Who's going to win Best Supporting Actress?
Zoe Saldaña and Ariana Grande are two contenders in a field dominated by first-time nominees, but are they guilty of 'category fraud'?
Samir Hussein/WireImage
- Jeremy Aspinall
Only one of this year’s best supporting actress nominees has received a prior nomination, leaving four newbies to the nominee merry-go-round that will end when the coveted statuette is awarded this Sunday. And just like Kieran Culkin in the supporting actor category, it looks like there will be only one winner here, too.
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Flying the flag for Britain is Felicity Jones, who was previously nominated as best actress for playing the wife of Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking in Oscar winner The Theory of Everything (2014). In The Brutalist, she plays wife to another creative genius, the tormented architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody). Like her husband, Erzsébet was sent to a concentration camp and survived, albeit with ailing health, but is unable to join him in America until years after the War. Indeed, her first appearance is halfway through in the film, and yet she is the beating heart of the 215-minute epic.
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist. Universal Pictures
All the other actresses shortlisted are first-timers, although it is hard to believe in the case of Isabella Rossellini ̶ the daughter of screen icon Ingrid Bergman (herself a three-time winner for Gaslight (1944), Anastasia (1956) and the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express) ̶ whose nearly 50-year career includes terrific turns in Blue Velvet (1986) and Beethoven biopic Immortal Beloved (1994). Her role in papal political thriller Conclave is as a housekeeping nun whose observations could change the outcome of the election of a new Pope – and at under eight minutes it may be brief, but it is a scene-stealing gem, nevertheless.
Conclave's Sergio Castellitto, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and Ralph Fiennes, at the SAG Awards. Getty
Of the five actresses nominated, Monica Barbaro is probably the rogue selection. One of Tom Cruise’s pilot protégés in Top Gun: Maverick, the 34-year-old plays Joan Baez to Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Maybe it’s Academy members’ love of a real-life musical icon being brought to cinematic life that swung the vote, although the likes of Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson), Selena Gomez (Emilia Pérez) and Margaret Qualley (Demi Moore’s “other half” in The Substance) may have had hopes of Oscar recognition.
Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown. Searchlight Pictures
As for any controversy, the two remaining nominees have both generated similar rumblings on social media and in the press for alleged “category fraud”, as some say their roles are co-starring rather than supporting. Singing sensation Ariana Grande has received her first Oscar nomination for playing Galinda Upland (and future Glinda the Good) in the sumptuous adaptation of Broadway hit Wicked, the Wizard of Oz prequel that chronicles her friendship with Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba before her transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West.
Ariana Granda as Glinda in Wicked. Universal Pictures
The criticism seems a trifle unfair on Grande in her first big screen role, but for the outstanding favourite Zoe Saldaña, who is on-screen in Emilia Pérez more than best actress nominee Karla Sofia Gascón (who has generated her own unwanted controversy), there is more validity to the grumbles, especially since Saldaña's battling attorney is the driving force of Jacques Audiard’s genre-defying crime film.
Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Netflix
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Not that it has stopped Saldaña's committed performance from scooping up the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the weekend’s Screen Actors Guild Award, making her the hottest favourite of the year.
Authors
Jeremy Aspinall
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