OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2002)
The Nominees Were...
Kathy Bates, About Schmidt
Julianne Moore, The Hours
Queen Latifah, Chicago
Meryl Streep, Adaptation
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
My Thoughts: I frequently talk, both one-on-one and in Twitter threads, with other Oscar fans about various Oscar races, and 2002's Supporting Actress race is generally considered to be one of the "best" lineups for this category, certainly of this century. This feels pretty accurate looking at it from the outset. Some of these women are giving the best performances of their film careers, but even those that aren't are giving work that stands up well 20 years after the fact to scrutiny. This year also stands apart as the first time for 15 years (it would be broken in 2017) that two actors from the same movie were nominated in the same category, something that used to be quite commonplace but now reads as an artifact of another era.
Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2002 was inarguably at the peak of her star power. Having just come into public consciousness four years earlier in Mask of Zorro, she seemed to know her stardom would be brief (in the decades since, she is better known for being part of one of Hollywood's most enduring power couples than her movie roles), and she chose this year to give the performance of a lifetime, ensuring she'd have an Oscar to match Michael's. It's hard to argue with it. Though you can claim category fraud, that's pretty much the only thing you could go for and I honestly don't buy it-her being a backgrounded character is kind of the point, so I'm not knocking a star off for that. Zeta-Jones nails every scene in this movie, stealing it wholesale from her costars, and landing Chicago's three best musical numbers ("All That Jazz," "Cell Block Tango," and "I Can't Do It Alone") with the tenacity of an orca hunting a seal. There's no notes-this is one of the best musical performances in film history.
It's difficult to try to get nominated for the movie against a legendary performance, but Queen Latifah does at least get her musical number & makes an impression. "When You're Good to Mama" landed her this nomination wholesale. While Latifah has always been a winning presence onscreen (one of those singers who so seamlessly went into film you sometimes forget that music is where she got her start), most of what she does in this movie is fun rather than great acting. But her musical number kind of sells everything you need to know about Matron Mama Morton & she juicily indulges every one of Kander & Ebb's saucy lines ("she deserves a lot of tat, for what she's got to give"). This isn't a nomination I'll repeat on my My Ballot, but it's one that I don't remotely care that Oscar gave out, particularly given it was the only citation she'd ever receive from AMPAS.
Kathy Bates, in a similar fashion, is more fun than great acting here. Bates is one of the best character actors of her generation, frequently taking on the place of someone like a Thelma Ritter or Maggie Smith before her, and she knows what she's expected to bring to her hippie mama in this is a sense of bawdy comic relief, and that's what she does. This isn't her best work, and I think much of this nomination came from a lack of vanity, as Bates famously did a full frontal nude scene in a hot tub at the age of 54, but like Latifah, she understands the assignment and does what the script is asking her to do...it's just not asking a lot.
The same cannot be said for Meryl Streep, who gives one of the best performances of her long career in Adaptation. While Streep has been strong since this (particularly in Julie & Julia, The Devil Wears Prada, and The Post), this might be the last time we saw her as a great dramatic actor, free of a lot of the "look, I'm Meryl!" posturing that would creep into some of her later work. Susan Orlean is a complicated part, and she doesn't shy away from the grandeur of a writer who is good (but maybe not quite as good as she should be), and has a specific type of erudite attitude toward the world that I love. In Streep's hands, she's the queen of a very small kingdom, and she's encountering a place she didn't know before in Adaptation-it's complicated, meticulous stuff, and really well-done.
Julianne Moore, like Streep, was giving two sensational performances in 2002. Unlike Zeta-Jones, I cannot pretend that Moore isn't clearcut category fraud here. It's being done nobly (Academy rules dictate she can't be nominated for both films, a rule I ignore when I craft my personal ballots), but I knock down a star as The Hours is a three-lead film. That said, this is a great performance, and one that folds perfectly in with Streep & Kidman's versions of the same story. Moore is the woman trapped in a world that Virginia Woolf understood well-a housewife trying to find something more. There's something so breathtaking in the dawning realization of what she needs to do as the day progresses, what she'd need to do to escape the doldrums of her life...that killer monologue at the end where she admits she regrets nothing is Moore doing what few other actors of her generation could pull off (and is why she's one of the best).
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes put Zeta-Jones in lead instead of supporting, giving them room to give the trophy to Meryl atop Bates, Latifah, Cameron Diaz (Gangs of New York), and Susan Sarandon (Igby Goes Down). SAG went all-in on Chicago, awarding Zeta-Jones and citing Latifah, Bates, Moore, & Michelle Pfeiffer (White Oleander), while BAFTA also gave their trophy to Zeta-Jones and kept Oscar's lineup largely intact, just skipping Bates in favor of Toni Collette (About a Boy). Similar to Supporting Actor, I think this is a close contest for fifth place. I'm inclined to think it is Michelle Pfeiffer, who was still in the throes of "she'll win eventually" sorts of stardom, though that never came to pass, though Patricia Clarkson had serious buzz for Far from Heaven and might've gotten in a year earlier than she actually did if Oscar had pushed Moore or Zeta-Jones into lead.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: I would've included Clarkson for sure. Clarkson is also a noted character actor and a great one, but her Oscar nomination being for Pieces of April is an indictment of bad taste on AMPAS's part (kind of like Stanley Tucci's Oscar nod being for one of his worst performances). Her turn in Far from Heaven as the casually-bigoted best friend whose loyalty only goes so far is really good stuff, and fits the motif perfectly-this is when she should've gotten her career nod if she was getting one.
Oscar’s Choice: Given Chicago's misses in the evening and the fact that we had well-started the "give Meryl a third Oscar campaign" (which really had its origins in 1995), I think Zeta-Jones was probably a closer victory than you'd think in retrospect. But she still took it.
My Choice: Like I said, I'm not counting Zeta-Jones as category fraud even if you could totally make the case (which I did at the time) that she's a lead. As a result, there's no qualms here-she gets an easy victory. Category fraud will affect silver though, which I'm giving to Streep atop Moore, even if my adoration of the latter's performance might be slightly higher. Bates and then Latifah finish off the category.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Does anyone dare defy Velma Kelly in this lineup, and if so, with whom? Do you think of Zeta-Jones or Moore as supporting as lead (be honest!)? And was it Clarkson or Pfeiffer that was the sixth place option for us? Share your thoughts below!
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