Adam Chitwood
October 16, 2017
Well folks, it’s that time. I’ve been covering some preliminary buzz and shakeups in this current awards season for the past couple of months, but as we head into November, the race starts taking a much more solid shape and predictions come into play. All this week I’ll be laying out my preliminary predictions for some of the biggest categories, and I’m kicking things off with the Best Actor race—which, actually, of all the major races is maybe the least exciting of all.
Indeed, while previous years saw various actors jockeying for the top position, this one very much seems like it’s Gary Oldman’s to lose. The beloved performer turns in a wholly transformative performance in Joe Wright’s World War II drama Darkest Hour, in which he plays Winston Churchill. Oldman is indeed as good as everyone’s saying, and bolstered by an Anthony McCarten script that gives him multiple explosive speeches—which he subsequently hits out of the park—this is a film chock full of “Oscar clip”-worthy scenes.
But beyond Oldman, it’s really not that competitive of a Best Actor race—this year Best Supporting Actor is where the real fight is. Timothee Chalamet should absolutely be in contention for his star-making turn in Call Me By Your Name, which continues to rack up critical support after first bowing at Sundance earlier this year. It’s a major contender in multiple big categories, and while younger performers don’t usually score Best Actor nominations, if the Academy takes to Call Me By Your Name the way audiences at Sundance, TIFF, and the New York Film Festival did, he should make the cut.
There’s also Jake Gyllenhaal giving one of the best performances of his career in Stronger, although his footing is less solid given that the film seems to have unperformed at the box office and, disappointingly, is at risk of being forgotten come Oscar time. Andrew Garfield could be back in the mix for his impressive turn as a paraplegic in director Andy Serkis’ true-story drama Breathe. That film has some mediocre reviews, which may stand in Garfield’s way, but the guy’s incredibly likeable and does a swell job in the film. And, let’s face it: if he can get nominated for Hacksaw Ridge, a nod for Breathe is entirely possible.
BEST ACTOR PREDICTIONS: http://collider.com/oscars-best-actor-predictions-2018/
Fassbender is an Irish-German actor probably best known for X: Men First Class, in which he played a young Ian McKellan in the role of Magneto. He also had a memorable role in Zack Snyder’s 300. But it was his starring role as the lead of a prison hunger strike in Hunger that really got people’s attention. Quentin Tarantino snapped him up for Inglorious Basterds and during the same time he starred in the BAFTA award winning indie, Fish Tank. This one-two punch put him square in the sights of Hollywood studios. First came Warner Bros.’ Jonah Hex followed by the aforementioned X-Men prequel. He is currently in theaters playing Carl Jung to Viggo Mortensen’s Sigmund Freud in A Dangerous Method and a sex addict in the controversial yet critically acclaimed film Shame which also stars Carey Mulligan. Next up are starring roles in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, a loose prequel to Scott’s Alien quadrilogy and Twelve Years a Slave opposite Brad Pitt which will be his third collaboration with Hunger and Shame director, Steve McQueen.
Hardy became known to worldwide audiences with his scene stealing turn in Christopher Nolan’s Inception but he has been working his craft for a long time in theatre, television and film roles. His first major role was in HBO’s Band of Brothers. Film roles in such features as Black Hawk Down & Star Trek: Nemesis soon followed. But his true breakout came with director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson in which he played the title character, Britain’s most violent prisoner in real life, who goes by the name of Charles Bronson. Hardy was most recently seen playing a mixed martial arts boxer in the critically acclaimed Warrior and will be seen this month amongst an all-star cast in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which has a huge amount of Oscar buzz surrounding it. His dance card is full as he has starring roles in This Means War (opposite Reese Witherspoon & Chris Pine), and Wettest County (opposite Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce & Gary Oldman) on deck, along with a villainous turn as ‘Bane’ in the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.
Cavill is the first British actor to play Superman. He will be seen playing the king of super heroes in Man of Steel, which he is currently filming for director Zach Snyder. He was set play the role in the last Superman film before a change in directors (Bryan Singer replaced McG) led to him being replaced by Brandon Routh. That wasn’t Cavill’s only near-miss for an iconic role. He was razor close to being James Bond before Daniel Craig ultimately landed the role. And he lost two major roles to Robert Pattinson: ‘Cedric Diggory’ in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and ‘Edward Cullen’ in the Twilight series. But his luck changed after landing the role of ‘Charles Brandon’ in the Showtime series, The Tudors which garnered him much praise and attention. He soon landed a supporting role in a Woody Allen film (Whatever Works) and a lead in the big budget Immortals, opposite Mickey Rourke, which is currently in theaters. He will next be seen taking on Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver in Cold Light of Day.
Hemsworth first became known in his native Australia playing ‘Kim Hyde’ on 171 episodes of Home and Away, the popular Aussie soap opera that gave Heath Ledger his start. He landed in Hollywood with a splash, quickly booking the role of ‘George Kirk’ in J.J. Abrams’ hugely successful Star Trek and becoming a hot commodity in Hollywood. In the space of a week he scored the lead in the remake of Red Dawn and the title role in Thor, the film that made him internationally known. Red Dawn has been completed but has yet to be released. Next up he will reprise ‘Thor’ in The Avengers, star opposite Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman and jump into the driver’s seat for Ron Howard’s Rush, playing real life race car driver James Hunt opposite Russell Crowe who plays doomed racer Niki Lauda. Thor 2 is also in the works.
