The Case for Best Actress of the Year

No category this year has been as much of a rollercoaster ride as Best Actress. Since there have been more contenders than usual this year in more films, we’ve somehow arrived at one of the strangest years in the era of the preferential ballot: none of the five Best Actress contenders appear in a Best Picture nominee. You’d think there would be some crossover, given that there are ten Best Picture contenders, but nope. Central female roles were prominent in Ridley Scott’s two films this year, House of Gucci with Lady Gaga and The Last Duel with Jodie Comer, but neither got in. Jennifer Hudson was the legendary Aretha Franklin in Respect, but didn’t land. Nicole Kidman stars in Being the Ricardos, which is a PGA nominee, but nope — that didn’t get nominated for Best Picture. CODA’s lead role features Emilia Jones, but she was not nominated.

Jennifer Lawrence is lead in Don’t Look Up, Rachel Zegler is lead in West Side Story, Alana Haim is lead in Licorice Pizza, yet none of them got in. Then, when the BAFTA announced their committee-selected Best Actress six, none of the Oscar nominees crossed over. That meant that, for the second year in a row, there were three different winners at Globe, SAG, and BAFTA. Of course, BAFTA doesn’t really factor in when it comes to finding the final winner.

Because of the unusual nature of this year’s slate, we can’t rely on our three criteria for Best Actress:

Likability actress
Likability of role
Likeability of movie

Now, we’re down to how much voters like the actress and how much they like the role.

Nicole Kidman won at the Golden Globes. Jessica Chastain won at the SAG Awards and then again at the Critics Choice Awards. The Eyes of Tammy Faye did win Makeup at the BAFTA, which seems to be an indicator that the voters there were on the side of that movie, meaning Chastain might have won there had she been nominated (and likely would have been without BAFTA’s new committee system).

So why is Jessica Chastain winning now when it seemed like Kristen Stewart or Nicole Kidman had the momentum? I think it has to do with three things:

The first — none of these movies have a Best Picture nomination. That makes things all equal in terms of how much voters like their movies, which is to say they don’t seem to like them enough to push them into the Best Picture race. I mean, even The Blind Side got in the year Sandra Bullock won. No Best Picture nominees levels the playing field in a way that makes it a little bit harder to single any one out.

Because of that, physical transformation or perceived level of difficulty makes the difference. If they have nothing else to go on, they are deciding Jessica Chastain’s performance was the most difficult, went the farthest, was the most challenging. Even if they don’t like the movie that much, they like the actress and that makes up for it.

The second — Jessica Chastain has worked with almost everyone in Hollywood and has never won an Oscar. That makes her overdue. She is known for often challenging herself with several films in a given year and got close to winning with Zero Dark Thirty back in 2013, but then found herself just missing out on Oscar nominations for most of the next decade despite continuing to deliver acclaimed work in films like A Most Violent Year, Miss Sloane, and Molly’s Game.

The third — Tammy Faye Bakker represents a dimension of social justice. She crossed party lines to open her heart to the gay community which, for evangelicals at the time (and many evangelicals still today), was considered a mortal sin. Voters might not like Tammy Faye Bakker overall, but they liked that she did this one thing, that she made a difference in people’s lives. Ironically, Princess Diana is known for doing the same thing. She is known as being the first globally famous person to embrace a patient with HIV/AIDS during the height of the AIDS pandemic in 1987. That went a long way to eliminate the public stigma attached with AIDS sufferers. You might have had to be alive in the 1980s to remember it, but it was a big deal. That helps Kristen Stewart too.

Where Nicole Kidman is concerned, what she has going for her heading in is her brilliant performance as Lucille Ball. Without a Best Picture nomination for Being the Ricardos, without a major physical transformation, and without some kind of social justice issue to push — not having any of those is probably why she didn’t win the SAG. But that doesn’t mean she won’t win the Oscar.

Although Chastain is likely the winner on Oscar night, there is precedent for a surprise in this category because there is not a strong consensus at the moment, due to BAFTAs voting changes.

If Kidman won the Globe and Chastain won the SAG, that sets up a dynamic where they could split each other’s votes, as likely happened last year when Andra Day won the Golden Globe and Viola Davis won the SAG, then Frances McDormand won the BAFTA and the Oscar. The same thing happened in 2003 with Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt winning the Globe and Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York winning the SAG, then Adrien Brody winning the Oscar in a shocker. Sometimes when you have two strong performances they can split the vote, leaving a third contender with passionate support to win. There are many times throughout Oscar history where this happened. The crowd can always tell when there is a genuine surprise.

(By the way, the Academy’s YouTube account seems to have unlisted Brody’s win from their account, but it’s there with over 5.9 million views.)

It isn’t exactly the same thing because the movies involved were all up for Best Picture, but let’s take 1951. Anne Baxter and Bette Davis were both up for All About Eve, as was Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard. Ultimately, Judy Holliday would win for Born Yesterday, which was seen as “light” compared to the others, but the splitting of the votes between the other contenders allowed for Holliday’s supporters to pull through a win. Listen to the crowd roar when she wins — you can tell it was a surprise. She wasn’t even there to accept it.

Another year might have been 1962, when Audrey Hepburn was up for Breakfast at Tiffany’s against Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass. Sophia Loren would win for Two Women. None of these films were up for Best Picture. Loren wasn’t nominated for a Golden Globe. Hepburn did not win the Golden Globe, nor did Natalie Wood. And, incidentally, it was also the year West Side Story won Best Picture. This would benefit perhaps Kristen Stewart in Spencer, or for Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers too. Loren also wasn’t there to accept the award.

None of the Best Actress contenders had won the Golden Globe prior to the ceremony, which led to a surprise win by Loren.

Believe it or not, the 1980s was a great decade for actresses. I personally think another year like the one we’re in was 1986 when Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful beat Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple, Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams, and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. Goldberg won the Golden Globe in Drama, while Kathleen Turner won the Comedy Globe section for Prizzi’s Honor. But Page was way overdue (8th nomination without a win) and it’s possible the other actresses split the vote, leaving the sentimental favorite to win.

The last one is 1988, where Cher won for Moonstruck up against Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, and Meryl Streep in Ironweed. And again, I know that we’re not in any kind of similar situation since none of the Best Actress contenders this year are in movies voters liked enough to nominate for Best Picture. Sally Kirkland had won Best Actress at the Globes in Drama, but Cher did win the Globe for Comedy. Despite the competition in the category, she pulled through for the Oscar win.

When it comes down to voting time, I expect voters will choose the actress they know and like best rather than the performance or the character. They know and like Chastain, Kidman, and Cruz. They are just getting to know Kristen Stewart and Olivia Colman, even though she was just handed a Best Actress Oscar win for The Favourite. Their roots are deeper with the other three.

It has been an incredibly competitive year for Best Actress. Now, it’s all over but the last big speech on Oscar night.

So I will ask you Oscarwatchers, which actress will win? Which actress should win? Which actress should have been nominated?