I know I touched on this briefly yesterday, but I really am jazzed by how wide open these Oscars are. Seriously, the fact that there aren’t even really any potential upsets doesn’t tell me that there are four shoo-ins, but rather that no one is so far ahead of anyone else that it would be so crazy to see anyone win. This was certainly true in the category we discussed yesterday, and it’s true in the one we’re discussing today. What category is that, you ask? Well …
The nominees for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role are YURA BORISOV in Anora, KIERAN CULKIN in A Real Pain, EDWARD NORTON in A Complete Unknown, GUY PEARCE in The Brutalist, and JEREMY STRONG in The Apprentice.
Key Insights:
- The Best Supporting Actor category is highly competitive this year, with no clear frontrunner, making any outcome feel possible rather than an upset.
- Kieran Culkin remains the favorite, but Jeremy Strong’s rising momentum and Edward Norton’s exceptional performance position them as strong contenders.
- While Guy Pearce is unlikely to win due to missing a SAG nomination, and Yura Borisov delivers an award-worthy performance, the race seems to come down to Culkin versus Norton.
I don’t know how you felt about Anora, but it was one of my two or three favorite films of the year, and a big part of it was Yura Borisov’s performance. I mean, Mikey Madison is off the charts (and more about her tomorrow), but Borisov brings some unlikely heart to the film, as we get to watch him fall hard for Madison’s title character.
He is so clearly enthralled by her, he’s like a puppy, and it’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to watch. The movie’s final scene — which of course I won’t spoil here in case you haven’t seen it — is enormously powerful, and Borisov helps make it work without saying a word. I don’t think he’s going to win this award, but his performance is certainly award-worthy.
Likewise, Guy Pearce is tremendous in The Brutalist, and in many years I might push him as being a serious threat to take the prize, but he didn’t get a SAG nomination, As I have previously mentioned, while the SAG Awards are not perfect forecasters of the Oscars, no one who doesn’t get a SAG nod ever wins an Academy Award. That alone keeps me from taking Pearce seriously.
That leaves us with three. Kieran Culkin has been the frontrunner since the start of this Oscar race, and I honestly don’t see any reason to pick against him right now, but that doesn’t mean his victory is a given. I think it’s not. Culkin’s Succession costar Strong has come on, well, strong over the last couple months, as appreciation for The Apprentice has only grown since its release (for further proof of that, see the Best Actor race, which we’ll cover two days hence). His work as the vile Roy Cohn is stupendous, almost overshadowing Sebastian Stan’s equally skilled portrayal of a certain orange-tinted narcissist.
Likewise, Edward Norton is really astounding as Pete Seeger in a movie I really enjoyed. The trio of Norton, Monica Barbaro, and Timothée Chalamet is one you could put up against any three other actors in any film this year, with the only possible competitor being the trio from The Brutalist. I happen to believe that the only one of the three from A Complete Unknown who might actually win is Chalamet, but I also believe that Norton deserves this award as much as anyone.
This, by the way, takes nothing away from Culkin. He’s really fantastic in A Real Pain, displaying equal parts charisma and obnoxiousness, and embodying a difficult character in a way that I wonder if writer-director-costar Jesse Eisenberg even could have imagined. I don’t necessarily think that Norton was better than Culkin — they’re both outstanding — as much as I think I just liked Norton’s work a bit more.
If the expected happens, and Culkin wins, I won’t be put out about it. If anyone else wins, some people might view it as an upset, though I would say it’s more about the options being too good. My guess is that the most likely person to beat Culkin is Norton, but that might be solely because it’s who I would have voted for, had I a vote to cast.
WHO SHOULD WIN: Edward Norton
WHO WILL WIN: Kieran Culkin
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