Bradley Cooper
Age: 49
Film: Maestro
Role: Leonard Bernstein, all at once the composer who requires silence, the conductor who thrives on adulation, the devoted family man anchored by his wife and children, and the lover of men and women alike who becomes infatuated with young men and cannot stand to be alone. (He even uses the bathroom with the door open! At work! That’s how painful loneliness is to him!) Lenny’s life is a tricky balancing act, but for a man of such immense gifts, his problems are more pedestrian than you might expect.
Nomination History:
Cooper also has nominations this year for Best Picture (Maestro) and Best Original Screenplay (Maestro).
Cooper was previously nominated for Best Picture in 2022 (Nightmare Alley), 2020 (Joker), 2019 (A Star is Born), and 2015 (American Sniper).
He was previously nominated for Best Actor in 2019 for A Star is Born (2018), in 2015 for American Sniper (2014), and in 2013 for Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
He was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2014 for American Hustle (2013).
Why He Should Win:
Bradley Cooper gets a special award from me for having omnipresent sound bite Oscar narratives. Candidly, I’m struggling through these write-ups this year. My brain is not cooperating. Although I’ve watched all the nominated performances, I find it difficult to say anything about them since I’m recovering from a severe manic episode and am intensely depressed. My Best Actress write-up is particularly sparse. (I’ve practically written, “Trust me. It’s just not happening this year,” as the reason some people might not win.) I feel completely checked out of life in general. Should I even be writing up these Oscar nominees? Why do I do things “for fun” if nothing feels fun? Should I admit thoughts like these on a movie review blog? I don’t know.
But I do know one thing for sure. Bradley Cooper spent six years learning to conduct an orchestra in preparation for just six minutes of on-screen conducting in Maestro. He always has the perfect soundbite. Back when A Star Is Born was nominated, I felt like Cooper and Lady Gaga were everywhere eating an authentic Italian dinner at home. At times, I felt like I’d been enjoying that dinner with them. And now, despite the fact that I’m totally checked out this Oscar season, I’m painfully aware that Cooper spent six years learning to conduct in preparation for a six-minute scene. I can always count on Cooper to have a memorable narrative. I somehow absorbed that information simply by being alive.
Being easy to remember and oft repeated shouldn’t invalidate the praise, though. Six years is a long time. When someone is willing to go to such lengths for authenticity in a role, it’s natural that the Academy would pay attention. That six minutes does look tremendous on screen, too, as Cooper as Bernstein conducts Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony in Ely Cathedral.
What I personally love about this scene is the ecstasy we see on Bernstein’s face as he conducts the transcendent music of Mahler. I don’t know how he does this part. I heard him speak in an interview with Steven Spielberg about how he loved watching cartoons and imagining conducting as a child. He told Spielberg, “I loved the power of the illusion of making music with your hand and gestures.” (That’s from their Netflix Behind the Streams interview which I heartily recommend to anyone interested in filmmaking.) So when he’s conducting the orchestra, is he a little bit Bradley Cooper, or is he one-hundred percent Cooper as Leonard Bernstein? I’m used to people singing in character, painting in character, dancing in character. I don’t know why conducting in character should be different. But it feels different. At any rate, in this scene, the ecstasy we see on Bernstein’s face reaches such a frenzied pitch as the music carries us all away into rapture. And then at the end of the piece, that’s all totally eclipsed by the sight of Felicia’s back. When Bernstein realizes his wife has come to watch him conduct the piece, he suddenly breaks into an even greater ecstasy. This is a beautiful scene. I know that shooting it presented technical challenges for Cooper as a director, but it must have also challenged him as an actor. Exactly how ecstatic can one human face become? How is he supposed to convey his joy in seeing his wife to us after he’s already used all of his energy (to say nothing of facial expressions) conducting that orchestra?
Cooper also worked at length with dialect coach Tim Monich, developing and rehearsing a natural way of speaking aurally evocative of Bernstein’s distinctive lilt. Vocally both Cooper and Carey Mulligan stayed in character all the time to capture what he called (when speaking to Spielberg) “the music that they made speaking together.” Probably my favorite aspect of Cooper’s performance is the musicality of his Bernstein voice.
