With Being the Ricardos and West Side Story hitting theaters this week, Nicole Kidman and Rachel Zegler have emerged as the latest late-breaking stars to crash a newly crowded best-actress race. Ahead, Rebecca Ford and David Canfield dig deep into the field, split between actors representing strong best-picture contenders and standouts in films unlikely to go far otherwise. (And in case you missed it, check out their best-actor rundown.)
David Canfield: Rebecca, this category just got busy. Unlike the best-actor race, which felt competitive from the moment we touched down in Telluride, the field here looked a little thin early in the season. For a while there Spencer’s Kristen Stewart was leading a field of art-house favorites (and past Oscar winners), including The Lost Daughter’s Olivia Colman, The Tragedy of Macbeth’s Frances McDormand, and Parallel Mothers’ Penélope Cruz, as well as early-calendar-release biopic turns from Jennifer Hudson (Respect) and Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye). All are still in this race, certainly, and we can go into each contender’s individual standing as we go. But one thing we can say for sure is that compared to a few weeks ago, all feel a bit more vulnerable.
Several late-breaking possibilities have shaken things up. This week in particular marks the theatrical release of Being the Ricardos, a film that was trailed by a ton of negative buzz for months over the casting of Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball. After initial screenings, chatter around her and the film abruptly changed course, but now tepid reviews have settled in, putting us in something more of an ambiguous middle ground. Kidman was clearly not as miscast as people feared, but the film itself may be a bit too weak to support a strong campaign for her. What’s your read on her chances—both for a nomination and, dare I suggest, a second win?
Rebecca Ford: Being the Ricardos is one of the bigger question marks of the season. It’s a Hollywood story centered on two iconic stars, with two big movie stars playing them—all classic ingredients in an Oscar nomination cocktail. But I do think the film won’t be met with as strong a reception as it has been in these initial industry and guild screenings. Kidman, however, is a safe lock. She delivers a strong performance as Lucille Ball and delivers that Aaron Sorkin dialogue with such ease (along with some fabulous outfits). I don’t think she wins for this one, though. There’s still quite a bit of competition in films that are going to get a stronger reception.
Two of those front-runners are also playing real people: Stewart, who plays Princess Diana in Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, and Lady Gaga in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. Stewart, as you mentioned, was an early front-runner, and I think we both thought had at least a nomination if not a win locked up when the film premiered in the fall. The unconventional movie has been met with a pretty mixed reception so, while I do think she’s still in a strong spot, it’s definitely not as strong as it was a couple of months ago. Gaga has arrived on the scene only recently, since House of Gucci was also a late bloomer—and has been quite divisive. Is it a mess? It is a lovable mess? Is it a work of art? Regardless of the answer, it seems pretty clear that Gaga is the most likely to get a nomination out of the cast, right David?
Canfield: I believe the answer to your questions is…all of the above! Which works both for and against Gaga as an Oscar contender. My only hesitation with a full-on embrace of her—fantastic!—performance is I’m not sure how seriously Academy voters are going to take this movie. Her win last week at the New York Film Critics Circle felt major to me. While the film itself was not critically acclaimed, it did show that a significant group of people who didn’t love the film could come to a consensus around her performance. That indicates staying power, and I would bet on a nomination at this stage.
Stewart, Kidman, and Gaga—not to mention Chastain and Hudson—all have one factor in common: Love for their performances far outweighs love for their films. Oscar can certainly lean that way in this category, but winners often come from bigger overall players. (See the past two years of winners for a perfect illustration of the divide: Renée Zellweger in the otherwise neglected Judy, and McDormand in the best-picture victor Nomadland.) This leads me to someone who has emerged, I think, in that latter category: Rachel Zegler. If the young breakout were great in an otherwise middling West Side Story remake, she wouldn’t be in the conversation. But that she’s so good in a movie that’s so (surprisingly?) good means we’ve got a serious threat on our hands, right? If this movie is in the best-picture space, surely its leading lady is right there with it?
Ford: The deafening praise for West Side Story has been such a nice surprise after so much anticipation and concern for whether Spielberg and company could pull this off. And yes, I think Zegler has flown to the top ranks of likely nominees in this category. It's interesting, because actresses are more often nominated for their film debuts in the supporting category (think Lupita Nyong’o and Jennifer Hudson, who both won) than in the lead actress category. But it has happened, including for Yalitza Aparicio for Roma and Andra Day for The United States vs. Billie Holiday earlier this year. And I would say that so far, West Side Story has even more support than either of those two movies. It’s likely the movie could play very well with audiences as well when it is released, so I think it’s safe to say Zegler is going to find herself on that list.
I think we’re nearing the end of our “extremely likely to be nominated” group, though I want to bring up one more name that you mentioned in the very beginning: Olivia Colman. The star of The Lost Daughter and recent Emmy winner for The Crown wins like every award she’s nominated for, so we definitely can’t count her out. The film earned favorable reviews from the fall festivals, especially for the way Colman portrayed a very complicated character, but I think has lost a little steam recently. Still, it hasn’t been released yet (it hits Netflix December 31 after a two-week theatrical run), and I do think the way actors respect and admire Colman means she is always a strong possibility. Who else should we consider a serious threat to break into the five nominees, David?
Canfield: I agree about Colman, someone we should never bet against. The film’s dominance at the Gotham Awards—winning four awards each decided by separate juries—indicates there’s enough support around it. By the time The Lost Daughter is released on Netflix—before Oscar voting begins—we’ll have exhausted entire buzz cycles for the likes of Kidman, Gaga, and on. That only helps Colman.
It probably helps Penélope Cruz too. In a career best turn, she owns every frame of the late-December release Parallel Mothers, whose director, Pedro Almodóvar, is pretty good about getting his actors nominations. (Just ask Pain and Glory’s Antonio Banderas.) The same can be said for the film’s distributor, Sony Pictures Classics, which takes a kind of silent-assassin approach to campaigning: You never see them coming, but they know exactly what they’re doing. (To everyone who was surprised about The Father winding up as one of last season’s biggest players, those inside the company weren’t.) The crowding of the category is the main thing working against Cruz, and honestly, that may be enough of a hindrance, since the film is smaller, and she’s not, well, Olivia Colman. But I suspect she’s more in the thick of things than perceptions would indicate right now.
A few quick words about those skirting the edges here: Alana Haim makes a fantastic debut in Licorice Pizza, but I fear Zegler’s eleventh-hour introduction to the scene may steal some of that breakout-performance thunder. And while both Chastain and Hudson remain worthy candidates, their movies just don’t have much gas otherwise, so it’s going to take a lot of passion to keep them in the top five—which, given how competitive things are getting, seems like a bit of a long shot. Both are pounding the pavement, certainly.
We’ve talked about a lot already, Rebecca, but any passion picks you hope can find a place in the conversation?
Ford: I would say Haim is someone who I wish could break through because she’s stellar in Licorice Pizza, but I agree, it seems like a long shot. But I’ll pick Emilia Jones, who stars in CODA as the hearing daughter of deaf parents. It’s a commanding performance in a pretty special film that has had an uphill battle in maintaining any momentum since its premiere at Sundance last January, and its quiet release on Apple TV+ in August. Who would be your pick?
Canfield: I’ll go with Renate Reinsve, a revelation in Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. For a film firmly rooted in the everyday, what she pulls off in the most delicate of ways often feels magical. She’ll need some critics awards to get the visibility necessary for a run, though. If you’re one such voter, dear reader, take note!
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