1. Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club2. Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave3. Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips4. Bradley Cooper - American Hustle5. Will Forte - Nebraska(Alt: Daniel Bruhl - Rush) Best Supporting Actor is typically one of the most difficult categories to predict. Contemporary movies are such that juicy supporting word are in The Wolf of Wall Street, which obviously makes predicting the category fairly difficult. With that being said, this year's race feels slightly less competitive than some years. While the last few slots do seem open to a number of different possibilities, this feels more due to a lack of definite passion behind the contenders rather than an excess of love for over five candidates. The top three entries in the race should be anxiety free, because they're almost assured of nominations at this point. First among the locks is Jared Leto's performance in Dallas Buyers Club, which looks to have wrapped up the Oscar already. After that Michael Fassbender's mesmerizing performance as a psychotic slave owner in 12 Years a Slave will almost certainly make it in. I also feel significantly confident about the prospects of first-time actor Barkhad Abdi. While it's true his name recognition is nowhere near that of his Hollywood peers, his performance as a Somali pirate is so crucial to the movie, and fits the type role the Academy likes to award in this category, I can't see him missing out. This leads the final two slots open with what I see as a field of seven possible contenders. On the very fringe of this group of seven sits Tom Hanks in Saving Mr. Banks and Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both were tapped before their films premiered as possible contenders in this category, but since their films were unveiled, have fallen by the wayside as Saving Mr. Banks has lost steam and the movie and DiCaprio's performance has dominated all the Wolf talk. Also on the edge (and probably wishful thinking on my part) is James Franco's performance in Spring Breakers. The film and Franco's performance has been a favorite of critics, but both almost definitely skew too oblique and edgy for the likes of the typically middle-brow Actors branch of the Academy. This leads us with Daniel Bruhl in Rush, Bradley Cooper in American Hustle, Will Forte in Nebraska, and James Gandolfini in Enough Said. Given Gandolfini's untimely passing, there's definitely sentimental reasons to believe the Academy would want to nominate him, but Enough Said may not have been widely seen by enough Academy members to give Gandolfini a posthumous nomination. Bradley Cooper is considered the bubble candidate by many Oscar pundits, but out of these four, I am actually most confident of Cooper's chances. Cooper gets some of the best parts of American Hustle and given David O. Russell's track record of procuring his actors nominations, and I will actually be slightly surprised if Cooper doesn't get in. That leaves us with Daniel Bruhl and Will Forte for the last spot. The smart money, and even most of the dumb money, is on Bruhl. Bruhl has managed nominations in almost every single precursor, while Forte has only managed mentions here and there. However, most of the voting for these precursor awards happened about a month before the Academy's ballots were due. Rush, which was released in September, had a lot more momentum going earlier, while Nebraska, which released wide in December, has only been gaining momentum in the last few weeks. I also think that the disposition of the respective awards bodies is such that Rush would likely appeal more to the populous guilds and membership committees (which it has), while Nebraska would likely appeal more to exclusive awards bodies, such as the Academy. I'm most likely just rationalizing the unlikely, and I will probably end up regretting this, but I'm going with my gut on this one and picking Forte to ride some Nebraska love to a nomination.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
