Oscar's Best Supporting Actress 2021

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Who will be named Best Supporting Actress?
7.69%
1 votes
Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
30.77%
4 votes
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
15.38%
2 votes
Olivia Colman, The Father
15.38%
2 votes
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
30.77%
4 votes
Youn Yuh-Jung, Minari
13 votes. You may not vote on this poll




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I think everyone except Seyfried has a chance of winning.


I think SAG and BAFTA will be telling. Feel like right now it's between Bakalova and Youn. I kinda hope Close doesn't win for that but eh, they've been giving career awards for a while anyway.





Maria Bakalova is only twenty-four years old and had appeared in three Bulgarian features before Sasha Baron Cohen tapped her to play his daughter in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He needed a deliverer of jokes but more importantly somebody who could be his confederate in the undercover filming of unwitting subjects. Whether it was pure luck or he saw something in her she turned out to be nearly his equal in performing the comic subterfuge while staying in and improvising as the character. She also has some nice dramatic moments, surprising given the premise. She has little chance of winning but let the nomination be reward enough for being alone with Rudy Giuliani in a hotel room.




Amanda Seyfried is still young but has been at this for a while. She was eighteen when she got the supporting role as one of the Plastics in Mean Girls (2003). Her profile continued to rise through HBO’s ”Big Love” (2006-2011), Mama Mia! (2008), Les Misérables (2012) and while some of the projects designed to be blockbusters never quite caught on (Red Riding Hood, Pan, Epic, In Time, The Art of Racing in the Rain) she was also making some nice decisions indie wise (First Reformed, Lovelace, Chloe). Fincher chose her to be his Marion Davies in Mank and it garners her first Oscar nomination. It’s a solid performance but stuck somewhere between an ingénue role and something that takes big dramatic swings. She and the film humanize Davies for those who may only know of her as the mythical analog for Citizen Kane’s Susan Alexander Kane, but it isn’t the kind of performance that usually wins here.




Youn Yuh-Jung may be unfamiliar to American audiences at large but has been working in Korea since the 1970s. She had a strong debut in Kim Ki-Young’s Woman of Fire (1971) and The Insect Woman (1972) and spent decades on television and film. But one need not be versed in her career to appreciate her talents as the grandmother in Minari. The Academy voters sure didn’t know her but had no trouble getting her onto the ballot. As the woman flown into rural 1980s Arkansas to help raise her grandchildren while their parents work Youn hits the right balance of humor and pathos, seen mostly through the eyes of Alan Kim’s David, first being scared of and ashamed of his elder before realizing he may have the coolest grandma around. The 73-year-old is not the first non-English speaking role to be nominated here. Marina de Tavira got the nod two years ago for Roma (2018), both Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi for Babel (2006), and Valentina Cortese in Truffaut’s Day for Night (1974). Penélope Cruz won at the 2009 ceremony for her Spanish and English performance in Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona. Will Youn Yuh-Jung make some history?




Olivia Colman was no secret to any fan of British television and film for the past twenty years – I first fell in love with her as Sophie on ”Peep Show”, for you maybe it was ”Broadchurch” or ”Mr. Sloane” or Tyrranosaur – but the rest of the world got to know her on ”The Crown” and ”Fleabag” just before she had an upset win as Oscar’s Best Actress for her tortured and pathetic Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2018), beating out Lady Gaga in A Star is Born and one Glenn Close in The Wife. The Father is a real tour de force for Anthony Hopkins, and while Colman’s role is not as complex she skillfully conveys the entire arc of bewilderment, amusement, guilt, and pain in her lesser screentime. I don’t think it will be enough to get her a second Oscar this time out but she is definitely an actress on the Academy’s collective radar now.




Glenn Close currently holds an impressive if slightly dubious record. Along with the late, legendary Peter O’Toole she has amassed the most Oscar nominations in history without having won. Eight is that number. She is one of only fourteen performers with at least eight noms. She started out hot out of the gate with a nomination for her feature film debut as Supporting Actress for The World According to Garp (1982). Jessica Lange, double nominated in both lead and supporting categories for Frances and Tootsie won over Glenn. She was the only member singled out from the ensemble of The Big Chill (1983) the very next year, losing Supporting Actress to Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously. She was nominated for the third year in a row for The Natural (1984), losing to Peggy Ashcroft in David Lean’s A Passage to India. Glenn earned her first nomination as Best Actress for her iconic psycho in Fatal Attraction (1987) but lost to Cher and Moonstruck. Nominated in back-to-back years again, this time as the lead in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and watched Jodie Foster win her first Oscar for The Accused.

