OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2021)
The Nominees Were...
Ciaran Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
JK Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
My Thoughts: We are down the pike for the 2021 races, and into the acting contests as of today (links to all past contests are listed below). Best Supporting Actor in 2021 is, in my opinion, the very rare year where we could make an argument that all five of these men are actually supporting (Kotsur & Smit-McPhee are both very large parts, but I don't think are so big as to feel inauthentic), which means we we will not be knocking down any points to deal with category fraud, and I'll be able to judge based solely on performances.
Ciaran Hinds is one of those classic-style nominees that pops up, a character actor who scores a Best Picture nomination late in his career & gets a long overdue career Oscar. Honestly, in a different era I would've assumed that he'd win. Hinds is good in this role, but he's never more than that. I liked Belfast more than most did, and I think there's an Oscar-worthy performance tailor-made for this category, but it's in the form of the soft-hearted father played by Jamie Dornan, not Hinds' kindly old grandfather, who handles well-worn cliche with warmth, but little more than that.
The same can honestly be said for Troy Kotsur. Kotsur is dealing with less cliche, and I like the way that he handles certain aspects of the character (the constant lust he engages in with Marlee Matlin is used for maximum comic effect), but I don't think he's adding enough here. Unlike Belfast, I think part of that is that CODA simply isn't interested at going beyond that with its writing-CODA is a thoughtful movie, but it's meant to be seen as a kind of a sum-of-its-parts, not a lot of individual recognitions. Similar to Hinds, I do think that the Academy (which famously doesn't like honoring young, sexy men when there's an aging character actor about) would've been better off with Kotsur's costar Daniel Durant.
Unlike these two, Jesse Plemons has been very much in Oscar's wheelhouse for a while even though he hasn't gotten a nomination yet. Between 2015-21, he appeared in six Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and so this felt inevitable even if it wasn't a nomination a lot of people predicted. Part of that is because it's not showy-there's a lot of good in this role, and it's nice to see an inward performance nominated (the scene where he says "how nice it is...not to be alone" tells you an ocean of backstory in one line reading about this category...that's a lot of skill). He gets forgotten by the story in key moments, but by-and-large he's definitely a huge asset to the script.
The same is true of his costar, Kodi Smit-McPhee. Smit-McPhee is playing one of those parts that is impossible to understand without watching a second time, which is always tricky-you need to telegraph what you knew and when you knew it without the audience catching on that you're telling them a secret. He also plays his character's sexuality in a way that feels very strategic-there's so little about Peter that the audience understands, even as the film completes, but that's kind of the point-we let our prejudices & assumptions fill in the blanks, but Smit-McPhee laid this character bare & we chose what we wanted to believe after he started to pull back.
The final nomination is JK Simmons in Being the Ricardos, and it has to be said he's not exactly bad here. Simmons' chemistry with Nina Arianda is decent, and he captures the drunken cavalierness of William Frawley. But it's also a waste of a nomination-this is a nothing part, and if you want to quibble, there are scenes late in the film where he is saddled with such hackneyed writing from Aaron Sorkin that even Sarah Bernhardt would've struggled (and Simmons can't land it, like in his last big scene with Arianda & Kidman). It's a waste of a nomination that could've gone to any number of young actors trying to get their first go-around with AMPAS.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Smit-McPhee atop Hinds, Dornan, Kotsur, & Ben Affleck (The Tender Bar) while SAG favored Kotsur to Smit-McPhee, Affleck, Jared Leto (House of Gucci), and Bradley Cooper (Licorice Pizza). Kotsur also took BAFTA, atop Hinds, Plemons, Smit-McPhee, Mike Faist (West Side Story), and Woody Norman (C'mon C'mon). In terms of sixth place-I would assume it's Leto? House of Gucci was a huge no-show with Oscar, so maybe they genuinely just hated it, but I was very certain he'd get in even if he's awful (if Simmons getting in was the price to pay for Leto, it was worth the cost).
Performances I Would Have Nominated: But there were options besides both of them. Obviously Dornan is a great choice, but an even better one would've been Mike Faist, the only person who unequivocally (with apologies to Russ Tamblyn) upstaged the original movie, adding depths to Riff that I never knew possible.
Oscar’s Choice: Kotsur won over Smit-McPhee, probably by a healthy enough margin Hinds might've been his actual second place competition.
My Choice: I'll go with Smit-McPhee of the Dog actors. His part is obviously meant to be more important, but he adds so many flavors to it even on a curve he'd take it over Plemons. Third is Kotsur, followed by Hinds and then Simmons.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Do you want to go with Oscar's choice of Kotsur, or do you favor the ten-gallon hat motif that Smit-McPhee brings? Isn't it nice to be in an era where a film can win two nominations in the same category again? And how close were we to the mortal embarrassment of a Leto nomination? Share in the comments!
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