The Film Experience

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, NATHANIEL R and CLÁUDIO ALVES discuss the volatile Oscar race for Best Supporting Actor.

Andrew Scott in BLUE MOON | © Sony Pictures Classics

NATHANIEL: So Cláudio, it falls to you and me to discuss Best Supporting Actor, and I will try reeaaaaaaaaly hard not to bring up my broken-record pet peeve about this category because I know readers have heard it a million times. I don't want to talk about it anymore, so for the duration of this conversation, I'm going to pretend that all the actors are in roles perfectly sized for this particular category. And so we're here to discuss everything else... but not that!

Performance quality-wise, I think this is a good quintet - even if I'm still seriously angry that people wouldn't give Andrew Scott the time of day for Blue Moon since his performance is stronger than Hawke's AND he is giving you so much backstory and giving it so economically and with laser minimalist precision. Such a generous actor - he doesn't steal scenes so much as immerse you in them and what's going on between these characters. Anyway, I just love him, and I had to get that off my chest first. It's been a struggle.

So my opening question to you is struggle-themed. I'm curious who you think had the most difficult role to play here and why...

CLÁUDIO: Sometimes I think you're the only person in the world who is as bothered by category fraud as I am. It'll be equally difficult for me not to bitch endlessly about a race called "Best Supporting Actor" where only two nominees are actually working with supporting roles. But alas, you're correct. Better pretend everyone is correctly categorized. It could've been way worse after all - looking at you, Paul Mescal.

Jacob Elordi in FRANKENSTEIN | © Netflix

I would agree that this is a strong bunch. Indeed, even in my personal ballots, Supporting Actor is uncommonly robust this year, both within and without the Oscar conversation. But we'll get more space, later on, to discuss our unnominated favorites - Scott is in my list, too - and you asked about levels of difficulty. Such things are hard to parse, as myriad factors are at play, and the same role can pose a huge challenge for one performer while fitting another like a glove. With that caveat in mind, my answer still probably falls on Frankenstein's Creature.

More than any of these parts, the monster comes bearing a legacy that invites direct comparison to some of the greatest screen creations of all time, from Karloff's iconic turns to Paul Morrissey's sordid imagination, from jubilant riffs under DePalma, Brooks, and so many others to the underground follies of Frankenhooker. The linguistic evolution on the page also demands a lot of physical expressivity, with entire passages that call for a skill closer to interpretative dancing than the usual dramas vying for Oscar gold. Sure, Jacob Elordi is aided by a writer-director who has sanded down most of Shelley's uncomfortable characterization, romanticizing the Creature to the point that one never feels an ounce of doubt about the moral binary between father(s) and son(s). Nevertheless, it's still one hell of a challenge, further complicated by pounds of makeup, special effects, and Dan Laustsen's obscurating cinematography.

Do you feel similarly simpatico about Elordi's trials and tribulations, or does another of this year's nominees strike you as having a bigger struggle than the Australian giant?

NATHANIEL: I also think Elordi has the toughest part, for all the reasons you eloquently describe, but also because they say you're only as good as your screen partners, and my god, he had it rough there. In degrees of difficulty, I also want to give a shout-out to Stellan Skarsgård.

Stellan Skarsgård in SENTIMENTAL VALUE | © Neon

There are so many complex moments he has to pull off but also straightforward moments that have to be precise enough that you feel the full emotional weight of what's happening without feeling like you've seen it a million times (because let's face it -- plays and films and tv shows are full of egotistical men who think they are a gift to the world. I think he's absolute perfection in a really tricky scene in which he is watching Elle Fanning's Rachel Kemp work through his screenplay. Trier is a smart enough writer /director that I'm sure all the unspoken stuff was discussed (and maybe even on the page), but it doesn't change the fact that Skarsgård is in total control-- conveying everything and nothing simultaneously . (Like Andrew Scott, he's so skilled that he can risk underplaying and still be sensational). As a director, Gustav Borg is always kind and encouraging to Rachel Kemp (I love that complication of his character because you'd think he'd be a tyrannical auteur based on everything else we're told), but my friend leaned in to me at the end of the script scene and whispered, "he hated that, right?"

He's similarly unimprovable in that gutting scene when he visits his old cinematographer and abruptly decides not to hire him after all.

