Mahershala Ali
Age: 44 (45 on February 16th)
Film: Green Book
Role: Dr. Don Shirley, a renowned African American concert pianist who plans leave New York and go on tour in several states in the early 1960s. Since many of his performances will be in the Deep South, Dr. Shirley needs a driver/body guard to help him complete the journey safely.
Nomination History:
Won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2017 for Moonlight (2016).
Why He Should Win:
I can’t pretend that I’m enthused about every one of the Academy’s nominees in this category, but Mahershala Ali, Adam Driver, and Richard E. Grant all turn in outstanding performances, and any one of them would be a deserving winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
That said, Ali will probably win.
Mahershala Ali is so talented. When I first saw Green Book, I had just watched Moonlight a few days before. Seeing the two performances so close together emphasized the remarkable degree of his versatility. (In Oscar terms, you could call it “Streepesque.”)
The instant Green Book ended, I said to my husband, “If Mahershala Ali is really playing the piano, then he will definitely win Best Supporting Actor.”
He’s not. But he’s much better than average at faking it, and his proficiency in fake piano playing is the result of lots of real time and effort. Realistically, no actor would be able to learn to play as well as a celebrated concert pianist in preparation for a single film. Green Book‘s most difficult finger work is done by Ali’s piano double Kris Bowers, who also taught him piano technique and scored the film.
This awards season, one of the smartest things I’ve seen Ali do (and he’s done a lot of smart things) is give credit to his piano double when accepting Best Supporting Actor at the Critics Choice Awards. He actually brought Bowers up to the microphone with him and very clearly explained that Bowers had both taught him piano technique and served as his piano double. This extremely gracious gesture eliminates confusion, gives credit where it’s due, and heads off any potential scandal about the use of a piano double. (Remember all the drama with Sarah Lane, Natalie Portman’s dance double for Black Swan? Green Book has scandals enough to worry about!)
Whether he’s the one playing or not, Ali’s best moment comes at the piano. I love the scene when after a frustrating, humiliating encounter, Dr. Shirley pounds all of his negative emotions into his music. Looking through that sacred triangle formed by the piano lid and keyboard, we (along with Viggo Mortensen’s Tony Lip) learn such a powerful lesson about restraint and release while watching Dr. Shirley translate his personal agony into such transporting art. Ali is also outstanding as he attempts to renegotiate Tony’s salary out of desperation. And he has an impassioned monologue in the rain that seems destined to be an Oscar clip.
To prepare for the part, Ali studied recordings Dr. Shirley made in later years, and he has said many times that he kept his characterization as faithful as possible to the real man.
Why He Might Not Win:
Ali gives a brilliant, passionate, masterful lead performance worthy of Best Actor recognition. But he’s nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
This kind of soft category fraud isn’t uncommon. Some would argue that it isn’t even really category fraud. I understand the explanation that the story begins and ends with Viggo Mortensen’s character, and that Tony Lip appears without Dr. Shirley many times, while Ali doesn’t get significant scenes without Mortensen. If one of them has to be placed in supporting, it should be the one who didn’t star in The Lord of the Rings. I get that.
But does one of them have to be placed in supporting? Maybe they worried Best Actor wasn’t big enough for the both of them, although the Academy found room in Best Supporting Actress for both Favourite co-stars, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone.
(Of course, some say that’s category fraud, too. Isn’t Emma Stone the lead in The Favourite, really? Shouldn’t Olivia Colman instead be placed in supporting? Only Rachel Weisz truly seems to belong in the Best Supporting Actress category (unlike in 2006 when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for what was clearly a lead female performance in The Constant Gardner if you ask me or BAFTA).)
I do think Ali actually belongs in Best Actor (a spot he probably would have stolen from Mortensen). But mild category fraud like this is extremely common, and one reason it’s so common is that when people do it, they win Oscars.
Obviously someone playing a dynamic character with extensive screentime and development has an edge over someone else who truly is in a supporting role.
If you consider Ali’s lead performance against four other (actually) supporting performances, he is obviously going to be the most conspicuously impressive one in the category.
