Best Actress – Gaga Is Coming

The story of Best Actress is not yet told because a big fish is still to be reeled in, and that’s the highly anticipated performance of Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. From the two trailers, she seems perfectly cast in this role. Here she is able to really camp it up, rather than tamp it down as she did with A Star Is Born. Of course, it’s impossible to assess Oscar potential from trailers — the whole movie has to be seen.

Ridley Scott is coming in hot with two movies with strong lead actresses: Jodie Comer in The Last Duel and potentially Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. The Golden Globes, in fact, might pit these two movies and these two performances against each other if Gucci is put in the comedy category.

The thing about the Oscars, especially when it comes to the Best Actress category, is how badly voters want to award someone the prize. The voters have to want to see someone win and then win again and then win again. Every time they win, it has to feel good. It can never feel bad. That’s a tricky tightrope for an actor to walk. They can’t look like they want it too much. They can’t give a speech where they come off as entitled. This is true of any high-profile winner in the major categories, but it is especially true with actresses.

Defining this or gaming the system is not easy. Humility seems to factor in there somewhere. Look to none other than Kate Winslet winning at the Golden Globes to see someone act surprised to win when it was pretty obvious she was going to win. Giving that surprised speech every time is not easy.

Watch Winslet here for a master class in the way you win an award that then sets you up to win the Oscar. Now granted — her time had come, no doubt. She’s winning here for Revolutionary Road, but she won Supporting Actress for The Reader that same night. As an actress, she can read the room and thus she knows from the crowd’s reaction what is working and what isn’t. This is what actors can do that no other winners can: they bounce off the vibes in the room.

The question now will become: which actress will people want to see win? In Winslet’s case, The Reader was a Best Picture nominee, which was a good indicator she was on tap to win finally. But she never took it for granted. She squeezed every drop out of the lemon every time she came to the mic. Every minute mattered. Every tiny minute.

Last year, of course, those who won the early awards, like Andra Day at the Globes or Viola Davis at the SAG Awards, did not have a crowd to bounce off of, as they were given virtually. Now imagine you’re at the SAG Awards and Viola Davis wins for Ma Rainey. We saw her win for The Help, which she then lost at the Oscars (Meryl Streep + BAFTA = Oscar win). But knowing she is heading into her second SAG win, the crowd’s reaction in 2020 — what she might have said in her speech — all of that would have mattered but simply did not exist in 2020. When Parasite earned a standing ovation at the SAG Awards, that was a game-changer for that movie heading into final voting if for no other reason it made people want to watch the movie.

Needless to say, in a competitive year having a Best Picture nominee could make the difference. They really have to want to see the actor win, or really like the role or the performance, to overcome not having a film in play, especially with ten nominees. That seems to indicate that, at the very least, a big award like Best Actress will be given to at least one of those ten.

The problem is, at least right now, there is a disconnect between the frontrunners and Best Picture. Currently, those frontrunners would be:

Kristen Stewart — Spencer
Jennifer Hudson — Respect
Jessica Chastain — Eyes of Tammy Faye
Penelope Cruz — Parallel Mothers
Olivia Colman — The Lost Daughter

Those who might land in the race with corresponding Best Picture nominations (at least from what we think we know right now — which could not mean anything):

Jodie Comer — The Last Duel
Lady Gaga — House of Gucci
Frances McDormand — Tragedy of Macbeth

Looking at Erik Anderson’s Best Picture predictions for September (he doesn’t have October up):

1. Belfast (Focus Features) ↑ [Telluride, TIFF]
2. The Power of the Dog (Netflix) ↓ [Venice, Telluride, TIFF, NYFF]
3. Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)
4. King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↑ [Telluride, AFI]
5. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↓ [Venice, TIFF, NYFF]
6. The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple) ↓ [NYFF]
7. Licorice Pizza (MGM/UA) ↑
8. West Side Story (20th Century Studios) ↓
9. Spencer (NEON) ↑ [Venice, Telluride, TIFF]
10. Flee (NEON) ↓ [Sundance, Telluride, TIFF, NYFF]

He does have Spencer on the list. If this is how it ends up, then it would be a slam dunk for Kristen Stewart, I would imagine.

You can click over to Gold Derby to see how many of the pundits are predicting Best Picture. There is no consensus, beyond the usual suspects. I find many of the predictions long shots at this point. But it’s still too early to know for sure whether they are out of their minds or right on track. These predictions will continue to shift as time goes by. But remember, know your predictors. Know whose agendas are at play and why they are predicting what they are predicting. In general, their predictions (even mine) are based on wishful thinking and confirmation bias. They do not reflect any sort of reality whatsoever. That’s because at this stage there is simply no way of knowing.

