Amy Adams
Age: 44
Film: Vice
Role: Lynne Cheney, the driven, Second Lady (Macbeth) of the George W. Bush administration who wears her bra, speaks her mind, and spurs her devoted husband Dick onto new heights neither could reach without the other.
Nomination History:
Previously nominated for Best Actress for American Hustle (2013).
Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Junebug (2005), Doubt (2008), The Fighter (2010), The Master (2012).
Should have been nominated for Best Actress for Arrival (2016) and, arguably, Enchanted (2007).
Why She Should Win:
That last line is a joke, but I included it because it’s relevant here. Amy Adams now has six Oscar nominations and (so far) no wins. On top of that, in 2017 the Academy nominated the excellent sci-fi film Arrival for Best Picture, then shockingly failed to nominate her superb star turn. People are still talking about this. (Call it a snub or a vote-split with Nocturnal Animals. Either way, it should not have happened. It’s not quite as egregious as Leonardo DiCaprio not getting nominated for The Departed, but it still feels wrong.)
I personally think Adams also deserved a nod for her nuanced, spellbinding work as Giselle in Disney’s Enchanted. That performance made such a positive impression on newlywed me that I briefly toyed with the idea of naming my firstborn child after Amy Adams (until forced to abandon that scheme when I realized that no matter which of her names I used, it would be the first name of my stepson’s mother or her husband. Even then, I was like, “Could I make it work?”)
If you love an actress enough to consider naming your baby after your husband’s ex-wife, I think it’s safe to say you’re a fan. I’m biased in favor of Adams, for sure, and I’m not trying to hide it. Besides being hardworking and personable, Adams has a gift for understanding and connecting with material. Every time I listen to her deliver lines or watch her react to a scene partner, I think, “Yeah, she gets this.” She has uncanny emotional intelligence, so her performances are always convincing and enlightening for the audience. If I were a screenwriter, Adams is the kind of performer I would want interpreting my work.
At this point in her career, she deserves to win an Oscar. The quality of her body of work speaks for itself. I would be thrilled to see her win on Oscar night because let’s face it, all this time she’s been showing us that she is Academy Award Winner Amy Adams. All she needs is the Academy Award to make it official.
But what about this performance in particular?
Before seeing Vice, I knew little about Lynne Cheney and wasn’t in any hurry to rectify that. I knew that she was married to Dick Cheney, that one of her daughters was a lesbian, and that, while she didn’t hate rap with explicit lyrics as much as Tipper Gore, she still didn’t like it very much.
Amy Adams makes her fascinating. Honestly, Adams is not in the movie that much (compared to her male co-star). Bale’s Cheney is so big that he kind of takes over the whole thing. But every time Adams is present, she does something unexpected and that opens our eyes to a new dimension of Lynne.
The only flaw I see in her performance is that I’m positive Adam McKay isn’t a fan of the Cheneys, and yet Amy Adams makes Lynne kind of awesome. I wouldn’t go as far as sympathetic, but as played by Adams, Lynne Cheney is interesting, curious, a formidable presence, worth knowing.
For me, the most exciting scene is when she lectures her daughters about President Nixon’s enemies. What a fascinating response to the situation! I found myself thinking, “Who is this woman?” Clearly she is someone. And she very much knows it. I admire her unique vision, her decisiveness, her strength of character. I disagree with her about basically everything, but I would never argue with her because I can see that her opinions are both more informed and more unyielding than my own.
Adams makes Lynne Cheney someone I want to get to know (from a safe distance). And I have to credit her performance itself the most for this because in a movie like Vice, the temptation to skewer the character you’re playing must be high. But Adams takes Lynne seriously and gives her a degree of dignity. (She has said she modeled the performance on her grandmother who always spoke her mind.)
And she gets multiple opportunities to show off her range, too. We see her strong side, but we also get to see vulnerability, confusion, and fear when she learns of her mother’s unusual death.
And that mock-Shakespearean scene in the bedroom is nothing short of magnificent. Frequent collaborators Amy Adams and Christian Bale need to do actual Shakespeare together immediately. I suggest The Taming of the Shrew which would give Bale the chance to do comedy, allow Adams to play against type, and comment cleverly on the current climate in Hollywood if presented properly.
