Cynthia Erivo became a Broadway star in the musical adaptation of
The Color Purple which won her the Tony and Drama Desk awards. If you aren't a devotee of the Great White Way her notice-me-moment in film came a couple years ago in
Bad Times at the El Royale, a show stopper where she sings a stunning acapella rendition of The Supremes hit "You Can't Hurry Love" to mask Jeff Bridges' character digging up a floor (the soundtrack also features her singing classics like The Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart of Mine" and Sam & Dave's "Hold On (I'm Coming)"). She had a nice supporting turn in Steve McQueen's
Widows that same year and she is about to explode onto the small screen portraying Aretha Franklin in the National Geographic series
"Genius" (season one featured Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein, season two was Antonio Banderas as Pablo Picasso). This is not to be confused with the upcoming big screen biopic
Respect starring Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul, which will almost surely be an awards contender next year. The British-born Erivo's first starring role as an ass-kicking
Harriet Tubman has netted her a Best Actress nomination. She is actually a double nominee, also acknowledged as one of the songwriters for the tune "Stand Up" from the movie, which is one of the five competing for Original Song.
Those are
Harriet's only two nominations and Ms. Erivo won't hear her name called as Best Actress this time out, but she is a ball of talent and at thirty-three seems poised to see her star keep rising.
This is
Charlize Theron's third Oscar nomination as Best Actress. She won just about every award there was for her scary transformation into Aileen Wuornos in
Monster and her nod for
North Country lost out to Reese Witherspoon's turn as June Carter Cash in
Walk the Line. While not the massive physical transformations of
Monster or Furiosa in
Mad Max: Fury Road she does a nice job capturing the well known media personality Megan Kelly in Jay Roach's
Bombshell. The movie seemed to be poised to capitalize and comment upon the Me Too climate. But the overall film was a letdown. Theron and Robbie's nominations as well as a Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling nod are all the film managed with The Academy. Theron won't win her second Oscar here, but she continues to make strong choices as an actor and a producer.
Saoirse Ronan is about as big an Oscar darling as a young actress can be without actually having won yet. Her first nomination came at the age of thirteen in support of
Atonement (Tilda Swinton won for
Michael Clayton). She made a seamless transition into adult roles and got her first Best Actress nominations for
Brooklyn (Brie Larson won for
Room) and
Lady Bird (Frances McDormand won for
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). Her re-teaming with Greta Gerwig has produced the second Oscar nod for portraying Jo March. Winona Ryder was nominated for Gillian Armstrong's 1994 version, losing to Jessica Lange for
Blue Sky. Saoirse won't win this time out either, but it truly seems like only a matter of time before she does. At not quite 26-years-old at this pace she might have a dozen more opportunities over the course of her career.
Scarlett Johansson had never had an Oscar nomination before this year. It wasn't for a lack of good work. Early on she impressed in
Ghost World, Lost in Translation, and Woody Allen's
Match Point as well as some Oscar-baity fare like
The Girl with the Pearl Earring and
The Other Boleyn Girl and she watched as
Vicky Cristina Barcelona won an Oscar for her co-star Penélope Cruz. Shortly after that she was introduced as Natasha Romanoff in
Iron Man 2 as The Marvel Cinematic Universe began to quickly expand in that first phase. Her Black Widow became a key player in that series of mega blockbusters, with her standalone prequel about to be released. But in between some of the Avengers choas she had herself a year catching up with two nominations at once for playing the title character's plucky mother in
Jojo Rabbit and more impressively proving what acting chops she has at the center of Noah Baumbach's
Marriage Story. The script and her performance masterfully vacillates between her being sympathetic and cruel. The anger, uneasiness, pain, and love come bursting off the screen. Her Best Actress nomination is a worthy one, and while she doesn't seem to have the awards season momentum to win if there is an upset in any of the four acting categories this year it would be Johansson who pulls it off.
Renée Zellweger now has four nominations. Her first was for the original
Bridget Jones's Diary (Halle Bery won for
Monster's Ball) and the very next year she returned with
Chicago (Nicole Kidman won for
The Hours). Honestly Zellweger probably should have won for her Roxie Hart in that Best Picture winning Musical so when she returned to the ceremony for the third year in a row, this time as Best Supporting Actress in
Cold Mountain, they made up for it and got her the trophy. I don't think
Cold Mountain is one of her better performances, but it was one of those Oscar slights they could remedy almost right away...so they did. Her career had built quickly from
Empire Records and
Jerry Maguire and
Nurse Betty to those three nominations and a win. In the years after that attention she made the obligatory
Bridget Jones sequels as well as some presitge projects like
Cinderella Man and
Miss Potter, but as she neared fifty with her ingenue days behind her she didn't seem to have a place anymore. The bonus to aging out of the twentysomething roles is that you age into some potentially more interesting parts. Judy Garland is one of the beloved and tragic figures of Hollywood. She had a 45-year career but died at the age of only 47! While she had been a movie star since she was young her offscreen traumas remained hidden for a long time until they manifest themselves and aged her prematurely. The film
Judy deals with Garland's last year as she attempted a comeback in London. Her health was deteriorating thanks to years of drug and alcohol abuse, but her talent kept trying to shine through, right up until the end.
Like last year's Best Actor win for Rami Malick's work as Freddie Mercury the Academy can be a bit of sucker for those performances that accurately mimic well known artists. Judy Garland is an enduring icon, and while almost any drag show for the last fifty years showcases stunning Garland tributes nightly Zellweger excels in the dramatic moments while serving up the requisite lounge performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Garland never won a competitive Oscar herself. She was nominated twice, for the 1954 version of
A Star is Born (Grace Kelly won for
The Country Girl) and in support of the
Judgment at Nuremberg (Rita Moreno won for
West Side Story). But there may be some vindication for both
Judy by proxy and for Renée not winning for
Chicago this Oscar night.