But who cares! However you classify the performance, Ali is doing excellent work. I doubt the category fraud issue will matter too much to most voters.
A few other stumbling blocks might hinder Ali on the way to the podium, though.
One is that Green Book has racked up more unsavory scandals than any other movie still in the race. 1) Viggo Mortensen said the n-word (though in the context of decrying racism) 2) In the past, Director Peter Farrelly apparently thought it was funny to show co-workers his penis. (I’ll bet it was funnier than Stuck on You.) 3) Dr. Shirley’s relatives hate the film and say it mischaracterizes him and his relationship with Tony Lip. (Audio recordings made by both Tony and Dr. Shirley seem to defend most of the movie’s choices, though.)
Strange scandals get raked up about Oscar contenders every year, so I’m not sure how much any of this Green Book noise will hurt Ali’s chances.
The other, far more problematic issue standing in the way of an Oscar win by Ali this year is pretty straightforward. He just won Beast Supporting Actor in 2017. That’s just two years ago (as those who understand numbers will instantly realize). Winning Best Supporting Actor twice in such a short span is a fairly rare thing. Christoph Waltz won in 2010 and 2013, but at the time, that was kind of a freak occurrence, and everybody nominated in the category had already won an Oscar. (Waltz was actually co-lead in his movie, too, so maybe that will bring Ali good luck.)
Before voting for Ali, Academy members will have to stop and say to themselves, “He’s good. But is he two Oscars in three years good?” (It’s a span of two calendar years, but this Oscar will be the third awarded in that time.)
Ali probably will win Best Supporting Actor this year. (He’s already won the Globe, the Critics Choice Award, the SAG, and even the BAFTA.) But if he doesn’t win, I think that last thing is probably the reason why not.
Film: BlacKkKlansman
Role: Flip Zimmerman, 1970s undercover officer of the Colorado Springs Police Department who helps his African American colleague Ron Stallworth infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan by playing the role of Ron in face-to-face encounters.
Nomination History:
This is Driver’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
Adam Driver holds the distinction of having given the first performance I saw in 2018 that made me say, “He should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor.”
I’ve never watched Girls, so I think of Driver as Kylo Ren, and I’m slowly beginning to realize he’s a much better actor than I initially assumed.
One of the most tense, electrifying moments in BlacKkKlansman is Driver’s scene opposite Jasper Pääkkönen (the Finnish actor playing an American Klansman who also does strong supporting work). They’re down in the basement. Pääkkönen’s character Felix has a lie detector and a gun. Driver’s new recruit “Ron Stallworth” has to convince this twitchy, paranoid mad man that he isn’t a Jew. Again and again, “Ron” denies being Jewish, and he’s quite convincing. Felix doesn’t trust him, though.
And Felix is right to be suspicious. Not only is this “Ron Stallworth” a different man than the real (African American) Ron who first contacted the organization by phone, but this impostor Ron is undercover cop Flip Zimmerman, who removed the star of David he normally wears before going on this assignment.
Though Ron Stallworth’s story is broadly true, the Flip Zimmerman character is heavily fictionalized. As a result, he’s one of the most well drawn and fascinating characters in the film. Flip has never thought much about being Jewish until he’s forced to deny it. Now, under extreme pressure, he must reconsider the identity he has formed over the years and wonder what’s authentic and what’s a protective shell. No, he’s not the real Ron Stallworth. But is he the real Flip Zimmerman?
The real Ron Stallworth has been wrestling with a problem of dual identity all his life. But maybe Flip has, too, without even realizing it. What if Flip is just another fictive identity? What if he’s been undercover in real life all these years, playing a character rather than his authentic self? Does this matter?
Driver gives the strongest performance in a film full of exceptional supporting work (and a thoughtful lead turn by Denzel Washington’s son, John David Washington).