Why He Might Not Win:
I’ll start with a dead controversy. Months ago when people got a peek at the large prosthetic nose Cooper wears in the film to look like Bernstein, accusations started erupting that he was guilty of Jewface. This is a tricky accusation. Because Cooper is portraying a specific person, it’s understandable that he might augment his face to look more like that individual. Did Bernstein have a large nose? Yes. Was Bernstein Jewish? Absolutely, proudly so. The subject comes up multiple times in Maestro. At an outdoor lunch with friends, Lenny and Felicia recount how he was urged to change his name to Leonard Burns to be more successful in show business. Bernstein refused.
But is it really Jewface for Cooper to wear a prosthetic that makes him look more like the real subject he’s portraying? My opinion on the subject is irrelevant. The Anti-Defamation League has said that Cooper’s efforts to more closely resemble the character he’s playing are not Jewface. Bernstein’s children also spoke out in Cooper’s defense, saying that their dad would approve of Cooper enhancing his appearance to look more like him.
This scandal has already been addressed by so many people. Talk about it quieted down months ago. But it’s possible that not everyone agrees with the ADL and Bernstein’s family. Unsavory accusations tend to stick in people’s minds.
But I think a greater problem is that for everyone who loves all the aspects of the performance I’ve mentioned, you’re going to have someone else who finds them annoying. Anybody who spends six years learning to conduct an orchestra for a six-minute scene in a film runs the risk of that film being called “pretentious Oscar bait.” This isn’t the kind of movie that prompts people to excitedly eat popcorn. Regardless of Cooper’s genuine enthusiasm for the subject, it does come across as the work of someone hoping for an Oscar. After hearing Cooper speak with enthusiasm about his work, I don’t think this is a remotely fair assessment, but it’s still one I’ve heard a lot. Some people dismiss the movie as pretentious and boring, and will voters choose to honor a performance that bores them when other options are available? Yes, Cooper does sound like Leonard Bernstein, but Cillian Murphy does a pretty mean impression of J. Robert Oppenheimer, too, and his movie is far more exciting (unless you’re wildly excited by Mahler) (which, to be clear, some people are and perhaps all of us should be). In a different year, Cooper might win, but this time, despite the work he put into the role, I don’t think there’s enough enthusiasm for the film to push him to Oscar victory.
Colman Domingo
Age: 54
Film: Rustin
Role: Bayard Rustin, the Civil Rights leader and friend (but not lover) of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who did the lion’s share of the work organizing the March on Washington in 1963. Perhaps because he did not hide his homosexuality, and perhaps, in part, because of his Quaker background, Rustin isn’t as well known as the prominent historical figures he worked with closely to enact needed reform.
Nomination History:
This is Domingo’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
In Rustin, Colman Domingo takes a historical figure I had barely heard of and remembered next to nothing about and makes him the most interesting man in the room. That’s even more remarkable since he’s frequently in the same room as Martin Luther King, Jr. Before this, I had seen the name Bayard Rustin written on a page before (though I only even encountered that when I was teaching a course on the rhetoric of civil disobedience), but I never imagined that name was the signifier of such a charismatic figure. As Rustin, Domingo fills all available space, and he does it in such a captivating way. All the performances in this category this year contain a huge component of physicality. All of these men are playing characters who (largely consciously) made themselves characters. Bayard Rustin may be the biggest character of them all.
So why has no one ever heard of him? Why is he so lost to history?
For the movie to work properly, Domingo has to make the audience sit up and say, “Man! I should have heard of this guy. How can we not know this guy? How has a character this big managed to slip through the cracks of history?” Through his mannerisms, voice, and the expressions in his eyes, Domingo has to make us feel the embarrassing and eerie gap in our knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement.
