbolts*?
Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård in PILLION
A final fanciful Nordic question I've been asking myself is how will mainstream awards bodies react to the gay BDSM romance Pillion which was a hit at Cannes. The subject matter is certainly out there for Oscar voters but they've been loosening up. I'm not predicting that everyone's favourite 6'4" Swede Alexander Skarsgård will land a nomination for playing a leather daddy BUT how absolutely miraculous would it be if both he and his always employed ever reliable father Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) are nominated simultaneously at Hollywood's big show? They've both worked with everyone at this point. Parent and child pairs have been up in the same year before (Walter & John Huston, Laura Dern & Diane Ladd, Harold and Karl Kress, Terry & Oorlagh George) but it's never happened that both were up for separate films and it's never happeend in acting either for father & son (Diane Ladd & Laura Dern are the only mother/daughter pair ever nominated simultaneously and it was for their duet in Rambling Rose).
These are the type of thought exercizes that are great fun to play early on when anything appears possible before it flattens out later in the year with group-think and the depressing reality that a lot of people just don't watch very many films and focus on just seven or so at year's end. After all that I realize I've said very little about the lead actors, so I'll leave that for your chart perusal.
SEE THE CHARTS FOR BEST ACTOR AND BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR.
What questions have you been asking yourself about the forthcoming male acting competitions?