I’m thrilled that Driver has hung in there, that he managed to stay in the conversation since the summer and actually get the nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Why He Might Not Win:
Spike Lee’s work is often divisive (maybe I should say “usually divisive”) (okay “always divisive”), and BlacKkKlansman is much more challenging (and upsetting) to the viewer than, say, Green Book. Klansman forces its audience members to ask themselves uncomfortable questions, whereas Green Book wants viewers to feel uplifted, positive, hopeful, even happy.
I would be more than satisfied with a win by Adam Driver, but if he pulls it off I’ll die of shock.
If you ask me, this race is between front runner Mahershala Ali (for Green Book) and a very distant Richard E. Grant (for Can You Ever Forgive Me?). If the Academy ends up rewarding someone other than those two, it will probably be Sam Elliott (for reasons that escape me).
BlacKkKlansman has been nominated for all kinds of awards, but it hasn’t won any big ones yet (nothing televised, anyway).
Driver seems to be building a fantastic body of work. I’m sure he’ll be nominated again, possibly for that political drama of his that just played at Sundance, The Report.
Richard E. Grant
Age: 61
Film: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Role: Jack Hock, Dickensian scalawag(/skallywag?), perpetual ne’er-do-well, and petty criminal who is finding it increasingly difficult to coast on charm as he ages. In 1990s New York, Jack strikes up a friendship (based largely on physical proximity and mutual drunkenness) with depressed celebrity biographer Lee Israel who eventually recruits him to join her in a mildly lucrative criminal enterprise.
Nomination History:
This is Grant’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
I first fell in love with Richard E. Grant in college when my friends and I discovered the bizarre and underrated gem Hudson Hawk. (When one character’s secret identity is revealed, my dear friend (who is now a nun) observed, “That would have been very strange if this movie weren’t so strange already!”) Yes, Hudson Hawk is like nothing else, but we loved every second of its unpredictable, antic zaniness.
Grant has had a long and storied career and an even longer and more storied life. He was born and raised in Swaziland. He’s a parfumier. He’s delightful in interviews. My recommendation? Search his name on YouTube and enjoy. His reaction to his Oscar nomination alone is awards worthy. And he is definitely my personal pick for Best Supporting Actor.
As Jack Hock, he fills the whole screen with an animated blend of tireless charisma and masked melancholy. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is an excellent film, one of my favorites of the year. Even my ten-year-old daughter liked it when we watched it again at home the other night. She was watching something else on her phone until a couple of stray lines made her laugh so much that she joined us around the television.
Melissa McCarthy turns in an excellent (possibly career best) performance. But her character Lee Israel is such an “armadillo” in the actress’s own words. She’s focused inward and shields herself with plates of protective armor. Jack Hock, in contrast, is a big, showy extrovert. As Lee pulls inward and tries to retreat into her shell, Jack throws out his arms expansively and launches his personality into the room.
Grant gives Jack the type of larger-than-life quality usually found in Charles Dickens characters. He’s big. When he’s feeling celebratory, his irrepressible glee fills the entire room, leaps off the screen, and begins to flood the movie theater, too. And yet a flicker of melancholy never completely vanishes from his eyes. An unrelenting pathos haunts his every grin. His final scene is powerful, haunting, sobering (but even then he laughs).
I’d also like to mention that in that final scene, he reminds me so strongly of Alec Guinness. (The other night, we found a clip of an Irish journalist telling Grant that his work in the film made her think of Oliver Twist. My husband was extremely amused as I exploded with excitement. But you see? It’s not only me. He plays the character in a recognizably Dickensian way. Plus, Alex Guinness did famously play Fagin in David Lean’s classic black-and-white Oliver Twist.) Why am I so excited about Grant’s eerie similarities to Alex Guinness? When I first saw the film, I simply enjoyed the Dickensian characterization. But then, just a couple of weeks ago, I learned that Grant has been cast in the next Star Wars movie playing a character whose identity is top secret. Hmm…
Why He Might Not Win:
Mahershala Ali not only won the Golden Globe and the SAG. He even won the BAFTA. He’s (deservedly) the front runner. I don’t think anyone can catch him. At this point, a win by anyone else will be a shocking upset.