It’s truly frightening. If this man could slip through the cracks and fall out of the history books, then anyone could. That jarring sense of confusion and fear the audience must feel only works if Domingo gives Rustin a presence as immense as he does.
Colman Domingo is such a talent. His versatility is really on display this Oscar season. I’m thrilled he got this nomination because while I liked him in Rustin, I loved him in The Color Purple as Mr. (the awful character I felt guilty for finding so sympathetic). (I remember vividly the year Leonardo DiCaprio got his nomination for “the wrong movie,” i.e. Blood Diamond instead of The Departed. Personally, I’m not sure there is a wrong movie. If you get the Academy’s attention, does it matter how? (I’m not advocating illegal shenanigans. I’m just a huge fan of showing versatility across several meaty roles. I’ll bet that sort of thing impresses voters, too. Think of the horror many actors have of being typecast. At awards shows, actors turned directors or producers constantly talk about the importance and efficacy of creating quality work for themselves instead of letting themselves be trapped in a string of roles they don’t even want playing the same character again and again. So Domingo’s ability not to be typecast and to pull of two such different roles so well must work in his favor with his peers.
In The Color Purple, Domingo made me care about Mr. I was excited to see him on screen and felt compassion during his moments of suffering (though not without bewildering compunctions). Mr. is an abusive husband and attempted rapist. He’s a violent, terrible man who abuses women and sets that example for this children. On the page, he’s rigorously awful. One thing that bothered me when I read The Color Purple was how in the world Shug Avery could have cared for someone so repugnant. Domingo, though, teases out Mr.’s hidden redeeming qualities. We see him in his full humanity instead of just as a caricature of an abuser, doubly impressive because Domingo does play him as a larger-than-life character. You would think that would reduce his ability to show us a real, nuanced human being, but it doesn’t. That’s some fine acting.
Domingo’s performance has also made me notice what Mr. and Bayard Rustin (two characters so ostensibly different) have in common. Both are shaped by a society that hates them for being what they are.
I’m reminded of the moment that resonated with me most in the 2005 film Capote. There’s a wonderful line that was the highlight of the film for me. When discussing a murderer he’s writing about, Capote declares, “It’s as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front.” Bayard Rustin and Mr. from The Color Purple are similarly plagued by hostile environments that don’t accept them for who they are, but they respond to these external aggressors in opposite ways. Mr. walks out the back door, and Rustin walks out the front. Of course, Mr. is raised by his abusive father who models dysfunctional behavior while Rustin is brought up by his Quaker grandparents who accept him as he is. (That’s a rather huge difference.)
It’s inspiring and refreshing that Domingo is a gay actor nominated for portraying a gay character. The tensions in Rustin’s world are the highlight of that movie for me. He seems to draw all his strength (and certainly focuses all his professional energies) on working for the movement he cherishes within the society he loves and wants to uplift. But, as he puts it, “On the day I was born black, I was also born a homosexual.” To live honestly as a gay man, he has to live outside the community when it comes to aspects of his private life. This isn’t his choice. It’s the community’s choice. Certainly, he’d prefer to be embraced by the community, but since he must be who he is, he sometimes finds himself sneaking around on the periphery. This creates immense tension within the character that he never entirely resolves and arguably can’t ever face.
There’s a brilliant moment in the film when a story comes over the radio, denouncing Rustin for “lewd” acts committed in Pasadena. I love the way he breaks down here and (while trying to drown out ringing phones and chatter) insists on overriding a decision about feeding people cheese sandwiches (which will spoil on a hot day). He begins yelling at a volunteer, “You should have known better!” though clearly he’s actually yelling at himself. He then goes tearing down the sidewalk, accompanied by blaring music. (I love the way the film incorporates loud jazz. George C. Wolfe also directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and clearly knows creative and powerful ways to use music in a film.) This culminates in a moving speech to Martin Luther King about how Rustin must be who he is and continue to use his voice. When those in power try to make themselves feel bigger by making others smaller, by silencing their voices, it is so wrong.