I would give her the Oscar for the Shakespearean scene alone.
Why She Might Not Win:
Even without Golden Globe winner Regina King among the competition, Adams did not win the SAG for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role. That went to Emily Blunt for A Quiet Place. (Supporting whom, you ask? Why, her husband John Krasinski, obviously! She devoted her entire acceptance speech to thanking him! In all seriousness, category fraud sometimes annoys me, but Emily Blunt had no choice. It’s too bad she didn’t get an Oscar nomination for Mary Poppins, and I’m glad she got to win something.)
But the thing is, since Amy Adams didn’t win at the SAGs, I doubt she’ll win the Oscar this year.
I have heard some people suggest that Adams’s work as Lynne Cheney is not special enough for an Oscar win. She does deserve to win an Oscar, they (usually) concede, but not for Vice. (People making this argument typically mention Adams’s next project, The Woman in the Window, expected later this fall.) Some naysayers, in fact, go further, suggesting that Adams’s performance in Vice is not special enough even for a nomination.
“Now wait just a minute,” I want to say. “Consider. Would this exact same performance seem special enough if an unknown actress were giving it?”
No matter how people respond, the correct answer is yes. What Adams does with the character of Lynne Cheney is incredible. But we already know Amy Adams and what she’s capable of. She’s set a the bar for herself very high. If Vice were our introduction to Amy Adams, we would all be asking, “Who is this intriguing new actress?” If her performance seems less than amazing, it’s only in comparison to her own previous work. She has had better–or at least flashier–parts before. And I will admit that while Bale disappears into Dick Cheney, Adams remains completely recognizable as herself.
There’s still a chance that the Academy will give her the Oscar. This category is impossible to predict this year, which makes the race more exciting than usual (although so far the awards shows have been oddly dull).
Marina de Tavira
Age: 44
Film: Roma
Role: Sra. Sofía, a chemistry professor and mother of four who finds her life upended when her husband leaves her. Holding on to the diminishing hope that he will eventually return, she struggles to keep both the true reason for his absence and her emotional distress hidden from her children.
Nomination History:
This is De Tavira’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
When De Tavira’s name was called, I felt a thrill of surprise and satisfaction (chased by a twinge of regret for Emily Blunt who was now almost certain to miss lead actress in favor of Yalitza Aparicio).
I truly believe De Tavira belongs in this category, and I was frustrated and baffled that so few Oscar pundits were predicting her.
Compared to the other women nominated here, De Tavira has a small part. But here’s the thing. Without her performance, Roma would fall apart.
Okay, maybe that’s overstating the case. But the biggest star of Roma (humble protestations notwithstanding) is director Alfonso Cuarón. He creates amazing scenes around lead actress Yalitza Aparicio, who often moves through them in near silence, largely internalizing her complex emotions in the face of crisis.
Meanwhile, somebody in Roma has to talk and emote. The film follows two overlapping crises in the family. The maid, Cleo, is pregnant, and the baby’s father has left her. But the patriarch of the family has also left, essentially abandoning his wife and four children.
Just as much as her maid, Sra. Sofía is a woman in crisis, and even though we’re focused on Cleo, we also need to be aware of what’s going on with her employer (a fictionalized version of the director’s mother). It is De Tavira’s job to make us aware, to help us to see Sra. Sofía‘s crisis and to make us feel it deeply. But the camera always follows Cleo. If Sra. Sofía wants the audience’s attention, it is up to her to take it. She needs to reveal key plot elements to us from the fringes. With few exceptions, each time she appears, she has mere minutes (sometimes seconds!) to communicate the full extent of her suffering and confusion to the audience. And yet, she must be careful not to upstage the star.
If Cuarón used the camera to showcase Sra. Sofía instead of Cleo, what a movie we would get! But even though Cuarón mainly follows a different story, De Tavira must still act out the full drama of that other (imagined) movie.
Her work is fantastic, and I’m thrilled the Academy is recognizing her.
Perhaps I’m biased in her favor because of her outstanding chemistry with that car (thankfully not the kind of chemistry Cameron Diaz had in The Counselor). Her frenzied, unfortunate driving reminds me of my own. I love all her scenes behind the wheel.
