Does Woody Harrelson spell trouble for Willem Dafoe?

by Nathaniel R

A police chief and a hotel manager, both overwhelmed and sympathetic and arguably the moral center of their movies.

It's been a long time since we had a double-nomination situation in Best Supporting Actor. The last time it happened was 26 years ago when Ben Kingsley and Harvey Keitel were nominated together for Bugsy (1991) - a curious event since Keitel was so much stronger in another Oscar nominated classic from that year. Given the rise of Woody Harrelson with that Screen Actor's Guild nomination and the overall assumed strength of Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri in the Best Picture race, it could well happen again. His co-star Sam Rockwell, already felt locked and loaded for the same movie in a (somewhat) larger part. 

But does this spell trouble for Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project? Consensus was beginning to form that Dafoe, who became famous in the mid 80s and has worked ever since, would easily walk away with the Oscar this year...

Willem Dafoe's first nomination came for Platoon (1986) which won Best Picture

The notion was that the statue would be for both this performance and that long career with two past Oscar nominations and several indelible performances behind him. But can't the same exact argument (all the same bullet points...even the mid 80s and the nomination count!) be made for Harrelson?

The Film Experience has never believed that double nominations from one film get in the way of an acting win. That's the common wisdom behind excusing/promoting Category Fraud (shoving one co-lead into supporting so they aren't competing with the other one) but history doesn't really support that notion. Plenty of actors have won the Oscar while up against a co-star in the same category: F Murray Abraham, Shirley Maclaine, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Robert DeNiro...). Some like to cite Bette Davis's famous Best Actress loss for All About Eve and blame it on Anne Baxter, her rival both within the film and on Oscar night, as evidence that double nominations split your support but the 1950 Best Actress competition had so many incredible factors at work (including 3 other sensational performances) that that seems a gross simplification.

Woody Harrelson's first nomination came from 1996's "The People vs Larry Flynt"

Ultimately, do you think Woody Harrelson will be nominated? If so is he trouble for Dafoe in terms of the win or are we all underestimating the possibility of a surprise statue grab from two other respected longtime industry favorites: Richard Jenkins or Sam Rockwell. SEE THE UPDATED CHART. 

Comments

[Rob]

"But why on earth this category recently has become more and more about awarding overdue actors?!"

I'd say that's only *part* of this category's function - a large part but not exclusively. No one would say recent winners Mahershala Ali, Mark Rylance or Christoph Walz (both times) were seen as "Overdue" - true, they are all veteran actors but they were largely unknown to American movie audiences (Ali toiled since the early aughts in small roles in film & television, Rylance was primarily known for his work on the stage, and Walz worked mostly in European films until Tarantino).

Definitely JK Simmons, Christopher Plummer, Alan Arkin, Christian Bale and other recent BSA winners would fall under "Let's give him his overdue due" category -- not to mention Morgan Freeman, the supreme example of this (and of course he won for a role he could do in his sleep, but whatever). It is interesting (and often frustrating) to note how each of the 4 acting categories has its own built-in functions.