For instance, here is what The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg via Jeff Wells (Hollywood Elsewhere) is posting as his “frontrunners.” It looks like Scott is following Anne Thompson’s lead of only predicting what he has seen — because what else could explain it?

King Richard
Belfast 
The Power of the Dog 
A Hero
C’mon, C’mon
The Hand of God
CODA
The Harder They Fall
Summer of Soul

This isn’t to say, of course, that settling into group think is the way to go. That is not a healthy way to watch the Oscars. But still, it’s hard to see how this is actually what the Best Picture race is going to look like in any way, shape, or form, save for the top three unless you factor in his not predicting “sight unseen” films. Glancing at Gold Derby, it looks like some people are following suit. Perhaps Thompson has set off her own mini revolution in Oscar punditry.

As far as that goes, I personally have not found a huge gulf between predicting seen and unseen in terms of what you get right and what you get wrong. Still, it does sort of seem odd to predict movies you haven’t seen to get a nomination.

What I see is that there is broad support among pundits for Spencer and Kristen Stewart. I also see that there is universal support for Nightmare Alley, which could potentially have a Best Actress contender in Cate Blanchett. CODA has some support, and Emilia Jones is potentially a contender. But beyond that, the Best Picture lineup does not exactly scream Best Actress. Not at Gold Derby or AwardsWatch or Hollywood Reporter.

So here is what Erik Anderson sees for Best Actress (October):

1. Kristen Stewart – Spencer (NEON) ↔
2. Frances McDormand – The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple) ↔
3. Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers (Sony Pictures Classics) ↔
4. Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter (Netflix) ↑
5. Lady Gaga – House of Gucci (MGM/UA) ↑
6. Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight Pictures) ↑
7. Cate Blanchett – Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures) ↓
8. Jennifer Hudson – Respect (MGM/UA) ↑
9. Halle Berry – Bruised (Netflix) ↔
10. Renate Reinsve – The Worst Person in the World (NEON) ↑

Keep in mind that this is an all-white lineup. So imagine that isn’t going to be how it ends up. Not this year. Not a chance. So adjust accordingly. The pundits over at Gold Derby have Lost Daughter in for a potential Best Picture nominee. The only reason I’d even consider it is that Netflix is driving it and they’re good at this. Otherwise, not a chance.

It remains my general theory that the Oscars are going to go bigger and try to salvage what remains of the industry. They know they can’t do that if they stay “small.” They have to try to expand and one way to do that would be to pick epics like, say, The Last Duel. Just saying.

I do believe my pundit pals are greatly underestimating Jennifer Hudson, whose performance is easily among the best this year. Is it the buzziest among pundits and critics? No. Does that matter? No. What matters more is if she starts showing up at the Globes, the Critics Choice, etc. And besides, all it will take is for one major critics group to choose Hudson, like New York or LA, and that will be enough to push her into the main competition. It isn’t just that she’s playing a famous icon in American history (though that is certainly part of it) and it isn’t just that Hudson was just chosen as a People’s Choice contender (though that’s certainly part of it too) — it’s also that the film itself is driven by black women. The writer, the director, and the actors. Surely that has to count for something in 2021.

But we have months, friends, months. Here is how I would currently rank the Best Actress contenders. We’ll include a poll here for you to ring in.

1. Kristen Stewart, Spencer — but for me conditional on a Best Picture nomination. Stewart has never been better, nailing the accent, and finding a kinship with Diana that comes alive on screen.
2. Jennifer Hudson, Respect — she has history on her side to finally break the Halle Berry stat. But more than that, she was hand-picked by Aretha Franklin to play her. Her acting and singing are exceptional.
3. Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers — I haven’t seen it yet but by all accounts, she’s a standout.
4. Jodie Comer, The Last Duel — the up-and-comer drives the film as a 14th-century rape victim. She’s well known for her work in Killing Eve and the more people see the film the better her chances.
5. Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye — her work is being singled out, and she is long overdue for a win so that could help her push through.
6. Frances McDormand, The Tragedy of Macbeth — the jury is still out on whether or not the industry will embrace Joel Coen’s expressionistic Shakespeare film. But if they do, McDormand is in.
7. Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter — I think she has a shot but I also think pundits are slightly overestimating this. That Maggie Gyllenhaal (writer/director) is an actor that definitely helps and Colman is brilliant in the part, but it is an uncomfortable, dark movie to watch. Not sure how that plays in 2021.
8. Emilia Jones, CODA — a winning performance in a winning film.

And still to come:

1. Lady Gaga, House of Gucci — hilariously dark and delicious in the trailer, holding nothing back,
2. Cate Blanchett, Nightmare Alley — always good, always delivers.
3. Rachel Zegler, West Side Story — potentially history-making performance.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote today. We’ll be back again tomorrow with too many words.

Here is your poll.

[poll id=”68″]