October Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actress

Last week we took a look at the Best Supporting Actor race, and this week, we take a look at its slightly more robust (and easier to read) female counterpart, the race for Best Supporting Actress.

In the past couple of years, the categories have had a lot in common, but that hasn't always been the case, and this year seems like one of those years where they aren't destined to matchup, with one clear exception.  Emma Stone has consistently been one of the up-and-coming actresses that we're all supportive of, even if there hasn't been a lot to cheer outside of Easy A and some terrific interviews.  Her reviews for Birdman, however, have been solid, and it's the sort of film that, like The Master or Doubt, may not win the Best Picture field over but very well could grab all of its actors nominations (including Edward Norton over in the male supporting category).  Stone in particular seems at just the right juncture in her career to score her first nomination.

Her biggest competition for the actual win looks to be another young actress, Keira Knightley.  Knightley gets to be long-suffering (always a plus in this category), is being campaigned by Harvey (a huge plus for an actress), and has been doing fantastic work for years now, much of which has been ignored by awards bodies.  It's hard to believe, in fact, that the woman who randomly got a nomination in 2005 for Pride and Prejudice (when everyone thought it would be going to Zhang Ziyi) hasn't been nominated since, considering she's done superb work in Atonement, A Dangerous Method, Never Let Me Go, Anna Karenina, and earlier this year, Begin Again.  I am feeling this pretty strongly-Knightley seems like the winner to me from this vantage point.

There's also a couple of actresses who are a bit older than Stone and Knightley who are making a play for their first nomination this year: Patricia Arquette and Rene Russo.  Both actresses have been critically celebrated in the past, but have never been nominated for an Oscar.  However, they have the thespian stature to score a nomination without much previous momentum if the films do well (in particular Arquette).  Arquette's movie was a bigger deal, and critics seem certain to be trumpeting Boyhood by year's end, which can only help her with "best in show" reviews for the film.  Russo's got a harder push, but she's getting superb notices for Nightcrawler, and if that film catches on later this year, she could make the cutoff.

A few other actors seem to be very dependent on the strength of their films.  Anna Kendrick, Katherine Waterston, Jessica Chastain, and Carmen Ejogo are all young actresses with major films out this year, but their potential shots at a nomination are very dependent on whether Into the Woods, Inherent Vice, Interstellar, and Selma manage to land with Oscar in a major way.  Ejogo and Waterston are both trying for a first nomination, which occasionally helps in this category (this is the category most likely to honor an ingenue, as evidenced with Lupita last year, and Waterston benefits from this category frequently nominating the children of former nominees, such as Angelina Jolie and Kate Hudson), but Kendrick has become a genuine movie star since she was nominated in 2009, and Chastain is apparently the emotional crux of her film.

Other names in this list should include Laura Dern, who gets to be suffering from cancer in her film (Oscar bait!) and hit the road pretty damn hard last year for her father (will the Academy remember what a fun, intelligent presence she is on the red carpet?).  Jessica Lange has been getting a few rumblings for The Gambler, though I have to wonder if everyone just wants her to sign on to another season of AHS.  Kristen Stewart continues to defy everyone's expectations of her with Still Alice, and could well be embraced if she is able to find it her persona to campaign.  Sienna Miller has a prominent role in the fast-emerging American Sniper, and despite what's assumed, Clint doesn't have an awful track record with getting women nominated (Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, Marcia Gay Harden, and Angelina Jolie have all been nominated from his films), though Sienna Miller isn't really in the same class as those four actresses.  And of course, if they want to make it up for her weird snub last year, Oprah Winfrey has a prominent role in Selma that could get her in, though if they skipped her for The Butler I have my doubts.

Finally there is Meryl Streep, who is an eternal presence in any Oscar race, but smartly moved to supporting for what could have been a lead campaign (wisely, or luckily, seeing that Supporting was going to be the easier race).  While I think that at some point the Meryl gravy train will end and she'll miss in a tough year, playing the scene-stealing role in a major year-end musical that has a lot of potential to be a big hit isn't really a great argument against her hitting nineteen nominations.

My September Predictions: Stone, Waterston, Arquette, Ejogo, and Felicity Jones (who has since moved to lead)
My October Predictions: I feel even more confident now with the strong reception for Birdman that Stone stays, and I'm also sticking with Patricia Arquette (there is actually a pretty strong history of women over forty getting nominated for character parts in this category, though only lately has the trend moved to them winning).  I think at this point that Knightley is going to make the cut, and quite frankly would be my guess for the eventual win.  As for the final two slots?  I'm debating between Streep, Ejogo, and Kristen Stewart, as I don't believe a woman can get a nomination in a Christopher Nolan film and Wild seems like the Reese-show.  Streep and Ejogo probably make the most sense, and I will stick to them, but I really do feel like Kristen Stewart is about to have her first serious awards shot this year, and considering she is a very big star (like it or not, that's what Twilight and Snow White have done) they might want her on the red carpet for the star power alone.  Plus, isn't she dating Nic Hoult?  Anyone want to see her on the same red carpet as Jennifer Lawrence?