by Nathaniel R
We're not predicting Richard E Grant Oscar buzz for the drag musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie but we're sharing his picture because we're in this kind of cheerful mood and because he was ROBBED in his Oscar year and we've been fans for as long as we can remember. Wasn't he fun on Loki this month?
The supporting categories at the Oscars are always hard to read this early. Supporting roles are rarely the focus of pre-release buzz. What's more they can have a tough time finding awards love since leading movie stars have a super gross and predictable way of constantly crashing the party for those lower on the call sheet (last year's "supporting" race arguably had just one 100% no debate supporting player). So we threw one lead into the predictions (Jesse Plemons in Power of the Dog) but it's more than likely that some other lead will be pitched here, too. We don't care to guess about who that will be right now. For first attempt at predicting nominations in this category for 2021 we're saying...
- Reed Birney, Mass
- Bradley Cooper, Soggy Bottom
- Willem Dafoe, Nightmare Alley (unless it's a very small role)
- Jared Leto, House of Gucci
- Jesse Plemons, Power of the Dog
SEE THE PREDICTION CHART FOR MORE DETAILS
The three things involving Best Supporting Actor that we're most curious about at this writing...
1. Who is Bradley Cooper playing in Soggy Bottom?
The last we heard was a rumor that he was playing the movie producer Jon Peters which is hilarious since Peters produced A Star is Born in the 1970s and Cooper later remade it to great acclaim. We're very excited about this movie since Paul Thomas Anderson already made one masterpiece set in that decade (Boogie Nights) so why not two?
2. Can David Alvarez score a nod for his film debut as "Bernardo" in the new West Side Story?
He won the Tony for Best Actor at just 15 years of age so an Oscar nomination for his debut film at 27 would be in keeping with that overachieving start.
3. Who will win "best in show" reviews for Dune?
Oscar's acting branch is ridiculously averse to sci-fi acting (even on the rare occassions when they like a sci-fi film - think Arrival, District 9, or Mad Max Fury Road) so we don't think Dune is likely to win traction in ANY acting categories. But it has so many excellent male actors in supporting roles that we can't wait to see who gets MVP type notices. Will it be Isaac? Brolin? Bautista? Bardem? Maybe someone who is barely or not even in the trailer like Dastmalchian? Chen? Henderson? Or maybe it'll be Stellan Skarsgard as the ickiest of villains, Baron Harkonnen.