by Nathaniel R
Peter Dinklage in the 2019 stage production of Cyrano. Photo from Jeenah Moon for the New York Times
Jose Ferrer won the Oscar playing Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and forty years later French movie star Gérard Depardieu was nominated for the same role. Thirty-one years later will Peter Dinklage prove lucky number three while having a go at the classic big-nosed role? About that big-nose, though. In the pre-COVID stage run, the production got people talking partially because it made significat alterations to the material, the most visible of which was the lack of that infamous nose. The thinking was that we all have things that make us insecure so the world-famous nose might be a stand-in for anything.
The other major alteration was that it was a musical with songs by The National. What will Joe Wright make of all this for the big screen?
Wright's directorial skills have been infamously ignored by his own Academy branch even when the Oscars at large have loved his films (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Darkest Hour) so he's in kind of in a Chris Nolan pre-Dunkirk place with Oscar. But that's a different topic and we're here to talk Best Actor! You can see the new BEST ACTOR chart here and here's the index of all predictions thus far.
Now about Will Smith...
I've noticed some online sniping about his performance based on this brand new King Richard trailer but I would caution that a) trailers are hardly full performances and b) Smith is an easy target as one of the most famous people in the world. Familiarity sometimes breeds contempt. It's true that Smith hasn't been even close to the Oscar competition since The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) but he also hasn't made any well respected non-genre movies since then, Concussion being the closest and that was very far from close. If the movie is strong (and "if" is something we can't know yet) I see no reason to believe that he wouldn't be in the running since he is
...a very famous movie star who hasn't yet won an Oscar ✅
... who is playing a real person ✅
... backed by a major studio who is well practiced at Oscar campaigns ✅
... in a film about a topic that people love (in this case Black Excellence) ✅
... and the movie will be high profile ✅
That's a lot of marks for his performance so it's really only a matter of how well received the movie is and what his competition is like. He looks great on paper (at least) for his third nomination.
Previously discussed
Supporting Actor
Picture / Director / Screenplay
Costumes & Cinematography
All the other Craft Races
Animated Feature