Best Actor: Will Smith Leads, Benedict Cumberbatch Coming on Strong

Both Will Smith in King Richard and Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog have given the best performances of their careers this year. Both are tipped towards winning the Oscar, though Will Smith seems to have the mojo, at least for now. There is still much we don’t know about the Oscar race this year, since voting doesn’t even start until the end of January.

What Benedict Cumberbatch has heading in is Best Picture heat. Best Picture and Best Actor are probably the closest relationship in the Oscar race, or certainly right up there with Screenplay and Director. The trend we’ve been seeing in the era of the preferential ballot is that Best Actor and Best Picture do not match. The reason for this is that with more Best Picture contenders, voters seem to prefer to spread the big awards around rather than give them to one movie.

Will Smith as King Richard is funny, vulnerable, deeply moving. This is a compassionate portrayal of a man whose dreams for his own daughters were bigger than his own dreams for himself. What is astonishing about him as a person is that he might not have been college-educated, he might not have been a member of the upper crust of society, and he might have been a black man raising a family in a rough part of Los Angeles — but there was never a second in his life that he felt like any of that should hold either his daughters or himself back.

It’s hard to watch King Richard and not fall hard for Will Smith and this character. Because of that, it’s hard to imagine him not winning. The film also seems like a strong contender for Best Picture. The box office heat wasn’t quite what most of us expected. People are not turning out to the movies, or at least not the people who would be primed to see the prestige pics from this time of year. But we have to assume King Richard is one of the strongest Best Picture five.

https://youtu.be/EpuImNBJXTE

That same kind of emotional pull is most definitely involved when watching Peter Dinklage as Cyrano. First off, Dinklage is just brilliant as an actor and finds so much humor and sweetness in his portrayal of the iconic character whose physical appearance might make him feel unworthy for Roxanne (the excellent Haley Bennett). You know where the story is going. You know how it ends. You know you’re watching something that is about to break your heart, but Dinklage earns your love regardless. He would be the frontrunner if he wasn’t competing with Will Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Cumberbatch’s performance was so powerful, I was haunted by it the entire night after I first saw the film. It is such a surprising, mysterious performance that you really can’t figure out throughout the whole film. He keeps you guessing what his intentions are. Sometimes he seems outright cruel. Sometimes he seems delicate and vulnerable. He is a masterful actor who can shapeshift into people very unlike himself, as he does here. Cumberbatch gives certainly one of the most memorable performances of the year, and the strength of The Power of the Dog overall helps him become a formidable challenger to Smith.

Those are the top three, at least for the win. When it comes to nominations, we have two more open slots.

The fourth has to be Denzel Washington as Macbeth in Joel Coen’s moody rendition of the Shakespeare play. As one of our finest actors, Washington delivers. We’re probably not looking at a win only because of the opaque nature of Shakespeare itself. It’s a mouthful of words — brilliant though they may be — that is sometimes hard to connect with emotionally. Either way, this will be Denzel Washington’s sixth nomination, which will likely make him the most nominated black actor in Oscar history.

That leaves one open spot. The contenders seem to be Andrew Garfield for tick, tick… Boom!, Javier Bardem in Being the Ricardos, Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley, and Nicolas Cage in Pig. It feels like Garfield has the edge, based on the emotional reaction to the movie. It connects with actors. But then so does Bardem in Being the Ricardos. Cage has a strong advocacy group behind him pushing for recognition. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. Finally, Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up has, at least for now, Best Picture heat.

So now let’s look at the Best Actor/Best Picture connection, which we’ve done before — but what the hell, let’s do it again. How about we go back 30 years to look at the difference the expanded ballot can make.

1990 — Dances with Wolves
Jeremy Irons, Reversal of Fortune
Kevin Costner, Dances With Wolves
Robert De Niro, Awakenings
Gerard Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac
Richard Harris, The Field

1991 — The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs
Warren Beatty, Bugsy
Robert De Niro, Cape Fear
Nick Nolte, The Prince of Tides
Robin Williams, The Fisher King

1992 — Unforgiven
Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman 
Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
Steven Rea, The Crying Game
Robert Downey, Jr., Chaplin
Denzel Washington, Malcolm X

1993 — Schindler’s List
Tom Hanks, Philadelphia
Liam Neeson, Schindler’s List
Anthony Hopkins, The Remains of the Day
Daniel Day-Lewis, In the Name of the Father
Laurence Fishburne, What’s Love Got to do With It

1994 — Forrest Gump
Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
John Travolta, Pulp Fiction
Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption
Paul Newman, Nobody’s Fool
Nigel Hawthorne, The Madness of King George

1995 — Braveheart
Nicolas Cage, Leaving Las Vegas
Richard Dreyfuss, Mr. Holland’s Opus
Anthony Hopkins, Nixon
Sean Penn, Dead Man Walking
Massimo Troisi, Il Postino

1996 — The English Patient
Geoffrey Rush, Shine 
Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire
Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient
Woody Harrelson, The People vs. Larry Flynt
Billy Bob Thornton, Sling Blade

1997 — Titanic
Jack Nicholson, As Good as It Gets 
Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting
Robert Duvall, The Apostle
Peter Fonda, Ulee’s Gold
Dustin Hoffman, Wag the Dog

1998 — Shakespeare in Love
Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful
Tom Hanks, Saving Private Ryan
Ian McKellen, Gods and Monsters
Nick Nolte, Affliction
Edward Norton, American History X

1999 — American Beauty
Kevin Spacey, American Beauty
Russell Crowe, The Insider
Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
Sean Penn, Sweet and Lowdown
Denzel Washington, The Hurricane

2000 — Gladiator
Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls
Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Ed Harris, Pollock
Geoffrey Rush, Quills

2001 — A Beautiful Mind
Denzel Washington, Training Day
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn, I Am Sam
Will Smith, Ali
Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom

2002 — Chicago
Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Nicolas Cage, Adaptation
Michael Caine, The Quiet American
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt

2003 — The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Sean Penn, Mystic River
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

2004 — Million Dollar Baby
Jamie Foxx, Ray
Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby

2005 — Crash
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck

2006 — The Departed
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

2007 — No Country for Old Men
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

2008 — Slumdog Millionaire
Sean Penn, Milk
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

2009 — The Hurt Locker
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

2010 — The King’s Speech
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
James Franco, 127 Hours

2011 — The Artist
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

2012 – Argo
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

2013 — 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

2014 — Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman

2015 — Spotlight
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

2016 — Moonlight 
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

2017 — The Shape of Water
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

2018 — Green Book
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

2019 — Parasite
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

2020 — Nomadland
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman (posthumous), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari

So obviously, having more Best Picture nominees means one or two more Best Actor nominees from those films, but it isn’t always the case that all five are Best Picture nominees. So I would expect at least three to be from Best Picture nominees. We know that at least Will Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch’s films will be Best Picture contenders. So of the ones that are left, which are the more likely to have Best Picture nominations?

Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick… Boom!
Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley
Leonardo DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos

Given everything we’ve just looked at, I think there is a high probability that one of the names in the three open slots is probably going to be Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley since it has the best shot of these to make it into Best Picture. Then you would have three names vying for the remaining slot: Garfield, Washington, Dinklage.

This is just a guess, obviously. We have a long way to go yet. But when watching Best Actor, watch Best Picture.