Emily Blunt
Age: 40 (born February 23)
Film: Oppenheimer
Role: Kitty Oppenheimer, devoted wife to her fourth husband, J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Kitty has spent a lifetime battling demons which has prepared her perfectly to square off against her husband when he needs a firm hand and to fight back against his enemies when they attempt to destroy his career.
Nomination History:
This is Blunt’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
I’m excited about Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer. Her nomination thrills me because I found her performance in The Devil Wears Prada electrifying and hilarious, and I still think she should have been Oscar nominated for that star-making role. So I’m glad to see an accolade she has long deserved finally materialize. Her character in Oppenheimer really spoke to me, too. In fact, the way Nolan handles the character is one of the many reasons I love the film.
Robert’s wife, Kitty, clearly has a drinking problem. One of the first things we learn about her is that she had fleeting ties to the Communist party. These ties came through her devotion to her beloved late husband. As we learn almost instantly, he was her second husband, and without the slightest compunction, she cheats on her third husband with Oppenheimer. Then when they have their first child, we see that Kitty—who always carries a flask in her purse—would prefer to have a drink while she ignores the cries of her distressed infant. So the deck is stacked against Kitty rather quickly. Handled differently, this character could easily disappear into a stereotype. In a lazier film, her drinking problem and her post partum depression might be her character. But (refreshingly) Oppenheimer instead gives us a fully realized person with strengths as well as difficulties.
Blunt gives Kitty surprising strength, insight, and sensitivity. I love the way she plays her in quiet moments. She’s such an active listener. There’s always a flicker of canny intelligence and maybe even a hint of menace dancing in her eyes. In fact, though her testimony at the closed hearing is brilliant, I like Kitty best when she’s not talking. My favorite moment comes when she refuses to shake the hand of someone who wronged her husband at the end of the film. Her silences speak volumes.
On a second watch of the film—after we’ve already seen the big reveal of her not only competent but canny testimony—we can see even more clearly what an active listener she is from the start. The way she intently listens to each speaker at the hearing reminds me of a wily dragon, biding its time. In fact, during these listening scenes, Blunt plays Kitty almost like a villain, watching from the shadows. There’s a distinct hint of menace to the woman and for good reason. Kitty has the good sense to know her husband (through no fault of his own) is facing enemies (despite their pretense of well-meaning impartiality). Any actress could sit silently with a flask in her purse, but Blunt is so present in these scenes, making her presence felt through the cool, thoughtful stare with which she takes in the proceedings.
Oppenheimer is by nature a theoretical thinker. There’s a certain guileless impracticality to his fair-minded, judgment-free approach to processing reality. Despite all the secrets he keeps, he’s an extremely honest man. Kitty, on the other hand, is both practical and vengeful.
He needs the venom that she injects into the relationship. When he breaks down in grief at the death of his affair partner, she’s so firm with him. Someone has to be. Is she angry he’s had this affair? Yes. But, remarkably, instead of using her rage to lash out at him blindly, she channels it and uses it to help him. Blunt is very good at making us believe Kitty’s controlled rage and purposeful venom.
Why She Might Not Win:
This is Blunt’s first nomination, which is an achievement in itself, but the precursor awards of the season have all gone to Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and I’m pretty confident she’ll win the Oscar, too.
Blunt’s chances are also hurt by the fact that she’s far from the flashiest character in the film. Oppenheimer has one star, Cillian Murphy as the titular scientist. Then it has a huge (and tremendously talented) ensemble cast. Playing Oppenheimer’s wife, Blunt obviously (as her nomination attests) has a better chance at winning an Oscar than the other woman in his life played by Florence Pugh. But it’s still a relatively small role compared to the focus-pulling parts played by Murphy and Robert Downey, Jr. (who probably will win Best Supporting actor). Having to share your husband (and your screentime) with the atomic bomb perhaps makes it harder to make the kind of impression necessary for an Oscar win.
Danielle Brooks
Age: 34
Film: The Color Purple
Role: Sofia, fiery, feisty outspoken first wife of Celie’s stepson Harpo who refuses to be beaten (up or down) by anyone.
Nomination History:
This is Brooks’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
Though I also loved Colman Domingo’s performance as Mr., Danielle Brooks is the best part of The Color Purple, and if I were handing out the Oscars, she would likely win Best Supporting Actress.