And I can’t, in all honesty, argue against a win by Ali. He gives a powerful performance in Green Book (some would say a powerful lead performance, but I suspect the Academy isn’t bothered by category fraud. That’s why actors commit it all the time. It helps them win). Ali is also such a class act, a genuinely lovely person by all appearances. (And did you know that Mahershala is his nickname? His full first name is Mahershalalhashbaz, which comes from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah! His mother was a Christian minister, but he later converted to Islam. So Grant is not the only one with a fascinating backstory.)
But Grant is two decades older, and he’s never won an Oscar, whereas Ali won just two years ago.
Some delusional part of me believes that Grant still does have a chance of winning. It would be a shocking upset, yes, but those happen at the Oscars. He’s been throwing himself into the whole thing with such enthusiasm, overbrimming with what appears to be genuine excitement and gratitude, taking selfies with his fellow nominees, doing everything within his power to strike up a friendship with Barbra Streisand.
Though I don’t believe it will happen (because Ali has this one), I hope that Grant wins.
Age: 74
Film: A Star is Born
Role: Bobby, much older brother and long exasperated manager of troubled, fading rock star Jackson Maine. Oddly, both brothers sound uncannily like Sam Elliott.
Nomination History:
This is Elliot’s first nomination.
Why He Should Win:
I won’t lie. I never connected with Elliott’s performance in A Star is Born, and while I’m not surprised to see him nominated, I’m also not particularly thrilled about it.
What really irritates me is that it’s not Elliott’s fault I wasn’t blown away by his performance. In all of Elliott’s strongest moments, Bradley Cooper is there stealing the scene from him with some little flourish of more impressive acting.
That’s one of the things that I didn’t like about A Star is Born. The film starts so strong, but as it progresses, Jackson’s downward spiral begins to take over everything (extra grating since Cooper wrote and directed the film). (I realize that we need to see both Ally’s rise and Jack’s decline, but in the beginning of the film, we are seeing both at once, and then we just kind of lose Ally.) And every time I was trying to get a sense of Elliott’s performance, Cooper was there upstaging him.
For example, I do love the emotionally charged scene when Jack and Bobby (a good name for a pair of brothers) open up to one another in the truck. Elliott is good there, but it’s hard to remember that because Cooper sneaks in a final sentence so powerful that it eclipses all that has come before. Seeing Elliott and Cooper act together leaves me with the strong feeling that Cooper is a great actor, though perhaps too fond of his own acting as a director. (He steals moments from Lady Gaga, too. Just look at how he inserts himself into her final song, giving himself the emotional heft of the scene.)
So Elliott is doing nothing wrong. I just think the material he’s given shortchanges him a little.
If the Academy wants to reward him for being Sam Elliott, that’s fine with me. Nobody else is Sam Elliott, after all, no matter how well Cooper mimics his distinctive voice.
“And he’s such a heart throb,” my mother pointed out while I was ranting out loud about this one day.
“No, no,” I said in confusion. “I mean Sam Elliott.”
“All the women love him,” my dad chimed in.
“Sam Elliott?” I repeated in confusion.
“He was in Tombstone,” my parents reminded me.
“Yes,” I said forlornly.
Apparently Sam Elliott is widely considered extremely handsome and desirable. Both my parents are positive. I genuinely had no idea.
So now I don’t like Elliott’s performance, and I’ve accidentally insulted his good looks. Great! I promise, I have nothing against Sam Elliott. What a presence! What a voice! (I’d call it inimitable, but Cooper has proven that description false).
I wouldn’t have nominated Elliott for Best Supporting Actor. I would have nominated Timothée Chalamet (who gives a superior performance and whose good looks are more obvious to the casual observer, I feel). (But maybe I just feel that way because my daughter has spent the past year rhapsodizing that he’s her Oscar crush.) Then again, Chalamet is arguably the co-lead in Beautiful Boy. Elliott’s performance truly is supporting. I’ll give him that.
