Oscar Breakdown: Leading Performances

Best Actor

The Nominees: Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos; Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog; Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick… Boom!; Will Smith, King Richard; Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

(Images: Bardem, The Guardian; Cumberbatch, The Guardian; Garfield, NYT; Smith, Lorenzo Agius; Washington, Taylor Jewell)

Listen Will Smith is going to be given an Oscar for King Richard and I will only be half happy about it. Will Smith is a beloved cultural icon, obviously…but…he is about to get my least favorite thing— a legacy award. Aka, he’s going to win an Academy Award for being a Hollywood mainstay that everyone loves and not because he’s giving his career best performance (think Laura Dern winning for Marriage Story or Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in the literal same year— Wild and Fight Club would like a word, respectively). In second place seems to be Benedict Cumberbatch who is once again proving how talented he is and how well he can act when he’s not being pistol whipped by the mediocrity of a Marvel script (if you don’t hear from me after this is published it’s because Disney has tied me up in a basement for that comment). And as deserving as he is of this award (he’s truly incredible and captivating and scary in The Power of the Dog) I can’t fully root for him because of the silly method acting antics he pulled onset (ENOUGH, actors, at the end of the day you are playing pretend, knock it off with the ridiculous method nonsense). And this is where Andrew Garfield comes in. Garfield has off the chart star power, is an incredible actor, is unfairly good looking/charming, and on top of it all, has had a true banger of a year, receiving praise for not just Tick, Tick…Boom!, but also Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Eyes of Tammy Faye. If I were a card carrying Academy member, my vote would be thrown his way. Washington is also incredible— imagine being able to pull off both Alonzo (Training Day) and Lord Macbeth, Denzel is truly the GOAT— but his film didn’t seem to garner enough attention to be able to pull off a win. And then there is another previous winner, Javier Bardem, who was nominated for Being the Ricardos. Bardem won one of the most deserving Oscars of all time (his leading actor win for No Country for Old Men), but let’s just say, his performance in Ricardos is not that! Moving on! Will Smith, make room on your mantle, you’re about to be the freshly minted fresh [King] of Bel Air.

Should Win: Andrew Garfield; Jonathan Larson, Tick, Tick…Boom!

Could Win: Benedict Cumberbatch; Phil Burbank, The Power of the Dog

Will Win: Will Smith; Richard Williams, King Richard

Should’ve Been Nominated: Amir Jadidi, A Hero; Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car

Best Actress

The Nominees: Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye; Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter; Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers; Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos; Kristen Stewart, Spencer

(Images: Chastain, Joey L.; Colman, Bertie Watson; Cruz, Vanity Fair; Kidman, LA Times; Stewart, NYT)

It’s so thrilling to have an Oscar race that is still so up in the air. This award could truly go to any of them. No, literally. Any of these five women have a path to victory and it’s really confusing me as I try to predict who will win. The precursor wins/nominations have been absolute chaos with Kidman winning a Golden Globe, Chastain winning both the Critics Choice and SAG awards, Stewart winning six-thousand critics circuit awards, all five of these women being left out at the BAFTAs, Rachel Zegler winning a Globe but being snubbed by the Academy, and Penelope Cruz making it in at the last second. These awarding bodies woke up ready to chose violence and I’m so here for it. And on that note, I have publicly declared on this website that I think Kristen Stewart will win an Oscar this year and I am STANDING BY THAT, against all odds. But I’ll be honest, it has turned into a much closer race than expected since the world decided Stewart would win post-Spencer trailer drop. Let’s break it down real quick. Jessica Chastain is long overdue for an Oscar and I fear a legacy award may be coming her way as well this year (she is characteristically incredible as Tammy Faye but I do think she has done better work). Like Will Smith, I would be happy for her (I am a vocal Chastain STAN) but I would be a bit resentful as I do believe there were better leading female performances this year (Tammy Faye gave her a chance to do A LOT of acting and the Oscars have become about how much you can act and not how well you can act) ((I want to be clear about Jessica Chastain being an incredible actress, this is a read on the Academy, not on her)). Olivia Colman gives the most subdued and grounded performance of the year and it would be silly to count her out as the Academy is truly addicted to her, and rightfully so (any excuse to get a Colman speech, I can stand behind). Plus, for me, Colman had one of the harder jobs this year, creating a character not based on a real person (the Academy is OBSESSED with biopic performances), and her characterization is daring and thorny and ugly and seared itself into my head (I did not know what to think of The Lost Daughter at first, but it grew on me the more I thought about it until I was fully board with it’s brilliance). Penelope Cruz was given the hardest social circumstances from which to start— spoiler alert: she plays a mother who’s baby was switched at birth and she later finds out her actual baby dies a sudden, unexpected death— and carries a tricky film with a melodramatic tone effortlessly (truly, she’s never been better, her partnerships with the visionary Pedro Almodóvar just get better and better). Nicole Kidman does what she does best— receives shocking information in a sculpted wig and fashionable clothing— but is ultimately phoning it in a bit as Lucile Ball (a real “I’m going to win an Oscar for this” part). And then there’s Kristen Stewart who I’ve already praised endlessly. I think you know who my vote is for. But with this one, vote at your own discretion, it really could go any which way.