Watching The Color Purple made me uneasy. For one thing, my experience was affected by the American Fiction trailer that played right before the movie since it highlighted how often our society promotes and relishes a certain kind of black experience in fiction, namely an experience of privation and suffering. Immediately this set off inner alarm bells I couldn’t silence. I’ve read The Color Purple. If you’re looking for an example of abject poverty and abuse, look no further than Celie. This gave me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched the film. I kept asking myself, “Should such a harrowing novel be this much fun to watch?” I never felt the full heft of Celie’s suffering because so much of it occurs off screen. We get hints of the life of daily abuse she’s experiencing, and then time jumps and cut aways invite us to fill in the gaps ourselves.
I was so in my head about this. I could never decide if it was a problem with the film or a problem with me. My thoughts prompted by that American Fiction trailer, I felt like a creepy voyeur as Celie’s life of relentless tragedy and discovery of empowering wonder unfolded on the screen. To be honest, I still can’t coherently parse through that uncomfortable feeling. I even read Erasure (the source novel for American Fiction), and I still haven’t sorted it out.
The point is, the instant Sofia showed up, my tortured compunctions completely vanished. I stopped trying to remember the novel. I stopped feeling guilty for enjoying watching characters in immense suffering. I immediately lost myself in the world of the story. All I wanted to do was watch Sofia. She’s such a breath of fresh air injected into the story.
Without this performance, the movie wouldn’t work. For one thing, the character’s arc is essential. She provides Celie a vision of a different kind of life. She doesn’t want men to abuse her, and so she stands up for herself and doesn’t let them. This is radical to Celie.
Brooks played the part on Broadway, and you can tell. She’s self-assured in the role and vocally impressive. Of course, she can handle the songs, but I’m impressed by the way she sings out all her lines. This is an Oscar season full of musicality in actor’s voices.
She makes her presence felt in every scene. In fact, there’s no scene in which Sofia appears that doesn’t become about Sofia in some way.
If you’re like me, you watch and wonder, “How can this woman at this time in this environment get away with being so outrageously combative?” Yes, she’s standing up for herself, but she’s asserting her right to respect so proactively. And then, of course, we discover she can’t get away with it. She’s combative with the wrong person, and suddenly the full horror of everything Celie has experienced off screen happens center screen to the one character who has seemed impervious to such suffering.
That’s one reason Brooks gives my favorite performance in the film. Not only is her Sofia feisty and full of life, shaking up the other characters wherever she goes, but we also get to experience the degree of violence and injustice Sofia has been proactively striking out against. Suddenly her moxie is not so funny anymore. The film only gives us hints of the horrors that happen to Celie, but we see Sofia get brutally attacked and injured. We watch the character most vibrantly full of life get crushed to the point of a kind of living death. And that’s not her lowest ebb, yet she still (remarkably) eventually makes a recovery into something like her old self.
Without doubt, The Color Purple centers on Celie’s story. Nevertheless, Brooks gives the audience everything we miss in Celie’s story as the fiery and grievously wronged Sofia.
Why She Might Not Win:
My daughter and I saw The Color Purple together on New Year’s Day, and while we enjoyed it, few people were in the auditorium with us. The showstopping musical numbers and moments of heightened tragedy (such as when Nettie gets thrown out into the rain after nearly being raped) and comedy (almost anything involving Sofia’s early storyline) felt like they should be getting bigger audience reactions. But there was no audience there to react.
Granted, that could have been a fluke based on our individual experience. Maybe this film played to packed houses in other places (or even here on a different day).
My own experience watching the film is entirely subjective. But it’s a fact that the only Oscar nomination The Color Purple received is this one for the supporting performance of Danielle Brooks. Based on its buzz, I assumed the film might also get nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress, but those expectations fizzled out into silence.
If anyone could challenge Da’Vine Joy Randolph for this award, I think it’s Brooks as Sofia, but I honestly don’t see that happening.
America Ferrera
Age: 39
Film: Barbie
Role: Gloria, the beleaguered mom of a teenager who once had a dream for her life but now daydreams of Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie.
Nomination History:
This is Ferrera’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
How is it possible not to love the creator of Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie? I have such sentimental love for America Ferrera in Barbie it carried over into other movies, making her feel like my oldest friend when she showed up in Dumb Money. I think it’s impossible not to love Ferrara’s character in Barbie. As a terrible driver whose daughter just started high school, I relate to her so strongly.