Why He Might Not Win:
In Domingo’s case, the nomination is the award. This is the year the Academy finally recognizes his talent, which is hard to overlook given the quality of his performances as two extremely different characters this awards season.
Maybe it’s too early to call it, but the only two people I can imagine winning this Oscar are Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti. I’m thrilled by Domingo’s nomination and enjoyed Rustin, but I don’t think this is the movie he’ll win for. It doesn’t feel big enough. And that’s the thing. It should feel big. It’s about the most charismatic, room-filling, flamboyant character of a leader you can imagine bringing 250,000 people together for the March on Washington. Yet it feels strangely small and intimate. Maybe I feel this way because I watched on Netflix at home on the couch. Still, this was produced by the Obamas, and it’s about a major historical event that happened sixty years ago. It’s coming at a time of political strife when some voices (uncannily like Rustin’s) are being silenced. Shouldn’t there be more fanfare surrounding the film? Surely the movie should feel as huge as the character. I would be happy to see the deserving Colman Domingo win an Oscar (though perhaps it’s telling that I have more to say about his performance in The Color Purple). Ultimately, I don’t think this is his year to win.
Paul Giamatti
Age: 56
Film: The Holdovers
Role: Paul Hunham, the disenchanted private school teacher who loves the classical world and still believes in the ethics of his kind mentor but struggles with bitterness over the way his life has gone and has trouble opening up to other people.
Nomination History:
Giamatti was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2006 for Cinderella Man (2005).
Why He Should Win:
The Holdovers is one of my favorite films of 2023 because it’s one of the few allegedly feel-good movies that actually does make you feel good.
Mr. Hunham is the best kind of character because we keep discovering him as we go. He’s like assigned reading you intend to slog through only to discover it’s surprisingly entertaining and edifying. Based on the film’s trailer, I expected him to remain a bristly curmudgeon much longer than he does. In fact, he begins letting his lovable face show through the cracks in his crusty façade quite early in the film. Almost immediately, we start getting the vibe that some of his colleagues are phonies who know how to work the system and play the game, whereas Mr. Hunham truly cares about the material he teaches and the school. (It’s harder to tell, though, if he secretly likes the students. His animosity toward most of them reads as more genuine, which we understand later on.) I expected him to be a misanthrope, but he responds warmly and genuinely to Mary from the start. He’s the type of character who makes an audience beg, “Please tell us your backstory,” and he slowly does, almost like a strip tease.
Giamatti is strong throughout the film, showing us glimpses of Mr. Hunham’s guarded personality. Like Cillian Murphy’s take on Oppenheimer, Mr. Hunham has carefully built a mythos around himself. He prides himself on his off-putting professorial personality. Characters like this often show up in supporting roles in children’s stories. (And then usually the children have to teach them to love Christmas or something high-energy like that. I always feel so sorry for those intensely pestered characters.) As emotional intimacy gradually develops between Mr. Hunham and the few genuine people with whom he engages, the real man behind the Snarky Pedant mask begins (guardedly) to emerge.
So many hints in Giamatti’s performance come together when he attends a Christmas party at the home of a friendly co-worker. Early on when he speaks of his reverence for the school’s former dean, Mr. Hunham comes across as a stodgy, ivory tower academic. But at the Christmas party we hear more of his story and see his beautiful heart and what it truly means to him to be a Barton man. We see the fullness of his beautiful heart emerge at that party. And we also watch it get broken. That moment of heartbreak is so well done. Giamatti shows that it’s happened to him so often that as he’s matured, he’s come to accept that heartbreak is not so much a part of life but a part of his life (and the inevitable culmination of most of his attempts at connection).
This performance is a balancing act of curmudgeonly comedy and touching pathos, and Giamatti never stumbles. He has wonderful chemistry with his co-stars Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (almost certain to win Best Supporting Actress).