She’s also quite powerful when she insists repeatedly that the children write letters to their father, telling him how much they miss him. In just about every one of her scenes, she goes almost too far, but then just when she’s on the verge of overacting, she pulls back. I love the performance.
I’m really glad she got this nomination.
Why She Might Not Win:
At first, I thought De Tavira had no chance of winning, but now I’m not so sure. It’s starting to seem like anybody has a shot at Best Supporting Actress this year, maybe even people who aren’t nominated.
(Maybe even people who aren’t actresses!)
If De Tavira does win, then buckle up because we’re in for a wild night of Roma winning everything. Seriously, if Roma takes Best Supporting Actress, then it’s going home that night with ten Oscars. (But that might happen!)
As much as I love Roma, that would be a pretty boring scenario, so I hope it doesn’t happen. Every other actress nominated in this category has a better chance of winning than Marina De Tavira. For her, the nomination is probably the award. But you never know.
Roma is a Netflix movie in Spanish, and yet the Academy loved it enough to nominate both prominent actresses.
Marina de Tavira might win an Oscar before Amy Adams. It’s a crazy category this year.
Regina King
Age: 48
Film: If Beale Street Could Talk
Role: Sharon Rivers, loving and supportive mother of Tish, who is carrying the child of the love of her life, Fonny, currently behind bars, accused of a crime he did not commit. Out of love for her daughter and grandchild, Sharon will go to extraordinary lengths to find the evidence necessary to exonerate and free Fonny. She’s even willing to leave the country to search for a key witness, but there’s only so much she can do. Fonny’s ultimate fate is out of her hands.
Nomination History:
This is King’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win:
Everybody expected big things from If Beale Street Could Talk, director Barry Jenkins’s follow up to beloved Oscar winner Moonlight. And Beale Street is a beautiful adaptation of James Baldwin’s classic novel.
A number of critics groups absolutely fell in love with the film, and this fall, Regina King won so many critics’ prizes for her performance as Sharon Rivers that Best Supporting Actress was the only category that seemed like an absolute lock this awards season.
King is an accomplished veteran actress and familiar face who has never gotten Oscar attention before. (She did win a SAG for ensemble cast for Ray, though, and she’s gotten a lot of Emmy love. If you’re my age or older, you probably remember her from the popular 80s sitcom 227, but she’s also played supporting roles in so many movies. Even if you don’t know King, you know her. She’s had that kind of career.)
In Beale Street, King plays an incredibly sympathetic character. Sharon Rivers is the kind of mother everybody wants. When her teenaged daughter timidly reveals her pregnancy, Sharon calls the family together for a celebration. She never responds to her daughter’s distress with anything but kindness, warmth, and pragmatism. So, of course, we like this character, and King plays her perfectly, with authenticity and insight.
She’s at her absolute best opposite Emily Rios in an emotionally charged scene in an alleyway. Tish and Fonny’s families have somehow scraped together the money for Sharon to travel alone to Puerto Rico in search of the woman who has mistakenly accused Fonny of sexual assault. But when she finally gets a chance to speak to Victoria Rogers, Sharon finds herself completely paralyzed by the woman’s inability to speak rationally about an event that has obviously traumatized her. King’s work here is masterful. Enthralled, we watch as a woman who has done all she can realizes the utter hopelessness of the situation in frustration and distress. To save her grandchild’s father, she would do anything. There is nothing she can do.
Why She Might Not Win:
As I said, King won the majority of critics’ prizes, but then neither SAG nor BAFTA even nominated her. Despite these glaring snubs, she won the Golden Globe.
Why didn’t King get a SAG or BAFTA nomination? One possibility is that SAG members didn’t see the film in time since there was an issue that delayed Annapurna’s screeners. But that doesn’t explain the BAFTA snub, and it doesn’t change the fact that although the Academy did nominate King, Beale Street received only two other nominations (for Adapted Screenplay and Score). Most critics went wild for Beale Street, but the Academy’s response was kind of tepid by comparison.
So is Regina King the front runner for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar or not?
????????????????
Nobody knows.
The thing is, maybe she’s not. But if she’s not, then who is?
