Thursday, February 14, 2019

Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actor

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.

I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck. 

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Previously:

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award
 

Finally, an easy one. The Golden Globes have nominated the Oscar winner 18 of the last 20 years. 14 of their winners also won the Oscars. The SAG award has similar numbers, nominating the Oscar winner 19 times and picking the same winner 13 times. The BAFTA award lags behind slightly. 17 times it’s nominated the Oscar winner. Only 10 times has their winner also won the Oscar. Check my front-runner below for the stat that matters the most. 

Mahershala Ali (Green Book) 
Golden Globes - Supporting Actor - Winner
SAG - Supporting Actor - Winner
BAFTA - Supporting Actor – Winner 
The last 7 times all three groups agreed on the same winner, that actor also won the Oscar. There was some early season suspense, but the people have spoken. Mahershala Ali is almost certain to join the two time winner club. 

Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) 
Golden Globes - Supporting Actor - Nominee
SAG - Supporting Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Supporting Actor – Nominee 
Grant was the critical favorite for the award. Maybe if Can You Ever Forgive Me? had made the Best Picture cut or even if Melissa McCarthy had more traction then I could see Grant pulling off the upset. That doesn’t seem likely at this point. 

Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born) 
SAG - Supporting Actor – Nominee 
He looked like a strong contender early on. Who doesn’t love Sam Elliott? A lot of years, the Supporting Actor award feels like it should be called the “Character Actor Lifetime Achievement Award”. Not this year, apparently. 

Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman) 
Golden Globes - Supporting Actor - Nominee
SAG - Supporting Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Supporting Actor – Nominee 
Something feels wrong about giving the Oscar to the white guy in BlacKkKlansman. It's not a perfect comparison, but that kind of blow back certainly got in the way of Sylvester Stallone’s chances of winning for 2015’s Creed. Driver is almost certain to get nominated again for something else. 

Sam Rockwell (Vice) 
Golden Globes - Supporting Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Supporting Actor - Nominee 
It’s not a great performance or that much of a performance. I assume this is leftover goodwill from Three Billboards. This is the only of the five nominees I’d be in disbelief if he won.

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