Why He Might Not Win:
One thing might work against Giamatti’s performance. He’s playing a fictional character of no particular importance. Of these five nominees, only Jeffrey Wright is also playing someone fictional. The Academy has traditionally loved physical transformations into famous, respected figures. Leonard Bernstein is a revered artist. J. Robert Oppenheimer is the father of the atomic bomb. Bayard Rustin is a Civil Rights Leader whose legacy has been long neglected because of his sexuality. Mr. Hunham is just a guy who smells like fish because of a chronic heath condition.
On the other hand, nothing about the role seems controversial or off-putting. The most scandalous thing I’ve heard about Giamatti’s performance is that no one knows for sure how his divergent strabismus is achieved. Is it some practical effect? (I’m not sure how an cosmetic contact could look off-center like that.) Is it CGI? (That seems less likely to me, though the movie was shot digitally and enhanced with CGI to look like film in post, so I suppose anything is possible.) At any rate, that’s not the kind of controversy that keeps people from winning Oscars. (It’s not even a controversy at all, just a planted PR talking point!)
And it probably doesn’t matter that Mr. Hunham isn’t technically a real person, either. Giamatti has said that Payne wrote the part for him, so we may be seeing some elements that emotionally resonate with Giamatti’s own life. Certainly, the character feels emotionally real to all of us. Pretty much everyone I know has either had or is a beleaguered teacher. And I can’t think of anyone who’s reached middle age to announce, “Yep! My life worked out just like I always hoped and expected.” Surely from time to time, all of us are nagged by a pessimistic miniature Mr. Hunham sitting on our shoulder.
At this early moment, Giamatti seems likely to win the Oscar this year. He somehow feels due for a win, though I’m hard pressed to explain why. In fact, it surprises me that Giamatti hasn’t been nominated for more Oscars already. I misremembered him being nominated for Sideways, his earlier acclaimed collaboration with Alexander Payne. If he wins, then both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress will likely go to The Holdovers. Similarly, if Murphy wins, Oppenheimer will sweep up both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Because Oppenheimer looks so strong in the Best Picture and Best Director races, I kind of think the Oscar here might go to Paul Giamatti.
Cillian Murphy
Age: 47
Film: Oppenheimer
Role: J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, a theorist who can’t close off any possibility, leading him to a life of complicated relationships and a head swimming with secrets.
Nomination History:
This is Murphy’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
I like Oppenheimer the film so much that I sometimes forget about the strength of Cillian Murphy’s lead performance. The scene in which he gives his “victory speech” to the crowd at Los Alamos is particularly well done, but what shines there is not just Murphy’s performance but also the way the film is written and structured. This is an extremely effectively presented movie.
It wouldn’t work without Murphy’s central lead performance, though. I’ll confess, I’ve been struggling to write up these nominees this year. I spent an entire day trying to put into words what makes Murphy’s performance great and simply conjured up an image of him weeping against a rock in the woods while his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) comforts him by means of a vicious, bracing lecture. Why should being overcome by an incoherent breakdown make a performance great? Confronted with this, I couldn’t write a word.
Then I listened to some interviews with Blunt and Murphy, and they both repeatedly called out this scene as the scene, an incredibly crucial moment. That led me to a two-part realization. 1) Even though I’m a quavering mess right now myself, my instincts are sound and pointed me to the right scene, and 2) Murphy’s instincts as an actor are equally sound because—what an actor!—he managed to sell me on the very scene that was most important to him.
I’ve always loved watching Murphy onscreen. What a cinematic face! As a hobbyist photographer, I’d love to take him out into the woods—somewhere with natural light and shadow—and photograph the shaded contours of his face until the sun went down. He has always looked like an old school movie star, so last summer I was thrilled to see him star in such a box office juggernaut/cultural phenomenon. I always like seeing someone get the widespread recognition he’s due.
Because of his fabulously photographable face (and his talent), Murphy easily cuts a suitably impressive figure as the public Oppenheimer. The man builds a character for himself, makes himself a character, and Murphy with seeming ease mimics his unique cadence, his voice, his signature look, his postures, his sunken-faced stares. He’s iconic Oppenheimer.