We haven't talked about Penn, Del Toro, and Lindo, and here's where I confess that I don't remember Lindo's performance well for the simple reason that it's the movie from this batch that I saw the longest time ago and have only seen once, but remember liking him a lot at the time. Did these three thrill you? (I'm dying to hear what your personal ballot would look like because for me it was actually a sparse year in viable candidates ... which is one of the reasons that the awards strategists... well, you know, the subject I promised not to talk about. *zips lips shut*

CLÁUDIO: They thrill me to varying degrees, with Penn probably inspiring the least affection. I guess part of me wanted him to play more notes in the symphony of Lockjaw, mayhap to inspire some of the complicated, oft contradictory feelings that some of the film's other performances manage without ever calling as much attention to themselves as Penn does throughout. Nevertheless, he delivers a darkly comedic turn with plenty to recommend it for, perverse and deliberately stiff in all the best ways. His physicality is the film's best visual gag, that awkward walk I once described as that of a man who's caged and plugged. He also fulfills an important role in communicating active danger, never letting us feel safe around any character as long as he's in the scene with them. It's not unpredictability, exactly, but the unease one feels when a predator is in sight.

Benicio del Toro in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER | © Warner Bros.

Del Toro is almost the polar opposite. Where Penn is deliberately strained, effortful as hell, he is relaxed, running the risk of doing too little but never losing the audience - indeed, it's not the kind of performance I'm used to seeing in AMPAS' lineups where "more is more" tends to be the way to go. Playing coolness on screen can sometimes manifest as careless insouciance, yet one never doubts how much Sensei Sergio cares, flipping the script on what one might presume about his presence. Also, if Penn gets the best of physical comedy, del Toro aces the verbal side of things, delivering lines with razor-sharp precision, punctuating sequences like Bob's phone shenanigans with tonal variance that both suggests unhurried confidence and the urgency of a man in action, enacting contingency measures for a crisis he always saw coming. PTA does some Kubrickian alchemy in his mix of performance styles, leaning on contrasting energies and approaches, and deploying this character-actor turn as a necessary counterbalance to DiCaprio's more mannered breakdown.

If I had a ballot, I'd probably vote Del Toro as the best in contention, but Lindo would make me even happier as a victor. He's been Oscar-worthy multiple times before - Crooklyn, Clockers, Da 5 Bloods - yet this Sinners nomination doesn't feel like an apology. Because he's tremendous, putting his leading men to shame by showing how to pull from the traditions of genre cinema and Black American art, situating the character type somewhere in the history of 70s Blaxploitation while deepening it as the best performers of that era did so well. From his first scene, Lindo tells the story of who this man was before the camera laid eyes on him, conveying so much with his delivery and a weary posture turned into galvanized excitement that Coogler's text can sometimes feel redundant, spelling out what the thespian has already telegraphed. He's a mentor figure, a living history whose words ring with pathos, comedic relief to break the tension, and cannon fodder when shit hits the fan, when we need to feel deeply for the fallen even as their end feels inevitable, and there's no time to linger on individual tragedy.

I know it's unlikely he pulls a Marcia Gay Harden as some netizens have speculated, but wouldn't it be glorious? Though I'm not especially enthused by the idea of a surprise Sinners sweep, seeing Lindo with an Oscar in his hands would make it all worth it to me. Would you feel similarly, or am I conjuring a nightmare scenario?

NATHANIEL: While I loved Penn's work here far more than you do -- and am supportive of the "supporting" designation, though it's borderline -- I would also vote for Del Toro for all the reasons you cited and also all the reasons I've already shared about why Andrew Scott was completely Oscar-worthy in Blue Moon. I love supporting performances like that -- immersive and effortless, intricate without fuss, elevating the text -- but because performances like that are generally not in the category of "Most Acting" or "scene-stealers," they tend to get ignored in awards races. In fact, I'm willing to bet Del Toro never would have made it to a nomination -- despite the quality of his work -- if the picture itself hadn't spent so many months as the clear frontrunner.

Delroy Lindo in SINNERS | © Warner Bros.

But, yes, Delroy Lindo holding an Oscar would be fantastic -- especially since Del Toro and Penn already have golden statues and Lindo was snubbed so recently for his spectacular work in Da 5 Bloods. Then again, I hate sweeps with a passion, so this would bring conflicting emotions. But I think it's highly unlikely and more of an internet fantasy. Even if Academy voters feel that Del Toro and Penn have been rewarded enough and Elordi is too young, I can't see how Lindo gets around Skarsgård to actually win. He has a much bigger part (which obviously matters to Oscar voters in this category - sigh), and even if they're thinking "career win," Skarsgard has the edge there as well. I will try to watch Sinners again before Oscar night, though, as it's a distant memory and you've inspired me to give his performance a second look. Ten months is, of course, not that long in real time, but in the context of Oscar races, it is very long indeed. I'm so proud of the Academy for recognizing multiple films released before October this year (Sinners, F1, One Battle After Another, and Weapons), and I hope we get even more of them next year. We need to retrain people to see movies all year long and not just during the November/December holidays.