This is the weirdest year! King did win the Golden Globe, but that’s an award given by the Hollywood Foreign Press, not any industry group. She couldn’t win the SAG, but the actress who did win (a very deserving Emily Blunt) can’t win the Oscar because she’s not nominated. Who will win the BAFTA? If it’s Claire Foy or Margot Robbie (neither one an Oscar nominee) then King’s path to victory remains clear.
But maybe she still doesn’t have enough support from the Academy. Maybe those six unrewarded nominations will tug on the Academy’s heartstrings and convince them give the award to Amy Adams. Or maybe they’ll say to themselves, “Hmm. It’s been an awfully long time since Rachel Weisz won an Oscar.”
Like everyone in the category this year, King would make a worthy winner, but she wouldn’t be my personal choice. She had already been snubbed by the SAG by the time I got a chance to see her performance. And while I do find her turn as Sharon Rivers worthy, I would not call it undeniable.
For one thing, as good as King is, I think that co-star Colman Domingo is even better as her husband Joseph Rivers. In fact, he’s also better than Oscar nominees Sam Elliott and Sam Rockwell. (Well, Rockwell is spot on as George W. Bush, but Domingo’s role is so much meatier and more interesting.)
I am glad the Academy nominated Regina King, but a snub would have been unfortunate for her, not a horrendous injustice. Emily Blunt, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Yeoh, and even Nicole Kidman would have been perfectly reasonable choices in this category, too. In fact, my mother was watching Black Panther again the other day and kept saying how good all the women are in that movie, which is true. If you ask me, it would never be a mistake to nominate Lupita Nyong’o for anything. (Too bad she can’t run for president!)
So Regina King might win Best Supporting Actress. And she also might not. Neither outcome would surprise me.
Emma Stone
Age: 30
Film: The Favourite
Role: Abigail Hill, poor relation of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who comes to the court of Queen Anne to seek employment, discovers first a dangerous secret, then a passion for scheming, and ends up enmeshed in a lesbian love triangle with two of the most powerful women in England.
Nomination History:
Won Best Actress Oscar in 2017 for La La Land (2016).
Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014).
Why She Should Win:
Olivia Colman might be the designated lead in The Favourite, but Emma Stone must have the most screentime. Her character is the catalyst whose arrival sets the events of this crazy story in motion. And she’s often on screen simultaneously carrying out important business within the story and entertaining the audience with perfectly timed humor. To an American ear, her English accent is pretty darn good, and to a non-acrobat, the physicality of her performance is staggering. All of the falls and lunges and sponge fingering and disturbing variations on marriage consummation must be exhausting. The degree of difficulty for this role is high, and Emma Stone nails it.
The strength of her performance lies in its cumulative effect. She has some exceptionally strong moments, of course, but what makes her work Oscar worthy is less the parts than the whole.
Co-stars Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz give excellent performances, but Emma Stone is the one who keeps the story moving and drags the bewildered audience along with her.
The trajectory of Stone’s character is fairly fascinating. Abigail begins as a sympathetic, pitiable figure, and grows more and more detestable the longer she’s at court. For a while there, she seems an out and out villain, but we always retain some grain of sympathy for her conniving character because we know that Abigail endured extreme trauma in her past from which she’s never fully recovered.
Stone’s performance is not my favorite Favourite turn, but she is definitely the one responsible for most of the humor and also most of the plot progression. She is on screen a lot. A lot. And we’re always glad to see Stone, even after we’ve begun to despise Abigail.
Also, even though her complex character is probably hardest to figure out, her dialogue is easiest to understand. Literally. Stone always speaks clearly and comparatively slowly (in contrast to Rachel Weisz whose insults are so often so rapid fire and unexpected that it’s hard to keep up).
Though the scenes Stone shares with her female co-stars are all fantastic, I’m a big fan of the awkward physicality of two of her more bizarre scenes with Masham, the young courtier who is smitten with her. In particular, the moment when they push and shove and lunge and reel through the forest looks so difficult to execute properly. Learning that blocking would have killed me! (And if it’s all improvised in the moment, that’s even more impressive.)
Why She Might Not Win:
Emma Stone just won Best Actress for La La Land. I mean just. Two years ago.
