Kathy Bates is the only woman in this category who has previously won an Oscar. This marks her fourth nomination, but first since 2003. She became an overnight success at forty-two when she won Best Actress for her instantly iconic performance as Annie Wilkes in
Misery. Her subsequent nominations came here in the Supporting Actress category for
Primary Colors (Judi Dench won for her fleeting part in
Shakespeare in Love) and for hot tub romancing Nicholson's widower in
About Schmidt (Catherine Zeta-Jones won for
Chicago). Bates works a lot, though in the past decade it was more television than film. Her turn as the title character's mother in Eastwood's
Richard Jewell is that film's lone nomination. She won't win this time but her quality of work is such that it seems like she should get nominated for awards almost every time she shows up on a set.
Florence Pugh is having a breakout year, but it is going to be topped off with this Oscar nomination, not an Oscar win. I thought she was excellent in
Lady Macbeth (not a Shakespeare adaptation) from a few years back and she was impressive at the center of
"The Little Drummer Girl" television mini-series adaptation of the John le Carré novel (underlining how incredibly miscast Diane Keaton was in the 1984 film version). This past year saw her stand out in three movies:
Fighting with My Family, Midsommar, and
Little Women. Amy March is traditionally the least liked of the fictional March sisters, but Gerwig's spin and especially Pugh's performance have transformed her into a admirable figure for the first time in all the many, many, many adaptations of this piece. She is also about to appear in the blockbuster
Black Widow with fellow nominee Scarlett Johansson as Yelena Belova, another of the girls trained to be assassins in The Red Room. It seems as though this is just the beginning for Ms. Pugh. You will likely see her face a lot in the coming years.
Scarlett Johansson has been a movie star for a while now and finally gets rewarded with two Oscar nominations in the same year. She has a chance of winning Best Actress for
Marriage Story but no real chance here for
Jojo Rabbit. Like the tone of the movie itself she walks a nice tightrope of silly and serious, of cartoon and of melodrama. While the overdue recognition is nice it won't bring her Oscar gold here. But now that she has these nominations it makes it more likely her work will get nominated again in the future.
Margot Robbie had yet another strong year and could just have easily been nominated for playing Sharon Tate in
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This is her second nomination following her Best Actress nod for
I, Tonya two years ago when Frances McDormand won for
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Her quick rise to stardom saw award-worthy turns in
The Wolf of Wall Street and
Mary Queen of Scots on the way here, as well as gaining the fanboy vote as Harley Quinn in
Suicide Squad, a role she is about to reprise starring in
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.
Bombshell was less than it seemed it should have been, and the big scene where John Lithgow's Roger Ailes harasses Robbie's Kayla Pospisil (a fictional composite character) has drawn some ire, rightfully so I think, for being as exploitative in its cinematic gaze as the real CEO. Robbie is better than the material here and I think she would have had a better chance at winning if
OUATIH were the named nomination, not
Bombshell. But Margot will almost surely be back at the Oscars down the line, especially if she continues to work with the likes of Scorsese and Tarantino.
Laura Dern is a second generation actor who has been at this since she was a kid (go back and check out her breakout work in
Mask, Smooth Talk, and
Blue Velvet as an eighteen-year-old). Her folks, Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, have five nominations between them:
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, and
Rambling Rose for Mom,
Coming Home and
Nebraska for Dad. This is Laura's third nomination following her Best Actress turn in
Rambling Rose along side her mother (Jodie Foster won for
Silence of the Lambs) and in support of Reese Witherspoon in
Wild (Patricia Arquette won for
Boyhood). That she has had such a long career already, would be the first of her family to win, and by the way is excellent as the cheerfully bitter divorce attorney in
Marriage Story makes her the favorite. She has won all of the major awards this season, including the Golden Globe and SAG Awards, and she was also part of Gerwig's
Little Women on the big screen and HBO's
"Big Little Lies" on the small screen making this her year.