Despite some good big screen work in the ‘90s and first decade of the 2000s (Reversal of Fortune, 101 Dalmatians, Cookie’s Fortune, The Safety of Objects) and winning Tony and Emmy awards, she did not get another Oscar nomination until Albert Nobbs (2011) where Meryl Streep won her third Oscar, Best Actress in The Iron Lady. As mentioned above she lost her seventh bid to Olivia Colman in The Favourite which was the surprise winner over her work in The Wife (2017). Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy was savaged by critics and the only other nomination it managed was for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. Close gives a fierce if mostly one-note performance under some of that makeup. I doubt many Glenn Close fans would consider this one of her best two or three film performances but at the age of seventy-four and never having won before, how many more chances will she get? Look, nobody thought The Color of Money was one of Newman’s best, Scent of a Woman is not in the same class of Pacino performance as The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, or Serpico, and to say The Departed is a better Scorsese film than Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or GoodFellas is just silly. And yet…sometimes that’s just the way the Oscar cookie crumbles. I would have given it to her a couple tries ago. Albert Nobbs is miles better than Streep’s Thatcher, in my book. If Glenn Close does win she joins Geraldine Page as the only performer with eight nominations and just one win. If she loses she stays with O’Toole as the only winless actor with that many nominations. I think the nickname Glenn Close-but-No-Oscar only has a few weeks left of usefulness. She’ll win. Finally.

If/when she does her 46-year-old Hillbilly Elegy co-star Amy Adams will become the living actor with the most nominations without a win (six, so far).
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I started watching Hillbilly Elegy but stopped it because it was too dull. Close will probably win it just because she hasn't won it before.

I can't wrap my head around how that girl from the Borat film got a nomination. Like really??

I'd say Seyfried could win it, but let's not ignore the Korean nominee. The Academy might continue its Korean film fetish from last year and hand her the award
For the record, Minari is an American film about a Korean family.



I am watching Minari now. But I think Close has this one in the bag!
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Would Close winning be one of the worst supporting actress wins ever? And I do like Close but this seemed like a pretty average performance



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Would Close winning be one of the worst supporting actress wins ever? And I do like Close but this seemed like a pretty average performance

Honestly she's my least favourite of the nominees and there are several performances I think should have made it in instead (Ellen Burstyn, Talia Ryder, Dominique Fishback)


Like I say, I actually don't think Close is a sure thing. She hasn't won any major precursor this time and there doesn't seem to be as much passion for her performance as there is for Youn and Bakalova. The fact she couldn't win SAG when Adams made it in there I think is telling too.


I think if Youn wins BAFTA then this is done. But even then should Bakalova take it I think it'll be either one of them and not Close.


The fact she was Razzie nominated for the same role might register on some people's minds too when casting their ballot.


All that being said I love Close and she is an icon who should have won before now, but to win for this would be... Something.



Honestly she's my least favourite of the nominees and there are several performances I think should have made it in instead (Ellen Burstyn, Talia Ryder, Dominique Fishback)


Like I say, I actually don't think Close is a sure thing. She hasn't won any major precursor this time and there doesn't seem to be as much passion for her performance as there is for Youn and Bakalova. The fact she couldn't win SAG when Adams made it in there I think is telling too.


I think if Youn wins BAFTA then this is done. But even then should Bakalova take it I think it'll be either one of them and not Close.


The fact she was Razzie nominated for the same role might register on some people's minds too when casting their ballot.


All that being said I love Close and she is an icon who should have won before now, but to win for this would be... Something.
Agreed that Ellen Burstyn should have been nominated for Pieces of a Woman, though I'm not sure who I would eliminate of the nominees to get her in there...perhaps Colman because she just won an Oscar a couple of years ago.



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Part of me thinks that if Close had Burstyn's role in Pieces of a Woman then she might be steamrolling her way to the Oscar. I honestly thought Burstyn was meant to be Kirby's grandmother at first and trying to believe she was Kirby's mother was distracting.