Ferrara has an interesting arc. Initially, her character, Gloria, is wistful, sad, depressed, cut off from everyone. But as the story progresses, she gains two scene partners with whom she’s exchanging energy—Margot Robbie’s Barbie, and her own daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Over the course of the film, we watch Gloria come out of her sad little box and come alive. First she matches energy with her Barbie, a gradual process that pulls her out of her depression. We see her eyes widen with life (not unlike the eyes of Robbie, who deserves a nomination, too). At the same time as she’s matching energy with Barbie, though, Gloria is also manifesting energy perfectly at odds with her daughter’s. (There’s even a great moment in the car when one of them is looking up, and the other is looking down. Their faces are pulled in opposite directions.) But, of course, as the story goes on, Barbie takes over the depressed, cut-off role, and Gloria’s energy begins to match her daughter’s. (And then, in the end, they’re all in sympathetic vibration.) This seems fairly difficult to pull off, especially because Gloria must remain sympathetic to the audience. She has to do all this in a casual way without losing the character’s down-to-Earth, Everywoman quality.
And, of course, Ferrera delivers perhaps the most relatable monologue that’s been on screen in a decade. Of course, the words are magnificent. She didn’t write them, but she delivers them as if she’s discovering them. (I’ve been re-watching this scene because my brain is a little sluggish, not making the connections that ordinarily occur to it naturally. This may be an artificial imposition because it was making too many connections before, so I’m still getting used to that. As I watch her, I keep wondering, “Why isn’t her scene partner Margo Robbie nominated? She’s being so edified as she processes this pep talk. How do you watch this monologue and not also love Margot Robbie? Why isn’t the director Greta Gerwig nominated? Surely she’s responsible for the thing I like best about this scene, the way everyone else remains motionless as Gloria rises up while making discoveries about what has caused her depression.” I love the way the motionlessness of the rest of the cast is emphasized by the posture of Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who remains in her uncomfortable-looking upward split as Ferrera keeps changing postures.
Despite the way the beautifully written monologue will resonate with every woman, but Ferrera’s delivery is inspired, too. It would be more than possible to ruin this incredible speech. For one thing, the ideas expressed should make every woman so angry (and probably do). A bad actress (like me) might just yell out the whole thing. But Ferrera finds levels in it. And as she transitions from level-to-level of emotion and nuance, she also changes her posture. At the beginning, she’s looking into the eyes of Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie, but almost immediately, she breaks their gaze as she starts to think about what the problem is. By the time she’s climbed all the way to her feet, her rate of speech has increased, and her gestures have become more dynamic. She’s standing up now, understanding the problem, separating herself from the dolls frozen in her psyche. She’s rising from her own depression, and her daughter sees her and respects her. Somewhat ironically, though, given the content of her speech, she can’t become too angry while calling out these injustices rampant in society, or she risks undermining her own argument. She has to get angry in a pleasant, safe mom way. It’s probably pretty tricky to pull off.
Why She Might Not Win:
Ever since I saw Barbie in the theater, I’ve been wondering if America Ferrera would get an Academy Award nomination because of that show-stopping monologue, arguably the most memorable, culturally resonant movie scene of 2024. What’s given me pause is that Ferrera didn’t write the monologue. She’s merely delivering it (delivering it very well, granted).
That becomes a moot point, though, because Da’Vine Joy Randolph is probably going to win the Oscar. She’s the clear frontrunner in the category, so America Ferrera made it as far as can reasonably be expected.
Jodie Foster
Age: 61
Film: Nyad
Role: Bonnie Stoll, the loyal lifelong best friend and impromptu coach of Diana Nyad as she attempts to swim from Cuba to the United States unassisted at sixty. Diana may make the swim unassisted, but she doesn’t do it without help. Bonnie is with her every step of the way.
Nomination History:
Foster won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1992 for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and in 1989 for The Accused (1988).
She was nominated for Best Actress in 1995 for Nell (1994).
She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1977 for Taxi Driver (1976).
Why She Should Win:
Jodie Foster is so good in Nyad that my eight-year-old son who doesn’t like movies watched the movie. (He also liked the scenes of ocean peril.) (“I especially liked Bonnie,” he noted. “She was easy to root for.)
I would give Foster an Oscar based on that testimonial alone because I know the full extent of my son’s usual ambivalence to movies.
Bonnie is easy to root for. Her dynamic with Annette Bening’s Diana is, in part, what makes the movie so watchable.
