Mad Max: Fury Road’ s Furiosa. West Side Story’ s Anita. My Cousin Vinny’ s Mona Lisa Vito. Chicago ’s Velma Kelly. Almost Famous ’ Penny Lane. Dreamgirls ’ Effie White.
Some of our most memorable film performances have been supporting ones. And yet, it took almost 10 years for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to introduce the awards in supporting acting categories for both men and women.
The first award for Best Actress in A Supporting Role was given out to Gale Sondergaard in 1937, during the ninth Academy Awards, for her role in 1936’s Anthony Adverse. Since then, 79 more women have climbed onstage to receive the prestigious prize — including some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
It’s a category that has often been groundbreaking. In 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black woman to win an Oscar in any acting category, for her supporting role as Mammy in Gone With The Wind. It would take 51 years for Whoopi Goldberg to repeat the experience. She took home the Oscar in 1991 for her role as Oda Mae Brown in Ghost. To this day, only seven black women have ever won — a track record that’s still better than that of the Best Actress category, which counts only one black woman (Halle Berry) among its recipients.
There’s a good chance that may change this year, with Regina King as the frontrunner in a Best Supporting Actress race that is as tight as ever.
Nominees Amy Adams ( Vice), King ( If Beale Street Could Talk), Marina de Tavera ( Roma), Emma Stone ( The Favourite), and Rachel Weisz ( The Favourite) all gave career best performances that will be remembered long after the final winner is decided on 24th February.
Click through for a breakdown of each nominees’ odds of bringing that coveted golden man home.
Amy Adams, Vice
Who she plays: Lynne Cheney
Is it a crime that Adams has been nominated six times without any wins? Definitely. Should she win for this particular role? Probably not.
Still, with nominations at the Golden Globes and the SAGs, Adams’ performance as former Second Lady of the United States Lynne Cheney is a tempting one to vote for. She plays a powerful, real-life figure with nuance and poise, and her chemistry with Christian Bale makes the power couple dynamic between these two controversial political figures believable, even a little sympathetic. For those reasons, I wouldn’t count her out of the running, even if her chances remain slim enough at this point.
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Who she plays: Sharon Rivers, a mother of two struggling to help her daughter Tish (KiKi Layne) free her beloved Fonny (Stephan James) from wrongful imprisonment.
There’s a scene in If Beale Street Could Talk in which King’s character travels down to Puerto Rico to confront her son-in-law’s accuser, and plead with her to withdraw what she believes are false accusations. But before she meets Victoria Rogers (Emily Rios), Sharon stands in her hotel room alone getting ready, silently debating whether or not to wear a wig. It’s a wordless moment that vibrates with intensity — and if King doesn’t take home the Oscar after that, well, I quit.
This marks her first Academy Award nominations, but with wins at the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, she’s leading this year’s race. Her one foreseeable roadblock is the fact that she was not nominated for a SAG Award. Only two actors have ever won the Oscar without one : Marcia Gay Harden for "Pollock" (2000) and Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained" (2012).
Regardless, her momentum this year has primed her for a win. Fingers and toes crossed!
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Who she plays: Abigail Masham, usurper of Queen Anne’s affections
Abigail’s rise from kitchen wench to cackling socialite is utterly transfixing to watch. This is a new kind of role for her — and one that unleashes the potential for weirdness that has always been lurking behind her mainstream exterior. And with one Academy Award under her belt (she won Best Actress for La La Land in 2017), she has the kind of established popularity that might seduce Academy voters.
If only her co-stars weren’t just as phenomenal. Stone, Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz have been nominated at the Golden Globes and the SAGs, and the latter two won at the BAFTAS. That makes Stone the dark horse in this Favourite race, even if she could arguably be considered the film’s lead.
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Who she plays: Lady Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
Though Weisz has been consistently producing great work for years, she hasn’t enjoyed this kind of awards consideration since 2006, when she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in The Constant Gardener. Her turn in The Favourite is stunning. She balances wit and charm with grit and terrifying willpower, a perfect foil for Olivia Colman’s tragic, lonely queen, and Stone’s scheming — if less stylishly adept — Abigail.
Still, Weisz has the same problem Stone does — with three acting nominations, two of them in the same category, the film’s performers run the risk of cancelling each other out. They’re all so good — who to choose? The answer to that, sadly, might be: anyone else.
Marina de Tavira, Roma
Marina de Tavira, Roma
Who she plays: Sofia, a middle class mother raising her c hildren with the help of a live-in nanny in 1970s Mexico.
Motherhood — or the pain felt in its absence — has been a running theme in some of this year’s greatest performances. De Tavira’s role was a particularly complicated one to play: it’s delicate and complex, an interplay of guilt, love, and jealousy. As Sofia, she’s constantly battling other women. Her children’s overt affection for their nanny, the person who cares for them the most, eats away at her, even as she’s deeply appreciative of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio). Meanwhile, her husband has left her for his mistress, causing her to question her life choices. She can be rude, brusque, and selfish — but it always feels rooted in a deep sense of injustice. She may be better off than Cleo, but she’s still a woman in a man’s world.
At 44, the Mexican-born actress has starred in many projects — including Netflix’s hit show Ingobernable — but Roma is her first foray into mainstream Hollywood awards. Despite her remarkable performance, it seems unlikely she’ll win this time around. Without a SAG nomination, it’s an uphill battle from the start, and in a category with such stiff competition, her prospects look grim.
And The Oscar Goes To...
Who Should Win: Regina King
Who Will Win: Regina King
Who I’m Rooting For: Regina King
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