Yuh-Jung Youn joins Penélope Cruz as the only winners in this category for performances largely in a foreign language. The Korean actress also joins Japan's Miyoshi Umeki (1957's Sayonara) as the only Asian winners in this category. At seventy-three she is the third oldest Best Supporting Actress. Josephine Hull was seventy-four when she won for Harvey (1950) and Peggy Ashcroft was seventy-seven when she won for A Passage to India (1984).

Glenn Close lives to fight another day. She and Peter O'Toole have the cool if dubious distinction of being the most nominated actors to never have won, with eight a piece.



I am shocked that the GOAT, Miss Jodie Foster was NOT even nominated !

Is the first time in history that the golden globe winner wasn't even nominated for the Oscar ?



I just googled this question and here's the answer that came up:

'https://www.vulture.com/2021/02/golden-globe-nominated-movie-performances-that-oscar-ignored.html



I just googled this question and here's the answer that came up:

'https://www.vulture.com/2021/02/golden-globe-nominated-movie-performances-that-oscar-ignored.html
Interesting

Some great performances in their



I am shocked that the GOAT, Miss Jodie Foster, was NOT even nominated! Is the first time in history that the Golden Globe winner wasn't even nominated for the Oscar ?
Unusual but not unprecedented.

In this category going back to 1970, in those fifty-one awards seasons it has happened only three other times. Those women were Karen Black in The Great Gatsby (1974), Katherine Ross in Voyage of the Damned (1976), Kate Winslet for The Reader*, and now Jodie Foster for The Mauritanian (2020). I asterisked Winslet because you may remember she won the Oscar for The Reader but as Best Actress, in a bit of category discrepancy.



It is actually more common going the other direction, that a performance will win the Oscar without having gotten a corresponding Golden Globe nomination. In this category, again going back to 1970, it has now happened seven times: Eileen Heckart for Butterflies are Free (1972), Ingrid Bergman for Murder on the Orient Express, Beatrice Straight for Network (1976), Geena Davis for The Accidental Tourist (1988), Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny (1992), Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago (2002), and this year with Yuh-Jung Youn for Minari (2020). All Oscar winners ignored by the Globes.

For Best Supporting Actor going back to 1970 it has happened only twice that the Golden Globe winner did not get an Oscar nomination: Richard Benjamin for The Sunshine Boys (1975) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson for Nocturnal Animals (2016). However, going the other way it happened five times: Robert DeNiro for The Godfather Part II (1974), George Burns for The Sunshine Boys (1975), Don Ameche for Cocoon (1985), Kevin Kilne for A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and James Coburn for Affliction (1998) all won Oscars without Golden Globe nominations.


It is much more problematic with Best Actor and Actress since the Golden Globes have ten nominees instead of five each year as they award for both Dramatic performances and those in Musicals/Comedies (however they define that distinction from year to year). Just this year Rosamund Pike won the Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for I Care a Lot but did not get an Oscar nomination. That happens frequently. But to find a Best Actress Oscar winner who did not get a Golden Globe nomination you have to go back to 1961 and 1963 when Sophia Loren won for Two Women (1961) and Patricia Neal won for Hud (1963). The crazy thing about Patricia Neal's Globes snub is that was a year they played with expanding the number of nominees to eight. So out of sixteen performances up for Best Actress by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association none of them were Neal and she won the Oscar anyway.






And don't worry too much about the winless Glenn Close. The long-awaited film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tony-winning Broadway Musical adaptation of Billy Wilder's classic Sunset Boulevard looks like it is finally nearing production. Assuming they don't completely botch it Close is an almost guaranteed nominee as Best Actress for her singing Norma Desmond. Back in 1995 Glenn won the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Musical for her initial Broadway run as well as the Laurence Olivier Award for the 2017 London revival, so it would only be fitting for her to break her now historic Oscarless streak with a win for Sunset Boulevard.

We shall see how the movie turns out and what her competition is, but it is set up for a storybook ending. Which in my estimation would be a damn sight better than a win for Hillbilly freakin' Elegy.



I have to agree that it would be more fitting for her first Oscar to be for Sunset Boulevard and like I said before, if they had to pass over Close again this year, the award did go to the right nominee.