Speaking of the full year... talk to me about your, oh, top 12 in brief, as I'm curious why you thought this was an "uncommonly robust" year for Supporting Actors.

CLÁUDIO: I also feel Skarsgård is way more likely than the Sinners actor. Indeed, he's probably who I'm predicting, at the moment. But you didn't ask for my final guesses.

Since we both already talked about Del Toro, Lindo, and Scott, let me highlight twelve other magnificent men. As far as Oscar-eligible turns are concerned, my favorite is Mohammad Bakri's swan song in All That's Left of You, playing a critical role, smack in the middle of the decades-spanning intergenerational narrative. As an aged patriarch who witnessed the Nakba firsthand, he bridges the film's not-so-distant epochs while embodying both a national history and a tricky personal journey, the complicated feelings of loathing that go inward and outward, and complicate his grandfatherly warmth without ever invalidating it. Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme and Brando Huang in Left-Handed Girl are other performances I wish AMPAS had acknowledged, both negotiating varying degrees of self-aware clownishness and romantic sincerity on the sidelines of their films' main narratives. It helps that they both command such great chemistry with their principal scene partners, be they a surly, severe Mia Threapleton or the Left-Handed Girl's leading lady trio. Ahmed Boulane deserves similar applause for his romantic turn beside Carmen Maura in the underseen Calle Málaga. You can't buy that kind of chemistry.

Kayo Martin in THE PLAGUE | © IFC

Then, there's Kayo Martin's frightening turn as a twelve-year-old bully in The Plague, a performance of such maturity that I'm still gagged by the way it never feels precocious. Instead, there's an offhand, almost understated naturalism to his work, making everything feel real and only calculated when the camera lingers on the shift of his gaze. I was similarly unnerved by Min Tanaka in Kokuho, though he's not nearly as textually malicious as that little polo-playing demon. His silent judgment cuts like a knife, especially when it burns without revealing what conclusions the old kabuki star has reached about our protagonist. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ralph Fiennes is a welcome comfort in the zombie apocalypse of 28 Years Later, delivering one of my favorite acting beats of the year when he lets us know how much this man treasures being able to be a doctor again while, concurrently, bearing the weight of bad news and yet more death in a world already defined by its everpresence. Colman Domingo is a comparable balm as a suave, smooth radio star in Dead Man's Wire. The two-time Academy Award nominee deepens the film in his scant appearances by weaving an entertainer's instinct through the thriller, caution, and tension hand in hand with showmanship.

Still, as it happens every year, some of the best performances from US releases didn't make the Oscar eligibility list, probably because they had so little buzz that their distributors didn't even bother submitting them. I'm thinking of the miraculous work that Aram Sabbah does in To a Land Unknown, a variation on the bruised frailty of Dustin Hoffman's Rizzo for a modern-day Palestinian immigrant story. Tawfeek Barhom is the one doing the emotional bruising in Ghost Trail, as he plays the notes of a monster and the lonesome student in search of a connection with another expat, Threat reverberating in every attempt at friendliness as if this former torturer only knows how to engage with others in razor-barbed games of power.

And let's not forget the standouts in 2025 queer cinema. From Brazil, I was besotted by Baby's Ricardo Teodoro and Motel Destino's Fábio Assunção. The former offers a slippery characterization in all the best ways, leaving the viewer as ambivalent and drunk with desire as the protagonist, never letting us settle on who this man is, if he's bad news or a chance at happiness, maybe something painfully in between. Assunção is very vascular, very fun, very pathetically horny, as an oft-naked variation of the cuckolded husband from The Postman Always Rings Twice. Finally, I love Misericordia and Jacques Develey in it. The guy fits into Guiraudie's awkward deadpan register like he was born for it, directly engaging, even verbalizing the film's main themes without sounding explainative or moralistic. Which is a great feat when you're playing a clergyman. Big dick energy all around... literally!

Ricardo Teodoro in BABY | © Uncork'd Entertainment

I'm sorry for going on so long, but I am very enthused about Best Supporting Actor - a sentence I never thought I'd write. I might have more candidates in this specific category on my ballot than for Best Actress, which is total madness. Do you share some affection for any of these men? Any personal favorite you'd like to shout out, even if you're not thrilled by this year's Supporting Actor prospects?