Now, granted, Mahershala Ali won the same year for Moonlight. (I’m pretty sure we all remember that Moonlight and La La Land were the same year.) And Ali seems poised to win Best Supporting Actor for the second time in 2019.
But Mahershala Ali’s performance is definitely the best part of Green Book (though Viggo Mortensen is great, too), and if I had to rank the superb performances in The Favourite, I would put Emma Stone third. One reason for that is that she plays the least sympathetic character (though, admittedly, they’re all hopelessly flawed). But the one who makes the biggest impression is Olivia Colman, and the one who moved and surprised me most was Rachel Weisz.
Still Emma Stone is amazing, and she’s a huge movie star, and this is probably her best (and most demanding) performance yet.
Anybody could win this year. Why not Emma Stone? In the unlikely event that they call her name on Oscar night, I’ll clap for her.
Rachel Weisz
Age: 48
Film: The Favourite
Role: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, childhood friend and longtime lover of England’s Queen Anne who uses her influence to control policy and thwart her enemies until she’s surprised to be undermined and undone by a poor relation she took under her wing out of kindness.
Nomination History:
Won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2006 for The Constant Gardener (2005).
Why She Should Win:
Although I’m unabashedly rooting for Amy Adams because she’s always good and she’s never won, Rachel Weisz probably gives my favorite performance in this category. I would not be sorry to see her win a second Oscar for her remarkable turn as Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. (I didn’t love The Constant Gardener, and I thought her win in Supporting there was soft category fraud. But an Oscar for this performance would be so deserved.)
As I’ve discovered by reading up on her after the film, that Sarah Churchill really was something else! The way she dared speak (and write) to the Queen of England! Nobody would speak that way to any of the Tudors twice! (Or once, for that matter. Heads would roll mid-sentence!) In fact, even I wouldn’t let someone harangue me so disrespectfully on a regular basis, and I’m timid and not the queen of anything.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos is obviously not overly concerned with history in The Favourite. He playfully uses deliberate anachronism in the characters’ speech and actions all the time. Clearly, he is not trying to fool anybody into thinking this is a documentary.
But Sarah Churchill did enjoy a long and intimate friendship with Anne, whether or not they were lovers in the carnal sense. And when this friendship suddenly went sour, Sarah
did (repeatedly) accuse the queen (in print) of turning on her because she was having a lesbian relationship with Abigail Masham. Though apparently oblivious to what these accusations could imply about her own relationship with Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough did not do her reputation any favors by writing such things. At the very least, she comes across as mean-spirited, rude, disrespectful, and ungrateful. (And she also kind of seems like a woman who has been jilted, which she basically was, whether her her relationship with Anne was sexual or not.)The Duchess seems to have been her own worst enemy more often than not and also seems (though it beggars belief) more unpleasant and critical in life than she is in the film!
Weisz does something wonderful with the character, though. Somehow, she makes this thoroughly unpleasant woman increasingly sympathetic until by the end she had completely won me over to her side.
In the film, the friendship between Sarah and Anne, though politically beneficial to Sarah, appears (at least to a degree) genuine. Although well aware of the queen’s numerous shortcomings, Sarah does seem to care for Anne. She derives personal comfort as well as political advantage from their embraces.
Weisz has one scene played alone in near darkness, lit only by a candle which is absolutely magnificent. She genuinely moved me here, and I was with her for the rest of the movie, a turn of events that took me completely by surprise.
Kate Winslet was supposed to play this part originally, but when she became unavailable, Weisz stepped in. I love Winslet, but I cannot imagine anybody in this role but Weisz now. This is probably my favorite performance ever by Rachel Weisz.
Why She Might Not Win:
Maybe she will win. That’s actually what I’ve started to think after watching the SAGs.
The lack of nominations makes me think enthusiasm for Regina King is not quite high enough. And the lack of wins for Amy Adams gives me the same feeling.
A win for Weisz would be a way for the Academy to honor The Favourite, one of the most acclaimed films of the year. Although Weisz has won an Oscar, it’s been thirteen years, so nobody can complain she’s being awarded too frequently.
As of now, I’d say Regina King is most likely to win, and Rachel Weisz is most likely to upset. But honestly anybody could win. This is a crazy year!