OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2015)
The Nominees Were...
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
My Thoughts: After over a year profiling this (I say this every time, but I mean it this time-we are not taking as long when we do the next year which I plan on starting in July), we are now arriving in the Top 6 of 2015, the big, iconic races that even lax Oscar fans might remember. The Best Supporting Actor race of 2015, I'm going to admit right now, was never going to be a great race. Unlike the female acting contests, which featured some of the best work Oscar had seen in a while, the male races were pretty underwhelming, and even if I was to replace it with my own choices, I wouldn't do that much better as it just wasn't an amazing year for supporting actors.
The best way to indicate that is to look at the actual winner of the Oscar race, Mark Rylance. Rylance IS one of the great actors of his generation if you count his stage work. I saw him in Jerusalem in 2011, and I still talk about the performance-it might be the single greatest performance I've ever seen on Broadway. That said, this performance is fine. It's admittedly pretty subdued, and he finds the quieter moments in Rudolf Abel, particularly the scene by his desk before he's eventually arrested, but there's not a lot there, particularly when he treads familiar territory with Hanks (and certainly for Spielberg) in the bonding period in the back half of the film. It's the sort of performance that people applaud Oscar for recognizing since it rarely goes for introverts, but it feels like the sort of win that only happened because there wasn't an obvious, showy piece-of-work to go after.
Then again, there probably was a showy performance of sorts that Oscar could have gone for, but thankfully they didn't. Mark Ruffalo has been on the outside-looking in with three Oscar races now, but he should have just been watching at home for his work in Spotlight. Arguably giving the worst performance in the Best Picture winner (and I love Mark Ruffalo usually, so don't come after me in the comments), Ruffalo plays for the rafters with Michael Rezendes. The giant speech "it could have been any of us" is meant to be a big coming-together moment, trying to unite the journalists with the victims of abuse, but Ruffalo goes so large, and is so bombastic it almost ruins the movie. It's easy to see why this performance was nominated, but considering that Michael Keaton is nailing his role in the film and easily could have been cited instead, I don't think the "why" is forgivable with actually going through with nominating Ruffalo for one of his lesser efforts.
Tom Hardy is easier to forgive since this is his first time to the dance (I always struggle going too hard after a first-time nominee), and is considerably better than Ruffalo. That's not to say that Hardy is doing something remarkable here, but there's more nuance in his performance than Leo is giving to his role, giving him more layers and a better trajectory for his character, relying on actual acting and the work of his eyes more than sheer physicality. That said, he's stuck in a bad movie, and he's not given enough to be able to save it fully. There's no actual interest in character development from the director, so Hardy's touches don't create something fully-fledged, just a more interesting personage than you'd expect given what the rest of the actors are doing.
Bale has a director who does care about his characters, albeit one whose idea of character development is simply stating "and now the character is like this" rather than growing the story through subtle changes in direction (Adam McKay is many things, not all of them bad, but he is decidedly not subtle). Bale is also not a subtle actor, and while he is impressive in his ability to inhabit characters, he rarely finds time to grow them without big jerks, going in heavy on the tics that Michael Burry brings to The Big Short, but never finding reasons as to why he eventually has a change-of-heart about the corruption he's profited from. Bale is hindered by McKay not really understanding the ramifications of the movie he's made (he is also a millionaire who might not be the best representative of the common man's struggles), but you can't blame the scenery-chewing on McKay-that's this actor's constant handicap.
Our final nomination is an actor that almost no one would put in the same thespian league as Bale, mostly because he's played the same character over-and-over for 40+ years, but Sylvester Stallone in Creed is proof that you can find new ways to reinvent a character you know by heart. Stallone's performance gets the unfair advantage of nostalgia, something no other actor on this list has; there's a lifetime's worth of screen memories in his worn face, his expressions, the way that he has almost a boxer's beaten tenor to his voice at this point. But there's also a knowledge here in the way he pushes out sentences that would be a struggle for a boxer in his twilight years (knowing what we know about the impact of concussions) and he brings such calm as he hands his baton to the next generation of fighters. This is an actor who might have only had one truly great character in him, but he plays the part with such care you can't claim he's an actor of limited scope even if you might claim he's of limited range.
The best way to indicate that is to look at the actual winner of the Oscar race, Mark Rylance. Rylance IS one of the great actors of his generation if you count his stage work. I saw him in Jerusalem in 2011, and I still talk about the performance-it might be the single greatest performance I've ever seen on Broadway. That said, this performance is fine. It's admittedly pretty subdued, and he finds the quieter moments in Rudolf Abel, particularly the scene by his desk before he's eventually arrested, but there's not a lot there, particularly when he treads familiar territory with Hanks (and certainly for Spielberg) in the bonding period in the back half of the film. It's the sort of performance that people applaud Oscar for recognizing since it rarely goes for introverts, but it feels like the sort of win that only happened because there wasn't an obvious, showy piece-of-work to go after.
