The 94th Academy Awards, which will be held in Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, will be highlighting last year’s most moving works of film, as well as the actors and actresses who breathed life into them. This year’s Oscars category of Best Supporting Actor features a diverse mix of performers, from little-known actors to previous Oscar winners. Here are the nominees for this year’s Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Ciaran Hinds for Belfast
Irish actor Ciaran Hinds is in the running for Best Supporting Actor at the 94th Academy Awards. Hind is a veteran actor, although he is much more popular within Ireland and the UK than in Hollywood. This is the first nomination for Hinds at the Oscars, although his illustrious career has been previously acknowledged in other prominent awards events, like the Gold Derby Awards and the Tribeca Film Awards. In an interview with ABC7News he expressed his shock over his nomination as well as his experience working with Judi Dench, who is also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the same film. “She’s a phenomenal actress, the truth of her work, her instinct, and her ability to connect with people she’s talking to,” said Hinds. “There beside her is this extraordinary, brilliant young 10-year old scamp, who is a joy. And there’s me in the middle trying to keep my end up! I have to say, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any other place.”
Troy Kotsur for CODA
Another surprise nomination for this year’s Best Supporting Actor is Troy Kotsur, who snagged the nomination for his role in CODA. Kotsur makes history as the first deaf actor to be nominated for an Academy Award. Interestingly, his CODA costar, Marlee Matlin, was the first deaf woman to have received and even won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1986 for Children of a Lesser God. She was also the youngest female Oscar winner ever at 21 years old. In an interview with Deadline, Kotsur shared his elation over his nomination, saying: “I just felt so touched that so many deaf people all over the community are so excited and they’re all celebrating. It’s so important for the group of people in our ensemble who just happen to also be deaf,” he said. “It tends to just be one deaf role in a film, like many of Marlee’s roles in the past, and so I hope that Hollywood is beginning to be more open-minded and gives more diverse artists an opportunity to tell their stories. The awareness of ASL and deaf culture is such a positive.”
Jesse Plemons for The Power of the Dog
Jesse Plemons received a nomination for his supporting role in The Power of the Dog. The actor, who gained prominence in Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad, received his first Oscar nomination this year. His fiancee, Kirsten Dunst, who also stars in the same movie, also received a nomination for her role. It’s also her first Oscar recognition. In an interview with Variety, Dunst elaborated on how she reacted when she learned that both she and fiance Plemons received nominations. “So Eric Kranzler, my manager, calls me. I’m watching the feed on my phone because my kids are watching cartoons and Jesse is at work. He had to go to work super early today. [Eric] called me, and he said I was nominated, so I’m crying with my kids. They’re like, ‘Why the hell is mom crying?’ [Eric] calls me back, and meanwhile I’m in the throes, talking to my mom or whatever. He was like, ‘Jesse just …’ And I started screaming and I hung up the phone. Then Megan, one of my publicists, called me because she’s trying to tell me and I just screamed at her. Then I called Jesse, and I was the first person to tell him, and he was a little shell shocked. I mean, it’s just so crazy to be a couple and have our first nominations together. It’s like a storybook. You know what I mean? It’s so weird. It’s amazing.”
Kodi Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog
Last on this list of nominees is Kodi Smit-McPhee for his role in The Power of the Dog. It’s no surprise that the movie is yet again nominated in this category; The Power of the Dog is the most nominated film of the year at the Oscars, with a total of 12 nods. This is Smit-McPhee’s first Oscar nomination, but he had previously been recognized by BAFTA and the Golden Globes for the same category and the same movie. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he explained how he brought his character to life in the movie and how close his role is to his actual self: “I mean, there are some things that I can’t talk about because they’re so personal. But specifically in Australia, toxic masculinity is something that men are raised with. And for me, the way that I’m built, the way that I talk, the things I was interested in going through school… I stood out. I very quickly grew to be grateful for that. And there was no way that I wanted to change to fit in, because I knew that the things I was interested in were bringing me a greater depth and awareness of the world and my surroundings.”
J.K. Simmons for Being the Ricardos
For his role portraying real-life actor William Frawley in Being the Ricardos, J.K. Simmons receives his second Oscar nomination. If things go right for the actor, this might also become his second win in the same category, having won in 2015 for his role as a villainous jazz teacher in Whiplash. Simmons has been busy, most recently gracing the latest incarnation of Spider-Man. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, J.K. Simmons described his experiences working on the set of Being the Ricardos, who also sees nominations for its stars, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. He also talked about his understanding of his character, Frawley, who played a supporting role in Lucille Ball’s hit sitcom I Love Lucy. “Aaron [Sorkin] brilliantly peppers in all these little details in the script. Bill spent 40 years in vaudeville and on Broadway and doing little character parts in movies before I Love Lucy. So one of the aspects of his personality is that he was a bit of a curmudgeon. He didn’t suffer fools.”
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