NATHANIEL: I can't say that I agree with you on Misericordia, which was such an interesting conceptually, but which I actually found off-putting on a casting / acting level. But you did name-check three supporting actors that I thought were really elevating their movies. I was also crazy about Ricardo Teodoro's soulful sex worker in Baby and Kayo Martin's frightening sociopath in The Plague -I almost called him a junior sociopath, but the training wheels were clearly already off before the events of the movie. But I was especially glad to hear your shout-out to Brando Huang's performance in The Left Handed Girl because it's the kind of supportive work that usually goes unnoticed. The movie is so economically focused (both meanings apply) on its trio of leading ladies that it has very little room to maneuver. And it's endearing that Huang is literally embodying that both physically and emotionally with his take on "Johnny". Whenever he enters the frame, it's with an awkward kind of -- well, I'll just call it "eager hesitancy". He really loves this family, but he understands that it's not his story. But could he maybe be included in the next chapter? Please? He really moved me, actually, but not in a heavy-handed kind of way. He was my favourite part of the movie's purposefully cringe climax, in which all hell breaks loose at a family event.

From men, you didn't mention I was a big fan of Harish Patel, the dad in A Nice Indian Boy, with the caveat that I am self-aware and understand that kind-hearted father characters who are just trying to do their best are absolute kryptonite for my emotional / aesthetic defenses. I'm still mad at Paul Mescal for blocking discussion of how preternaturally good Jacobi Jupe is -- I don't think the movie has half as much of a gut punch if he wasn't so open-hearted onscreen, and wow, can he play a death scene! And while it's obviously not an awards film in any sense I think Lewis Pullman was perfect in Thunderbolts* as a kind of amnesiac blank slate - he was so funny and yet you also have to feel for him and suspect him, and buy the Jekyll and Hyde stuff that happens later. To me, it was a great mainstream acting happening in a really unlikely place and way because it's just so outlandish, but I believed him always. I give him bonus points for his also super-authentic feeling of religious devotion to his onscreen sister in The Testament of Ann Lee. I kept hoping the latter movie would give him more to do because I actually think its intense focus on Ann Lee actually weakens the film -- I bet had they expanded the view a little more, you would have felt more of the psychology of the cult around her, and it becomes a stronger film.

Lewis Pullman in THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE | © Searchlight Pictures

As someone who thinks it's important to judge by category and not by film, I also want to give credit where it's due and say that Conan O'Brien in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly helped me get through two movies I found agonizingly overworked and annoyingly underthought, respectively. Sandler didn't make my top twelve in my own awards, but like Elordi in Frankenstein, I can only imagine he was directing himself since he was so much stronger than the rest of the players!

Who knew we could both be so long-winded about BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR of all things?

CLÁUDIO: Love the men you shout out, even if I don't quite agree that The Testament of Ann Lee would have been stronger if it looked away from its messianic figure. Then again, I support the desire for more Lewis Pullman on our screens. Regarding good supporting actor performances in bad movies, I'd probably go with some of the other players from Jay Kelly, though I appreciate how well Sandler plays his one note of beleaguered melancholy. Kwon Hae-hyo in The Ugly is probably that for me, this year, finding an entry point into his film's monotonal misery in a way that made it feel dramatically poignant and interesting rather than exhausting. Or, I guess, the vulgar, go-for-broke lunacies of Marlon Wayans in HIM and Brian Cox in The Parenting.

But we've talked enough about those who AMPAS ignored. Let's go back to the actual nominees. I have a feeling this is Skarsgård's to lose, but a lot could change depending on who wins BAFTA and SAG. Benicio del Toro proved himself a favorite among regional critics, but I'd imagine he's too low-key for industry voters who may feel more compelled by Penn's showmanship in the same film. But do people like Penn enough to give him a third Oscar, tying him with Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis as the living actor with most statuettes? And what about Elordi, who's now in theaters with a hit? He'd be an atypical winner, but there's real passion for Frankenstein... for some unfathomable reason. Finally, there's the Lindo pipe dream that I want to believe in but can't quite commit myself to predicting.

Stellan Skarsgård in SENTIMENTAL VALUE | © Neon

So, my personal preference would probably go in this order: Del Toro > Lindo > Skarsgård > Elordi > Penn. Seems insane to rank such a good performance as Penn's in last place, but, fraud aside, the Academy did their big one this year with the supporting categories. Prediction-wise, I'll tentatively go...

1) Skarsgård - Oscar-friendly role in a film about acting that will appeal to the Academy's biggest branch. But what about that SAG snub?

2) Penn - It's really showy, and they've historically loved that. If he takes SAG or BAFTA, it could change the season's narrative. Would vote splitting be a problem?