Then again, there probably was a showy performance of sorts that Oscar could have gone for, but thankfully they didn't. Mark Ruffalo has been on the outside-looking in with three Oscar races now, but he should have just been watching at home for his work in Spotlight. Arguably giving the worst performance in the Best Picture winner (and I love Mark Ruffalo usually, so don't come after me in the comments), Ruffalo plays for the rafters with Michael Rezendes. The giant speech "it could have been any of us" is meant to be a big coming-together moment, trying to unite the journalists with the victims of abuse, but Ruffalo goes so large, and is so bombastic it almost ruins the movie. It's easy to see why this performance was nominated, but considering that Michael Keaton is nailing his role in the film and easily could have been cited instead, I don't think the "why" is forgivable with actually going through with nominating Ruffalo for one of his lesser efforts.
Tom Hardy is easier to forgive since this is his first time to the dance (I always struggle going too hard after a first-time nominee), and is considerably better than Ruffalo. That's not to say that Hardy is doing something remarkable here, but there's more nuance in his performance than Leo is giving to his role, giving him more layers and a better trajectory for his character, relying on actual acting and the work of his eyes more than sheer physicality. That said, he's stuck in a bad movie, and he's not given enough to be able to save it fully. There's no actual interest in character development from the director, so Hardy's touches don't create something fully-fledged, just a more interesting personage than you'd expect given what the rest of the actors are doing.
Bale has a director who does care about his characters, albeit one whose idea of character development is simply stating "and now the character is like this" rather than growing the story through subtle changes in direction (Adam McKay is many things, not all of them bad, but he is decidedly not subtle). Bale is also not a subtle actor, and while he is impressive in his ability to inhabit characters, he rarely finds time to grow them without big jerks, going in heavy on the tics that Michael Burry brings to The Big Short, but never finding reasons as to why he eventually has a change-of-heart about the corruption he's profited from. Bale is hindered by McKay not really understanding the ramifications of the movie he's made (he is also a millionaire who might not be the best representative of the common man's struggles), but you can't blame the scenery-chewing on McKay-that's this actor's constant handicap.
Our final nomination is an actor that almost no one would put in the same thespian league as Bale, mostly because he's played the same character over-and-over for 40+ years, but Sylvester Stallone in Creed is proof that you can find new ways to reinvent a character you know by heart. Stallone's performance gets the unfair advantage of nostalgia, something no other actor on this list has; there's a lifetime's worth of screen memories in his worn face, his expressions, the way that he has almost a boxer's beaten tenor to his voice at this point. But there's also a knowledge here in the way he pushes out sentences that would be a struggle for a boxer in his twilight years (knowing what we know about the impact of concussions) and he brings such calm as he hands his baton to the next generation of fighters. This is an actor who might have only had one truly great character in him, but he plays the part with such care you can't claim he's an actor of limited scope even if you might claim he's of limited range.
Other Precursor Contenders: This category actually had more room in the precursors than I remembered. Stallone took the Globe, besting Rylance but also Oscar-skipped Paul Dano (Love & Mercy), Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), and Michael Shannon (99 Homes). SAG, in what should have been an ominous sign dropped the Globe-winning Stallone, but stuck to Oscar's Bale & Rylance, also favoring Elba, Shannon, and Room's Jacob Tremblay, with Elba winning despite eventually missing with Oscar. BAFTA skipped Stallone & Hardy, favoring Elba and Benicio del Toro (Sicario) for the nominations instead, and gave it to a third winner, Rylance. In terms of sixth place, Elba has the most action headed into Oscar, but his nomination was clearly more of a "screw Netflix" rather than a "screw Elba" so I kind of want to guess Michael Shannon was sixth...Oscar seems to only like him when he comes out of nowhere.
Performances I Would Have Nominated: I'd probably throw out all but my winner here. Sam Elliott was doing a better performance in Grandma than he would a few years later when he was cited for A Star is Born, while Michael Keaton definitely outdid Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight (plus, Oscar owed Keaton for skipping him in the obviously finest performance in Best Actor the previous year). Oscar Isaac continues to be one of the best non-nominated actors currently working in the jaw-dropping Ex Machina (perhaps they felt that they had already cited Steve Jobs with Michael Fassbender, but they're both so good it's worth mentioning twice). And lastly, Jason Statham is not a great actor. He might not even be a good actor. But if you're going to throw your persona for a loop in a comedy, I don't know that you could do it better than what he brings to his hilarious work in Spy.
Oscar’s Choice: Sentiment did not command the day with Oscar, as in an echo of Alan Arkin/Eddie Murphy a decade earlier, a quiet character actor in a Best Picture nominee took out an 80's icon who was trying to get an award he'd spent most of his career uninterested in winning.
My Choice: This feels so weird to say, but Sly Stallone totally deserved this Oscar. He's so much better than the rest and had such a good narrative (and is reportedly a nice guy) I'm still flummoxed as to why he missed this trophy. I'd follow with Rylance, Hardy, Bale, and Ruffalo.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you with me that Stallone missed a perfect (and probably his only) opportunity to take a trophy, or are you with the more traditional choice of Rylance? Is Mark Ruffalo ever going to win an Oscar? And who was sixth place-Shannon or Elba? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
Also in 2015: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2015
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