But while doing that, Murphy brings another level to the performance in scenes like the one in the woods. He’s so vulnerable there. He reminds me of me. (Isn’t that a bit peculiar, that I should be able to recognize myself in J. Robert Oppenheimer? We certainly don’t move in the same circles or go to the same tailor.) The whole time I watched Murphy this summer, two thoughts traded prominence in my head. 1) I could never wear those clothes. Being a man of stature in the 1940s looks exhausting. I could never put myself together properly and take on such staggering responsibilities. 2) Yet this man is just like me. (I could so relate to his guilt, his complex relationships, his confusion about his motivations with that apple.)
You know the lead actor must be doing something special when a forty-four-year-old stay-at-home mom from present day Texas watches and thinks, Ah yes. J. Robert Oppenheimer was just like me. (I relate profoundly to his inability to close off possibilities, to his head swimming with overlapping ideas, to his gripping guilt, to his inability to close his heart to anyone.)
When the actor can so successfully show us simultaneously the exterior of such a public-facing historical character and the interior world of so complex a person, he’s clearly giving an extraordinary performance.
Why He Might Not Win:
I hope Cillian Murphy does win. Granted, of the two winners at the Golden Globes, Paul Giamatti gave the more charming speech. (Still Cillian’s melodious Irish brogue is charming no matter what he says.) Because of the wildly fluctuating influence of the Golden Globes, I’m no longer sure how much this matters.
I do think, as of now, Murphy does have a chance to win the Oscar. Robert Downey Jr., though, seems likely to win Best Supporting Actor, and Christopher Nolan deserves Best Director. The film seems poised to win Best Picture, too. Will Oppenheimer win everything? With the whole month of February yet to go, I can’t truly imagine anyone beating Murphy in this category except Paul Giamatti (whose performance and whose film I also loved).
Jeffrey Wright
Age: 58
Film: American Fiction
Role: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an erudite writer who happens to be black. Rankled when he’s told that his books don’t sell because they’re not “black enough,” Monk angrily bangs out a satirical work called My Pafology intended to skewer the entire publishing industry. Written under the ridiculous pen name Stagg R. Lee, My Pafology is everything Monk hates. It pretends to speak for everyone black and paints a picture of black life that will thrill rich white audiences with an equal mix of titillation and guilty horror. Much like in The Producers, though, the joke is on Monk. Publishers unironically love his work and offer him a huge advance which he needs because his widowed mother has developed Alzheimer’s, and he has become her caregiver by default. His self-loathing increases as the book’s popularity explodes and his bank account swells. How long can this ridiculous charade continue? He can’t think of any ending that will save him.
Nomination History:
This is Wright’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
Jeffrey Wright has such a sonorous voice, but he’s also an extremely versatile actor, and playing Monk Ellison gives him so many fantastic opportunities to put that versatility on display.
American Fiction is one of my favorite films of 2023. I liked it so much that I read the novel it’s adapted from, Erasure by Percival Everett. There are tremendous differences between the novel and the movie. Among other things, the novel gives us more vignettes from Monk’s childhood and past. Also, in the novel, we get the entire text of My Pafology as well as excerpts from other bits of fiction Monk is tinkering with. The juxtaposition of all these memories and snatches of dialogue forms a more complete picture of Monk’s life. We see what brought him to the point he’s reached now. Like me, he seems to filter his life through a fictional lens, and, as with all of us, his present-day behaviors make more sense when we see numerous snapshots of his formative memories.
But these endless recollections might not be as effective cinematically, so the movie doesn’t rely heavily on flashback. And it gives us little more than one scene of the outrageously offensive My Pafology. You’d think by cutting all this material, the movie would lose tremendous insight into Monk’s character, but Jeffrey Wright makes up the difference. He’s given the onerous task of doing the same work as what surely amounts to hundreds of pages of excised fiction. And he manages it beautifully, which is one thing that makes his performance so incredible.
Instead of looking at numerous memories with his brother, sister, and mother, we simply get to see the chemistry Wright contributes to those relationships. We don’t need to see so much of the past because Wright himself catches us up and brings everything into the present in his performance. As the cinematic story advances at a brisk clip, he has a lot of work to do.
