Oscars 101: Best Supporting Actor

In which I run down on the nominees (and likely winners) of the Academy Awards.

It may surprise many of you that for almost the first decade of Academy Awards, there were only two acting categories: Best Actor and Best Actress.  These were intended to encapsulate all performances for the previous, regardless if they were lead or supporting.  In 1936, however, two new categories were introduced to honor non-lead performances, since many felt that screen time, rather than quality acting, was what was being awarded.  In the near-century since then, however, the reverse has often proven to be the case.  Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for sixteen minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs while Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting actor for a role that had him on screen for the vast majority of Django Unchained's run time.  This year's nominees are:

Robert Duvall – The Judge
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

Even though the film which features him is already nominated in this category - and a second nomination would surely kill whatever chances his co-star has of winning - I cannot help but think that it's outrageous that Channing Tatum did not receive a nomination for is subtly explosive and utterly transformative turn as Mark Schultz in Foxcatcher.  In many ways, he is the lead of the film, playing opposite of Steve Carell's enigmatic and antagonistic John du Pont.  His hulking, brooding, often silent and sometimes apish character had to convey so much with scowls and gestures that it's amazing that we ever got an appreciation of who he is as a human being at all.  And yet Tatum, proving time and time again what an incredibly talented and remarkably versatile actor he is, succeeded with unprecedented skill and sophistication.

Robert Duvall in The Judge - I'll admit it, I was wrong.  When my dad came to me after seeing The Judge claiming that Duvall would get an Oscar nomination for the movie, I smiled politely, nodded along and pictured all of more likely nominees in my head.  But when the nominee announcement came around, he was the one proven right (although I still stand behind motion capture performances like Bradley Cooper in Guardians of the Galaxy and Toby Kebbell in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes being worthy nominees whose work is prejudiciously ignored by the old guard within the Academy).

The Academy's MO is generally to shaft younger performers who haven't proven themselves consistently good yet in favor of older actors who have.  This is where the lion's share of Robert Duvall's support comes from.  He's a seven-time Oscar nominee whose notoriety stretches back to The Godfather.  He's a seasoned actor who has more than paid his dues in the years since, and hasn't won an Oscar since 1984's Tender Mercies.  And at 84, it's doubtful that he'll get many more chances to win one.  Nostalgia, respect and a solid performance may prove to be enough to see him through the day,

Ethan Hawke in Boyhood - I have long maintained that Ethan Hawke is one of the most underrated and underutilized actors working today.  His lengthy career in acting has produced an eclectic body of incredibly interesting and well regarded work, ranging from Richard Linklater's Before trilogy to the incredibly trippy Predestination.  Despite his prodigious body of work, however, this is his first Oscar nomination for acting (his previous two being for his work on Before Sunset's and Before Midnight's screenplays).

As I have previously mentioned above, the Academy is infuriatingly patient, preferring to wait until young actors grow into proven ones later on in life.  This year's nomination could prove to be a sign that they're finally accepting that he's not just a flash in the pan who happened into a good movie or two.  That being said, however, his performance is notably weaker than most of his competition and he still has a good many years left for future nominations.  He might have gotten into the club in 2014, but he has yet to pay all of his dues.

Edward Norton in Birdman - Can you believe that Edward Norton - Edward freaking Norton - doesn't have an Oscar yet.  Despite being nominated for Primal Fear (where he perplexingly lost to Cuba Gudding Jr.) and American History X and being completely snubbed for both Fight Club and The Illusionist, he has yet to walk away with the premiere award for acting.

His turn in Birdman has an infamously difficult to work with actor is like a sly inside joke to movie buffs, playing off of his real-life reputation as a infuriating costar and that of similarly esteemed character actors.  His brazenly energetic and riotously funny character could very easily turn voters away from the obvious frontrunnners, although I'm not entirely convinced that it will be enough to win him the prize. 

Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher - As somebody who is far more familiar with his nervously energetic turn as Bruce Banner, Mark Ruffalo's turn as David Schultz in Foxcatcher took me completely by surprise.  His quiet, hulking and gentle-hearted performance was the highlight of the film for me, beating out even Tatum's meatier role and Carell's against-type casting.  In one of the most eye-catchingly subtle character pieces in recent memory, Ruffalo absolutely demands attention for the seamless way in which he quietly blends into the background of every scenes that he's in.

Despite the silent audacity of his performance, I doubt he'll be upstaging anybody on Oscar night.  His is a quietly demanding, subtly nuanced performance that's facing down a field of louder, more eye-catching and just as well regarded ones.  He might earn points from the anti-J.K. Simmons crowd for acting as the antithesis of the veteran character actor's showiest role to date, but it's doubtless not enough to edge out Simmons' seemingly insurmountable lead.

J. K. Simmons in Whiplash - One of the safest bets to make on the 22nd is J.K. Simmons winning Best Supporting Actor.  There's just no question about it.  He's made a career of playing eclectic side-characters, slowly building up a reputation as a poor man's Paul Giamatti for decades.  His roles have been more Academy friendly than Hawke's and far showier than Ruffalo's, and he's afforded so much screen time in Whiplash that he'd more accurately be described as a co-lead than as a supporting character.

In a strongly contested category from a year with an incredible array of strong performances, J.K. Simmons' foul mouthed, physically abusive jazz conductor is undoubtedly the best.  His portrayal is so unrelentingly intense and so despicably dysfunctional that I saw one woman walk out of her showing within the first half hour - a scowl on her face as she shook her head - repeating "he was too mean" over and over again.  Any performance that can cause that kind of reaction and still be so highly regarded simply has to be the one to beat.

Safe Bet: J.K. Simmons in Whiplash

Long Shot: Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher

Longer Shot: Edward Norton in Birdman

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