Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Alan Arkin, Argo
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Certainties: This field is full of them. Arkin, Jones, and Hoffman are all serious Oscar contenders, along with DiCaprio, whose role as a sadistic plantation owner in Django Unchained is only gaining momentum.
Surprises: Christoph Waltz – not because his work in Django isn’t worthy, but because he has been campaigned as a lead actor for the film. Clearly, the Globes voters thought otherwise, but liked him enough to place him in the supporting class.
Snubs: Robert De Niro. Ouch. His performance as Bradley Cooper’s obsessive-compulsive father in Silver Linings Playbook was heralded as one of his best performances in years, but wasn’t enough to impress the HFPA. Javier Bardem got a SAG nomination for his James Bond villain in Skyfall, but nothing here. The Les Mis fellows were also overlooked: Russell Crowe as cruel inspector Javert, and Eddie Redmayne as Marius, the lovelorn student revolutionary. Redmayne’s mournful performance of the song “Empty Chairs At Empty Tables” seemed like a winner – or at least a nomination-getter – but at least with De Niro, Crowe, and Bardem he finds himself in good company. Finally — where is Samuel L. Jackson for Django Unchained? His house slave Stephen, a craven collaborator with DiCaprio’s plantation owner, is a supremely evil, selfish villain. He may be too twisted for voters, but a bad guy who’s that bad deserves some gold.
NEXT PAGE — Winners, losers, shocks: Best Director
