Who will win Best Actor?
After seemingly stealing a march on the chasing pack, Timothée Chalamet is facing some stiff competition late in the day.
- Max Copeman
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It was supposed to be plain sailing. Exactly 12 months ago, any soreness Timothée Chalamet would have felt after losing a best actor Oscar to Adrien Brody would have been softened by commentators declaring that “his time will come”. And it looked like being soon, too.
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The release of exhilarating ping-pong drama Marty Supreme in December last year took acclaim for the 30-year-old actor to new heights – and Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe awards followed. Then, the announcement of his third Oscar nomination in January saw him become the youngest individual to receive three best actor nominations since Marlon Brando in 1953. Put simply: even alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, momentum has always been with Chalamet and his coronation has seemed one of the safest bets of this year’s Oscars’ race.
Michael B Jordan accepts the award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture for Sinners during the 32nd Annual Actor Awards. Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP via Getty Images
That is, until the last two weeks. Fellow nominees Ethan Hawke and Brazilian critical darling Wagner Moura have rarely threatened to steal Chalamet’s thunder (despite Moura winning a Golden Globe), but Sinners’ Michael B Jordan has emerged from the shadows to become a genuine contender. The Bafta best actor prize went to Robert Aramayo for Scotland-set drama I Swear, which is perhaps a case of a homegrown win that will have little impact on the Oscar race, but since then there has been a groundswell of support for Sinners. So much so, last week the vampire horror drama swept The Actor Awards (formerly the Screen Actors Guild Awards) and Jordan edged Chalamet to make things dicey for prognosticators and pundits.
Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent.
Jordan’s performance as Smoke and Stack, two enterprising twin brothers in 1930s Mississippi, is central to the appeal of Ryan Coogler’s film, and an Oscar win would make him the first actor since Lee Marvin in 1965’s Cat Ballou to be recognised for two performances in one film. Notably, if Chalamet were to prevail, though, he would also become the first best actor winner in 22 years to win without having a Bafta and Actor Award on the shelf in advance – as this year's best supporting actor frontrunner Sean Penn did so in 2004.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another
As for Leonardo DiCaprio, despite the evident love for his film One Battle After Another, it’s possible that voters have seemingly found his performance to be too comedic to compete with the field. One need not be Barry Norman to see that for The Academy, anguish is often currency. In that regard, Chalamet’s ping pong hustler Marty is perhaps a little light, although his spectacular performance is also showy in a way that wouldn’t look out of place alongside recent winners, not least in a tearful final scene that neatly recalls the ending of Chalamet's breakthrough film, Call Me By Your Name.
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So, as Sunday night at LA’s Dolby Theatre approaches, best actor is quietly looking ever less certain. Or, in table tennis terms: Marty is still serving for the match, but the scoreline is a lot closer than he’d like.
Authors
Max CopemanApp Editor
Max Copeman is App Editor, meaning he looks after all the curation and production of our mobile recommendations and watchlist platform. He has been with us since 2021 and is usually found nattering about films or football.
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