A lot of Foster’s performance involves listening. While she does this, she cleans her house. I would kill for that skill. Watching her, I thought, “Maybe this is why my house is so messy. I need a friend like Annette Bening’s Diana Nyad to come and complain to me about her frustrations with life.” While Diana leads, Bonnie plays ping-pong, sails out into open water, feeds Diana from the boat. Even when she stands still watching Diana swim, she adopts an active stance. It’s an extremely kinetic performance. Bonnie is always doing something. She’s by far the more passive scene partner, and yet she’s constantly in motion. Diana is the extroverted athlete. Diana is the big talker. But Bonnie is just as athletic, and listening is an activity, too. Nyad works because these two are scene partners in every sense of the word. It’s like that old saying about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Everything he did, she did backwards in high heels. (I’ve been hunting down the origins of that quote, and it turns out that it may have originated in the work of cartoonist Bob Thaves. Just to be maddening, I won’t tell you where that information comes from.) (Just kidding, I learned it from this Tumblr post, https://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/74326381160/misquotation-ginger-rogers that sites the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as a source.)
In this film, we see that sometimes Diana can be her own worst enemy. Bonnie is often the one who steps up and convinces others’ to help Diana. Sometimes she even convinces Diana to help herself. Foster plays her so winningly. She gets a couple of grueling, dramatic moments. But what makes this performance special is the way Foster shows up in every scene, brimming with energy, positivity, and a healthy desire to match Diana’s boundless dreams of glory with healthy pragmatism.
Why She Might Not Win:
Yes, Nyad is not without its share of controversy, which I already discussed in my review of Best Actress. But all of that is essentially moot because Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the clear frontrunner in this race. It seems impossible at this point that anyone else could win.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Age: 37
Film: The Holdovers
Role: Mary Lamb, the cafeteria worker and cook at Barton Academy who stays behind at school over Christmas because she has just lost her son in Vietnam. He was a Barton student, and she particularly feels his presence there.
Nomination History:
This is Randolph’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
It’s easy to root for Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Mary Lamb because she’s the only character in the movie who’s immediately sympathetic. Circumstances have made her sympathetic. First of all, she’s kind to everyone, and at the beginning of The Holdovers, kindness is in short supply. Also because she stays behind to work in the cafeteria over the break, she’s the one preparing the meals nourishing everyone, necessary work with a tangible, positive result. And then, of course, there’s tremendous personal tragedy. She’s lost her only son in Vietnam.
Probably the greatest strength of her performance lies in its variations. In almost every scene of the film, Mary is so self-possessed. She has such equanimity. She takes the horrors of her grief and the thoughtless treatment of others in stride with an eyeroll, a shrug, a gentle laugh. Then at the Christmas party she totally falls apart. As she stands listening to Artie Shaw records, we can see in her face that she’s remembering her son. There’s a fantastic moment when she briefly loses herself in the music. She closes her eyes, tilts her head, a pleasant expression on her face. But this lasts so briefly because she can’t sustain it. She knows the memory isn’t real. Her eyes flash open, flutter in confusion, in distress. Then they quickly turn angry, and she demands, “Go get me another drink.” Randolph uses this brief moment of screentime to take us on a journey of Mary’s grief, the way she’s tried to block out reality by drinking, the way she’s found solace in the memories of her son. But this kind of happiness is ultimately illusory and unsustainable. She can’t even make it last through an entire Artie Shaw song. Not long after this, we find her inconsolate with grief in the kitchen. She’s failed to substitute a more pleasant delusion for the harsh reality that confronts her. She sobs, “He’s gone.” And we see immediately that her eyerolls, shrugs, and gentle taking to task of Mr. Hunham are only pieces of the same kind of protective armor that he wears. She’s clinging to a familiar place to attempt to hold onto the past, but deep inside, she knows this is impossible.
Randolph makes such a positive impression as Mary that her absence is deeply felt late in the film. When I discovered she wasn’t going to Boston with them, I thought, “Oh no!” and was immeasurably pleased when we did get to see her again before the end of the movie.
Why She Might Not Win:
I think Randolph will win. The only person I could imagine beating her is Danielle Brooks, and unfairly or not, The Color Purple doesn’t have the same kind of staying power and momentum we get with The Holdovers.
When you look back at the film (as I just have), you see that Randolph doesn’t have tremendously showy moments. Nor does she have screentime to match the impression she makes. She also doesn’t have tons of meaty monologues (though she gets some great lines in a conversation about why her son went to Vietnam). Yet her presence in the movie is so felt. That’s why she deserves the Oscar. Plus, following a pandemic, who can’t relate to a grieving mother, especially one who always behaves kindly toward others despite being swallowed up by her own grief? In all likelihood, Randolph will win this Oscar.