Oscars Spotlight: Actress in a Leading Role
In the only chaotic acting race, Chastain emerges as a soft frontrunner.
The Nominees:
Jessica Chastain in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE
Olivia Colman in THE LOST DAUGHTER
Penélope Cruz in PARALLEL MOTHERS
Nicole Kidman in BEING THE RICARDOS
Kristen Stewart in SPENCER
Image Credit: LA Times, USA Today, and IndieWire
Who Will Win: Jessica Chastain
Who Could Win: Anyone on this list.
Who Should Win: Renate Reinsve, who’s not even nominated. Okay, okay. From this list, I’m going with Colman. But I’m not thrilled about it.
This category has been total chaos all season, primarily because Best Picture nominations often narrow the field in the acting categories and NOT ONE of these actresses appears in a film nominated for Best Picture. I have heard pundits make the case for each and every one of these nominees.
Right before Oscar nominations came out, most saw Nicole Kidman as the frontrunner. Being the Ricardos surprisingly landed three acting nominations, and she’s arguably the best of them. Then Jessica Chastain won the SAG (the actor’s guild) award and everyone jumped ship. Kidman is now the last nominee anyone mentions.
I’ve seen multiple odds rankings with Olivia Colman in the #2 spot because back in 2018 she sneak-attacked presumed winner Glenn Close in a shocking upset. She will always have a “never count her out” reputation because of that. The critical favorite in the category is still Kristen Stewart. Pundits actually declared her a frontrunner even earlier than Kidman, now that I’m thinking about it. And on the Chasing the Gold podcast from InSession Film, host Ryan McQuade, a reliable Oscar race expert, said something along the lines of, “I don’t know, but I just have this gut feeling about Penelope Cruz.” So, unlike the other three acting races, this one could easily have an upset, and nearly anything could happen.
Jessica Chastain, however, is relatively the safest bet at this point because a.) she’s won major precursor awards like SAG and Critic’s Choice b.) she’s “due” for an Oscar (she should have won for Zero Dark Thirty in 2013, but had the bad luck of going up against Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook) c.) her film, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, has an accompanying Makeup and Hairstyling nomination, and d.) she has been campaigning her heart out. As Anne Thompson of IndieWire said on her podcast, Screen Talk, Chastain has been making it clear to voters that she wants to win, but not in a bad, off-putting way.
The campaigning I’ve seen — her hunger for a win — is what convinces me that she can pull through on Oscar night. She’s been very visible on social media and in the press, talking about how much of a pet project the film was and what a dream role the televangelist singer has been for her. Or showing behind the scenes glimpses of her physical transformation. She’s even come out and said that she will skip the red carpet press that has been scheduled during the awarding of 8 craft categories cut from the live telecast, in order to support her nominated hair and makeup team. That’s the right kind of good will to build with voters. I’m not saying that she’s showing solidarity with artists disingenuously, but it’s also not hurting her campaign. It’s a strategy that she can feel good about.
The most impactful of all the stories she’s told in the press has been that of Tammy Faye as an LBGTQ+ ally, ahead of her time and going against the grain of the more conservative members of the Christian community at the time. She mentioned this at the end of her SAG acceptance speech as well. The scene in which Tammy Faye interviews an AIDS patient in an attempt to de-stigmatize the disease and promote tolerance represents this narrative surrounding Tammy Faye and the film especially well, so much so that The Oscar Wild podcast very astutely said they would use the scene to represent Chastain’s performance at the Oscars ceremony. Chastain took the AIDS patient’s real-life counterpart, Reverend Steve Pieters, to the Oscar nominee luncheon. If Academy members are aware of any of this before final voting closes tomorrow, I can see how — in the absence of voting for Lucille Ball by voting for Nicole Kidman — they would instead vote for Tammy Faye by voting for Jessica Chastain.
While I was interested in learning about Tammy Faye’s work, I didn’t love The Eyes of Tammy Faye as a film because I don’t think it has clear enough idea of what it wanted to say about the severe scandals that befell Tammy Faye and her husband. It also falls into a lot of the cradle-to-grave traps that biopics present (the kind of traps that I think King Richard avoids). The hair and makeup were also very distracting for me. I have seen photos of the real-life Tammy Faye and understand that her look has to be over-the-top, but I kept seeing Chastain with lots of prosthetics and make-up caked on rather than Tammy Faye. Aesthetics aside, Chastain’s performance as Tammy Faye is compelling; I thought she captured how Tammy Faye seemed to be optimistic, innocent, and kind, sometimes to a fault. She’s a confusing mix of charming/savvy and naive/child-like. Exploring her cult of personality was by far the most interesting thread in the film. All that is to say that while I’m not thrilled about Chastain winning, I’m not mad about it either. I like her as an actress a lot, and want her to get an Oscar, even if it’s for this film.
In terms of the other nominations on this list, none of them jump out as one I’d like to rally behind. I’m a huge Olivia Colman fan, and while she’s a chillingly tortured ball of conflicting emotions in The Lost Daughter, it’s not my favorite performance of hers. My main issue with The Lost Daughter is that the storytelling was too obtuse for me. I had a much better handle on the broader themes than on literally what was going on in the film. As a point of reference, I loved The Power of the Dog because it was similarly implicit and mysterious, but only because it still gave me enough clues to piece together what was going on. There’s a whole subplot with a doll in The Lost Daughter that I’m still distressed by.
My favorite Oscar pundits at The Next Best Picture podcast are huge supporters of Kristen Stewart, and maybe they raised my expectations of Spencer too much because I ultimately wasn’t blown away by her performance as Princess Diana. Stewart is captivating, for sure, but I felt like she was dialed to 11 too often and too long; I would have preferred some room to breathe and more of a contrast between Diana trying to put on a good face one minute and then completely crumbling in others. But maybe I’m just too basic like Academy voters and can’t help but compare her performance and the film to Season 4 of The Crown.
Oh, and Nicole Kidman. I remember thinking she was an amazing Lucille Ball when I first saw Being the Ricardos, especially because she wasn’t trying very hard to do an impression of the Hollywood legend. But with the passage of time she just seems okay. Perhaps that’s what has happened with the Academy as well.
I haven’t actually seen Parallel Mothers yet, but I’m hoping to correct that this week. Strangely enough, that’s who I think is in the #2 spot after all this. [Insert giant shrug emoji here.]
There were so many other actresses I would have put here instead. Rachel Zegler from West Side Story, Rebecca Ferguson from Dune (though I can see the argument for her in supporting), Alana Haim from Licorice Pizza, and Tessa Thompson from Passing (a great film that unjustly got shut out of the Oscars) all come to mind.
My personal pick of non-nominated actresses would be Renate Reinsve. I would watch her in any movie after the multi-faceted performance she gave in The Worst Person in the World (the best film I saw at Sundance this year). Her Julia blushes hundreds of shades of funny, irreverent, angry, nihilistic, lonely, adventurous, anxious, despairing, vivacious, and caring.
Image Credit: Rotten Tomatoes
Maybe I’m being picky and a little petty. When I look at the names of the actresses nominated and don’t think too much about what films they were nominated for, I’m much happier about this category. And I’d welcome some chaos here as well.
Agree with all of this. I'd take Alana Haim or Renate Reinsve over any of them.