The State of the Race: Best Actress

It's never too early to talk about Oscar, at least in my mind, and based on some of the reactions out of Cannes this past week, journalists tend to agree.  The recent spate of buzz is from the Best Actress race,  where Emily Blunt's Sicario is gaining raves and Oscar talk.  This makes sense, of course, as Blunt is the position in her career where Oscar seems destined to call.  At 32, she's at roughly the right age for both global superstardom (most major female stars ascend sometime between about 28 and 35), and has been receiving accolades everywhere except for the Kodak.  She has the weirdly dubious distinction of having four Golden Globe film nominations without a single Oscar nomination (only nine actors in history have ever done this), and they've been all over the place, from scene-stealing in The Devil Wears Prada to playing a monarch in The Young Victoria to the lead in a major musical in Into the Woods (also Salmon Fishing in the Yemen which...was in a weak year for comedy).  Blunt seems destined to be in this year's Oscar/Globe conversation once again, and I'm starting to feel may be one of the big five.

But who else is going to be amongst one of our favorite categories?  That's the question, and like most years, it's starting to look more and more like it's just going to be a repeat of names, with Blunt being an obvious exception (and potentially, as a result, gaining a leg-up in taking an actual trophy).  Most of the names that I'm seeing pop up are former winners.  Toward the top of that list is Cate Blanchett in Carol, which she is currently making the rounds for in Cannes and is gaining loads of headlines for her lesbian sex scenes with Rooney Mara, but I suspect toward the end of the year the "daring" of those headlines will pay off when she vies for her seventh Oscar nomination.  Joining her could be another constant presence at the Oscars recently named Jennifer Lawrence, who is doing her third turn in a David O. Russell movie with Joy.  While all things are true until they're not, it's worth noting that Lawrence scored nominations for both of her most recent Russell films, and this is a period film which is something that Oscar tends to gravitate toward-three years between Oscars is actually pretty common-could Lawrence be battling it out for a second trophy?

Other former winners in the conversation include Meryl Streep (when is she not?), who has yet another musical-comedy style role in Ricki and the Flash.  The trailer wasn't my favorite, to be honest (it looked pretty damn generic), but Meryl is typically lightning and she managed to get nominated for Music of the Heart, so counting her out is ALWAYS a bad idea.  Julianne Moore would probably be at the top of the heap were she not also last year's winner, as Freeheld has lots of baity hooks (cancer, lesbian, real life), though it remains to be seen if she can be nominated as Best Actress while her equal screen-time partner Ellen Page goes supporting (no pair of actresses have been nominated for Best Actress in the same film since 1991's Thelma & Louise, though I would LOVE to see that run end this year with Freeheld and Carol both on the table).  Honestly-we could be in a weird situation where the last four winners of the category and Blunt are all competing for the actual trophy.  However, there's a few longer shot former winners in Charlize Theron (The Last Face), Kate Winslet (The Dressmaker), Angelina Jolie (By the Sea), Maggie Smith (The Lady in the Van), and Marion Cotillard (Macbeth) in the conversation as well.

Still, we could see a few former supporting nominees emerge from the top of the heap if the iron is hot. Two in particular have gained real traction, and couldn't have more diverse career paths.  Saoirse Ronan, only 21 years of age, could be looking at a second nomination to follow-up her childhood nod for Atonement (thus becoming the first actor to be nominated as both an adult and a child since Jodie Foster) for Brooklyn, a film about the Irish immigrant experience that got raves out of Sundance this past season.  On the opposite end of the spectrum is Lily Tomlin, who is definitely having a moment right now in pop culture: she just won the Kennedy Center Honor, is starring in a new series from Netflix with her 9 to 5 costar Jane Fonda, and at 75 is getting her first lead role in ages with Grandma, a movie that got her huge triumphs out of Sundance.  It's worth noting that it's been forty years since her first Oscar nomination, which is one year longer than the time span between Helen Hayes two Oscar nominations (I believe this would give Tomlin the record-someone call me out in the comments if this isn't correct), giving a lot of compelling evidence for the popular Tomlin to actually win if she manages to pull through the season with a hit.  The only other former nominee that has a decent shot at a nomination is Carey Mulligan, who is getting strong reviews for Suffragette, but it's always hard to make bets on British issue pictures, as we saw with Made in Dagenham a few years back

Rounding out the list are a few longer shots that haven't been nominated before.  Sight unseen (this is always major guesswork this early in the season) it doesn't appear like anyone has the kind of advantage that Blunt does to gain the status of "Oscar nominee," but a few women are trying.  Toward the top of the list, joining Tomlin in the "career honors" section is Charlotte Rampling, whose film 45 Years got picked up by Sundance Selects and the iconic English star won the Best Actress prize at the Berlinale this past year.  Another actor trying for "career honors" is Blythe Danner, who has had more luck in recent years with stage and television, but is an actor who has worked with EVERYONE and has the potential for a sleeper hit coming out soon with rave reviews for I'll See You in My Dreams headed to Gwyneth's mom (and you know that Paltrow would be out pushing hard for her mom with the press).  Amongst the younger set is Alicia Vikander, who could be either lead or supporting in The Danish Girl, though the actress has eight films out in 2015, so she could cancel herself out all-over-the-place or could end up doubly-nominated-it's too soon to tell.  Finally, you can never entirely count-out a musical biopic, and Zoe Saldana's portrayal of Nina Simone could be catnip to Oscar voters provided the film gets a distributor.

Those are kind of where we're at right now for Best Actress-what are your thoughts?  Who do you think emerges from this pack and makes it to the final five?  What performances are you most excited for?  And do you think this is Emily Blunt's year?  Share in the comments!