He does give a nice speech comparing life to music, opposite generous scene partner Lady Gaga. It’s the kind of reflective moment the Academy usually loves. “Music is essentially twelve notes between any octave,” he says, which seems surprising linguistically, but give a man a guitar, and there’s no end to what he can accomplish. “Twelve notes, and then the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All the artist can offer the world is how they see those twelve notes.” Those lines should particularly resonate with the audience since this is the fourth film version of A Star is Born. (And to screenwriter Cooper’s credit, that’s probably intentional.)
There is a certain ring of wisdom to this analogy as delivered by Elliott. He seems to speak from a place of august experience. His mere presence lends gravitas to these lines and to the film. And Cooper’s gravelly new Sam-Elliott-style voice makes much more sense if the actual Sam Elliott is playing his brother. Honestly nobody but Elliott could have played this role.
Why He Might Not Win:
He probably will win just because I find his performance so frustrating.
(I haven’t even mentioned how unlikely I find it that Elliott (74) and Cooper (44) are brothers because a father could very plausibly have one son at twenty, then another at fifty by a different woman. Older men father children all the time, so complaining about that would be unfair of me.)
Actually, my own frustration with the performance notwithstanding, I believe Elliott is a true threat to win this Oscar. If Mahershala Ali doesn’t win for some reason, then veterans Grant and Elliott have the next best shot. Obviously, I prefer Grant on the grounds that he gives a strong, deserving performance. But Sam Elliott is a beloved industry veteran, and (unlike Grant) an American. He might actually be able to pull off a surprise upset.
(After reading all this, you might guess that I would be more upset than surprised at such a development, but honestly, I have nothing but respect for Sam Elliott. If he wins, I’ll consider it a lovely reward for a memorable career.)
Film: Vice
Role: George W. Bush, so eager to step out of his father’s shadow and make a name for himself in politics that he eagerly agrees to give his desired running mate, Dick Cheney, an unusual degree of power.
Nomination History:
Won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2018 for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
Why He Should Win:
Quite a number of last year’s acting nominees had realistic hopes of returning to the Oscars this year–Timothée Chalamet, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Daniel Kaluuya. But only two of them pulled it off, Willem Dafoe and Sam Rockwell (who went head-to-head in the 2018 race for Best Supporting Actor).
Frankly, I think giving Rockwell an Oscar nomination for his George W. Bush impression is a little excessive. Does he make a convincing W.? Absolutely. But I’ve seen so many actors convincingly bring the second Bush president to life on the screen. I have to think the degree of difficulty can’t be too high. In the acting Olympics, the ol’ George W. Bush routine has a relatively low start value.
Consider, though, that this is only the second nomination of Rockwell’s entire career. That’s just ridiculous. Rockwell is an actor who has always thrown himself into his work. He isn’t just a pretty face or a charismatic star. He is an actor in the truest sense of the word. He never gives a dull performance, and the characters he has created over the years are all multi-dimensional, fascinating, complete creatures.
Why He Might Not Win:
Sam Rockwell’s mind blowing turn in Three Billboards last year won my heart forever. (He was so good, and the degree of difficulty for that role was off the charts.)
But, in case you’re wondering, here are the names of some thespians I’d consider stronger nominees (than either of the Sams) for Best Supporting Actor this year: Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy), Daniel Kaluuya (Widows), Colman Domingo (If Beale Street Could Talk), Jasper Pääkkönen (BlacKkKlansman), Jonathan Pryce or Christian Slater (The Wife), Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody), Rupert Friend (At Eternity’s Gate), possibly Nicholas Hoult (The Favorite) (a different look for him), and maybe even Steve Carell (Vice). (Carell plays Rumsfeld less like Carell playing Rumsfeld and more like Rumsfeld playing Carell, but the results are still very interesting.) Honestly even last year’s BAFTA nominees Hugh Grant (Paddington 2) and Simon Russell Beale (Death of Stalin) seem like better choices to me.
If Sam Rockwell somehow wins this award it will be the shock of the entire Oscar season. I’m not normally one for bold predictions, but I’m pretty sure that Mahershala Ali needs to prepare a fresh acceptance speech. He’s winning this for sure.