In one of my favorite scenes, Monk meets Hollywood director Wiley Valdespino (Adam Brody) for lunch in character as his alter ego, fictional fiction writer Stagg R. Lee. There’s a lot going on in this scene. Wright has to play Monk playing Stagg, and Monk has a completely different history from the one he’s given this writer. How in the world does this Ivy league intellectual from a family of doctors with a beach house know how to play someone street smart who’s been in prison? Of course, he can assume that the director doesn’t come from that world either. So Wright brings some comedy to the performance. The character thinks of the whole thing as a joke. Yet he can’t play Stagg totally as a joke because he could use the money the movie deal will bring. (And this makes him hate himself.) It’s fun for the audience to watch Monk uncomfortably pretend to be the type of Stagg he thinks will fool Wiley. And then, of course, most of us watching aren’t wanted fugitives with Stagg’s background either, so we’re just as clueless as Wiley. The joke’s on us, too, yet we still find it funny. But as lunch is going on, the real Monk is terribly worried about his ailing mother who is waiting across the street at his agent’s office. As an ambulance pulls up, he bolts away, terrified it has come for his mother. For Wright, it’s a complex scene. He’s playing a man well who is playing another man badly. He’s also playing a man playing a joke while concerned about something deadly serious.
This is a complex performance involving big, genuine emotions often played in subtle ways, sometimes through layers of loud, outrageous performative comedy.
Also, like Domingo, Wright has more than one strong performance on display this Oscar season. He’s quite a presence in a supporting role in Rustin as the inimical Senator Powell, one of the men who strongly believes Rustin is bad for the movement because his homosexuality and ties to Communism can too easily be manipulated to bring scandal.
Why He Might Not Win:
Why in the world wouldn’t Jeffrey Wright win this Oscar? All I can seem to come up with is, “Well, he didn’t invent the atomic bomb.” Surely that’s not the standard, Sarah.
But you know what I mean, right? Initially I wanted to say something stupid like, “Well, the novel Erasure is about writing fiction, and while that does interest me, surely, to most people the stakes seem higher in a movie like Oppenheimer.” But both Erasure and the cleverly titled American Fiction are about more than fiction writing. They’re also, ironically, about the black experience (which apparently is constantly being defined by people who are not living it. There’s a great moment in the movie when a panel of book prize judges overrule the two black members of the jury’s thoughts on a book by a black author by saying, “I just think we really need to listen to black voices right now.”) In a sense, the film is also about the American experience. (It’s an American fiction that the “black experience” is universally similar to the one described in those novels. Also, in much American fiction, we use guns and violence to make our more pedestrian but also more complex problems easier to resolve.) I heard Jeffrey Wright say he was drawn to the project because of the aspect of the son becoming the caregiver of his mother. Wright said the story looks at a family who happen to be black.
So why wouldn’t Jeffrey Wright win an Oscar for that? I heard Robert Downey, Jr. say something interesting about Oppenheimer recently. He talked about the high stakes, the undeniably high stakes. In Oppenheimer, we feel the weight of every tiny thing the characters do because we know the fate of the world is hanging in the balance.
But American Fiction is life and death, too. Literally, the book is about the reality of people dying, and the exhausting fact that until it’s our turn to die, the rest of us have to live on and try to sort out all the minutiae. The stakes are just as high, but the task is way less clear. For most people (maybe for everyone), it’s easier to see a character’s importance if he’s building a bomb to fight the Nazis rather than creating bad fiction to emphasize how bad such fiction is all as a method of coping with reality. I think the direct dynamism of Oppenheimer will give this Oscar to Cillian Murphy. But it’s just as likely that Paul Giamatti will win because we’re all universally tired and cranky and we’d rather watch someone complain about it than watch someone write intentionally bad fiction about it. Jeffrey Wright would be a deserving winner, but I’ll be stunned if he pulls it off.