Whishaw is a classically trained actor who graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 2004. His initial breakthrough came with his critically acclaimed turn as ‘Hamlet’ at London’s Old Vic theatre. Film roles quickly followed. He played a supporting role in Mathew Vaughn’s Layer Cake and portrayed Keith Richards in Stoned, a biopic of Brian Jones, before securing the lead in celebrated German director Tom Twyker’s 2006 film Perfume: The Story of a Murder, which also starred Dustin Hoffman. Wishaw gained a lot of attention from the film despite it being a box office misfire. He followed that by playing another rock icon, Bob Dylan, in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There. But that wasn’t the last icon he’d portray. The next year he played literary icon John Keats in Bright Star. He’s wasn’t through with Shakespeare either. In 2010 he played ‘Ariel’ in Julie Taymor’s film of the Bard’s The Tempest. Wishaw is now taking on lead roles in two big budget studio films. He will assume another iconic role in the form of Q, James Bond’s number one gadget man, in the next 007 film, Skyfall, and star opposite Tom Hanks in Warner Bros’ Cloud Atlas which has him reuniting with his Perfume director, Twyker.
Garfield graduated from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama in 2004 and soon gained acclaim for his theatre work on the West End, winning Outstanding Newcomer at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards and Most Promising Newcomer at the 2007 London Theatre Critics’ Circle Awards. Those kudos got the attention of Robert Redford who cast him in Lions for Lambs in which Garfield shared the screen with Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and Redford, who also directed the film. This casting, in turn, landed him on Variety’s 2007 list of Actors to Watch. He soon won roles in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (starring with Keira Knightley & Carey Mulligan) before landing the key role of Eduardo Saverin, the real life co-founder of Facebook, in David Fincher’s Best Picture nominee The Social Network. From there it wasn’t long before he was anointed as the new ‘Spider-Man.’ He will portray the web-slinger in The Amazing Spider Man which is set to be released in the summer of 2012.
Hedlund moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career immediately after finishing high school in Arizona. Within a month he landed the role of Achilles’ cousin Patroclus in Warner Bros’ Troy opposite Brad Pitt. That same year he landed a lead in Universal’s successful high school football drama, Friday Night Lights. He then starred with Mark Wahlberg in Four Brothers before moving into the big budget fantasy realm with Eragon which grossed $245 Million worldwide. He took a turn out of that world with two all-American roles. First in Georgia Rule with Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan, then in Country Strong with Gwynth Paltrow, for which he learned to sing and play guitar in order to play an up-and-coming country singer. But it wasn’t long before he was back in the mega-budget sci-fi world with Tron: Legacy in which he stars opposite Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. Next up he will lead an all-star cast that includes Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams and Kirsten Dunst in Walter Salles’ On The Road based on the iconic novel by Jack Kerouac, and then return to sci-fi for another extravaganza with Warner Bros’ Akira which is set to be released in 2013.
Johnson is an English actor who first caught people’s attention playing a young Edward Norton in The Illusionist. He elicited even more recognition with his portrayal of a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, a role that earned him a nomination for a British Independent Film Award. But the flood gates really opened with Kick-Ass in which he plays the title character, an unnoticed high school student who decides to be a super hero despite having no super powers to speak of. His latest, Glenn Close’s Albert Nobbs, will be released in January. Next up he’ll be starring in director Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina opposite Keira Knightly followed by Oliver Stone’s Savages in which he leads a cast that includes John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Salma Hayek & Benicio Del Toro.
Pettyfer first gained attention when, at 16, he landed the coveted title role in Alex Ryder: Operation Stormbreaker which had him essentially playing a teen James Bond. But the film didn’t fare well at the box office and what was meant to be a franchise, ended with the first installment. The British actor continued to work but didn’t land another significant starring role until he won the lead in I Am Number Four a sci-fi action thriller that made over $100 Million worldwide. He followed that with the less successful, though still profitable, Beastly, a modern retelling of Beauty & the Beast which had him and Vanessa Hudgens playing the title roles, and then a turn supporting Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in In Time which is currently in theaters. Pettyfer is currently working with one of Hollywood’s biggest directors, Steven Soderbergh, in Magic Mike which has him starring opposite Channing Tatum & Matthew McConaughey.
Like Garret Hedlund (the only other American on this list), Hammer, couldn’t wait to finish high school so he could begin his acting career. He dropped out in eleventh grade and began landing co-starring and guest starring roles on television. Within a couple of years he had recurring roles on two television series, Gossip Girl and Reaper. His breakout role came with The Social Network, David Fincher’s best picture Oscar winner, in which he made a star making turn playing the dual roles of Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss, the twin antagonists of the film. He then had everyone’s attention and wasted no time finding another prestige project to be a part of. He signed on to star opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar which is in theaters now. We will see him next playing the title role in The Lone Ranger opposite Johnny Depp’s ‘Tonto.’