3) Elordi - He's hot right now, constantly in the media, and folks love Frankenstein. If he takes SAG, I'd move him up to #2.

4) Lindo - Let me dream! If Sinners wins SAG Ensemble and they let Lindon deliver the speech, it could give him a boost.

5) Del Toro - Maybe I'm overthinking this, but his doesn't feel like an Oscar-winning performance. Do I have too little faith in AMPAS voters?

What about you?

NATHANIEL: Punditry-wise, I'd rank them so:

1) Skarsgård - I think he has this in the bag because he checks almost every box that can give you an advantage: it's a great performance, people love the film, it's about actors and directors, and even if it wasn't a great performance there's the career honors narrative AND the fact that Sentimental Value will struggle to win elsewhere and I don't think they'll want it to go home empty-handed.

[Big gap with everyone else smooshed together in a virtual four-way tie, even if it's not exactly tied.

2) Lindo - It's clear that the industry loves Sinners (record-breaking nominations) and, like Skarsgard, he's someone voters could feel good about finally honoring: a reliably excellent veteran that they've never acknowledged.

3) Elordi - For the exact reasons you said.

Realistically, I just don't see how either Del Toro or Penn has any kind of path to enough votes. They're both fantastic in the movie, but there has not been a groundswell of "better than Del Toro / better than Penn" feeling or loud media conversation (I think Sinners has kind of dampened any sweep energy One Battle After Another might have been banking on). There has also not been any kind of visible "What a Career!" push to get either of them over the hurdle of already having been amply rewarded with gold statues. I realize that there have been a number of unnecessary second or third Oscars in history, but I do think it remains a hurdle if there isn't some other narrative helping voters to ignore that.

*** TIME JUMP ***

CLÁUDIO: Well, this convo took a week and change off. In that time, everything changed. I guess it's entertaining to the reader to witness our opinions change in real time as new data arrives. But anyway, Sean Penn, amiright?

Having won the British Academy's vote as well as his fellow American SAG members' pick, Colonel Lockjaw himself is our new Best Supporting Actor frontrunner. Maybe it was always like this, with critics eager to look elsewhere while the industry hands Penn his third little golden man, which, if it comes to be, will tie him with Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson, and Daniel Day-Lewis as the most-awarded male actor in Oscar history. Even if I enjoy his work, I'm not very happy with the outcome. It's not just that he's the lesser option from an excellent quintet, but that the man - hell, no one probably - needs a third Academy Award. He doesn't even seem all that worried about it, having been a no-show to both BAFTA and SAG ceremonies. Seeing him walk off with ANOTHER statuette while veterans like Skarsgård and Lindo remain Oscarless would be a bitter end to what has been a great Best Supporting Actor race all season.

Moving on, and to amend my predictions, I'll be moving Penn to the top, with Lindo as runner-up and the Scandinavian wonder in third. The other two stay where they are. Why move Lindo up, you may ask? Well, because Sinners is surging at the right time, when AMPAS is casting their votes, and Lindo has been front and center of their media presence, even delivering the acceptance speech for their Ensemble victory at SAG. If recent events have made me start believing in the pipedream of a Moura Best Actor win, why not Lindo in Supporting? I'm still too chicken to predict him, but I feel he's closer than anyone thought on Oscar nomination morning.

NATHANIEL: I myself will not be moving Sean Penn to first place. While it's totally fascinating that the race has been so volatile, and BAFTA and SAG are an undeniably formidable pairing, I still don't quite see why the Academy will feel the need to vote for him in the end. Voting is still open, and if the performance were universally regarded as undeniable, it would seem like a no-brainer since it's a showy role and he's a legend. But it isn't. I mean *I* think he's brilliant in it but you're not the only one who questions that brilliance. Also, I just don't see the narrative. Usually, if a performance is strong but not undeniable and there's no narrative, the only way the person wins is if their competition is weak or there's nobody else that would feel great to award. But neither of those things is true.

I guess it is possible that Skarsgård and Lindo are cancelling each other out for the 'veteran who is beloved and getting on in years and underappreciated' narrative, but I now think it's between them. Perhaps I'm too stubborn to see the writing on the wall, but I'm sticking with Skarsgard with Lindo as runner-up. If Sinners is going to win Best Picture-- and it's definitely surging at the finish line, though no matter how hard I'm rooting for One Battle After Another, which I think will still be watched decades from now -- it's bringing either Lindo or Mosaku along for the ride.

It's so exciting that 3 of the 4 acting races are all over the place in terms of winners. This never happens!

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