Predicting the 96th Academy Awards Winners: Best Actress Category
Welcome to the category that has me the most torn this year. Five amazing performances, all apparently, good enough to beat out Margot Robbie from a nomination that everyone except the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences actors’ branch thought she deserved.
As much as I loved her as and in Barbie, I don’t know who I would remove from the list of nominees in her stead. All five of them are more than deserving, and I refuse to play that game where I complain about someone not getting a nomination and then failing to say who should not have. You might recall that just a few weeks ago, I said Rachel Weisz deserved Lizzy Caplan’s Emmy nomination for Best Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or TV Movie, and I have had a crush on Lizzy for over a decade. Empty talk is not my thing.
Let’s get into who the nominees are. They are: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, Emma Stone for Poor Things, Carey Mulligan for Maestro, Annette Bening for Nyad and Sandra Hüller for Anatomy of a Fall.
Carey Mulligan is a phenomenally talented actress who has now earned three Oscar nominations, and I think she deserved to win three years ago over Frances McDormand, who won for Nomadland. What Mulligan did in Promising Young Woman was incredible, and it’s fair to say that she never gives anything but a spectacular performance. The same is true this year for what she did in Maestro, but that movie just never really measured up to the hype. And while she and her director and co-star Bradley Cooper (more about him tomorrow) both deserve their places here, neither is going to win.
Nor, for that matter, is Sandra Hüller, who I think is an amazing talent and I love seeing everything she does. Anatomy of a Fall is an outstanding film that is carried by her performance, and honestly, I think she’s the reason why Robbie isn’t on this list. Or possibly Annette Bening, who is simply astonishing as Diana Nyad in the Netflix film.
It’s not always easy to play a difficult, possibly unlikable character, but Bening nails it in an enormously watchable performance that, more than once, made me turn to my wife and say, “She’s just incredible. Isn’t she incredible?” If I had a vote, I think it would be for her, because she’s just so good. Bening’s been doing this for decades, has been nominated five times and deserved to win at least once (I would have given her the Oscar for her work in The Kids Are All Right over Natalie Portman in Black Swan). I think she deserves it again here, but like Hüller, I think her nomination is the reward.
About that comment regarding who took Robbie’s nomination, think about it. Mulligan was a lock from day one, as were the other two actresses I’m about to discuss, which means that for whatever reason, they went with the two esteemed veterans over Robbie. If you’re asking me how I would have voted, I’m honestly not sure. Emma Stone, Lily Gladstone, Mulligan and Bening for sure. That leaves Hüller.
I have to say, I think I give it to Hüller here, maybe by a whisker. The irony of Ryan Gosling’s nomination for playing Ken while Robbie wasn’t for playing Barbie is obvious, but that doesn’t mean Hüller doesn’t deserve to be here.
I will once again reference my policy noted above. Whose nomination would you take away so that Robbie could be here? I’m genuinely asking. If you feel strongly enough to talk about it, you can message me at @6wordreviews on Instagram. As long as you’re civil, I promise I’ll respond.
Now, to the two actresses who could actually win this. Stone and Gladstone.
We’ll discuss Gladstone first because she’s not in as much of her movie as the other nominees are in theirs. There is precedence in this very category, though, once again involving the great McDormand, who won it for Fargo 1997 despite only appearing in 36 minutes of a 98-minute movie. Her co-star, William H. Macy, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor despite appearing in 38 minutes. When you think of that film, who do you think of? Of course, you think of McDormand’s Marge, and the same is true of Killers. Gladstone is the heart and soul of the film. Even if she’s not in it as much as Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert De Niro, to call her performance anything other than a lead role is an insult.
Stone, of course, has a more conventional lead role in Poor Things, a terrific take on the Frankenstein story. It’s hard not to consider Emma Stone as one of the finest —if not the finest— actress of her generation. By the way, this is a generation that includes Carey Mulligan (Stone is 35, Mulligan is 38). Stone has been nominated for her acting four times (she has a Best Picture nod this year as well, as one of Poor Things’ producers), and I think we can all expect this to be far from the last time she and Mulligan square off in this category.
If all things were totally equal, I believe Stone would win this award. However, all things are not equal, which is why I don’t believe she will. In my mind, there are two very important factors working against her. The first is Gladstone potentially becoming the first Native American actress to win an Oscar. I think that will be a very hard thing for people to pass up and miss out on being a part of something special, even tangentially, by voting for her.
The other is a bit more sinister: jealousy. Honestly, I think that is just a big part of what will keep Stone from winning. I think the concept of an actress capturing this award twice before she turns 36 is too much for too many people in this town to handle. Will that keep her from ever winning again? No, but I do think it will keep her from winning this year, hence my conviction that Gladstone will make history instead.
Who Should Win: Annette Bening
Who Will Win: Lily Gladstone
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