To lead, or not to lead?
That is the question on Wednesday at least, as a couple of Oscar-contending films have been looking at the acting races and trying to decide exactly where they should exert their Oscar campaign push.
Sean Penn is, to all appearances, a co-lead in Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” with Naomi Watts, for whom Summit Entertainment has launched a Best Actress campaign. But since Watts’ Valerie Plame is slightly more the focus of the film than Penn’s Joe Wilson, will the actor stand a better chance in the Supporting Actor category?
According to Scott Feinberg, Summit thinks so, and has decided to campaign for Penn in supporting, not lead. (“Category fraud,” sniffed Kris Tapley, who thinks there’s more room for movement in the Best Actor field anyway.)
Meanwhile, Brad Brevet got on the phone with Sony Classics’ co-president Michael Barker to talk about the tricky case of Lesley Manville in “Another Year,” whose performance reportedly feels like a lead but could conceivably be campaigned as a supporting role.
Barker says the studio is pushing her for Best Actress rather than Best Supporting Actress, but he makes it clear that, as Brevet says, “the door is far from closed.”
Brevet asked for opinions from the Oscar blogging community, drawing responses that ranged from “she remains a strong Best Actress contender, right where she belongs” (Pete Hammond) to “What matters is what you can get away with in order to win an Oscar that will propel the film’s box-office and ancillary sales … and Sony Classics can EASILY get away with calling Manville a Best Supporting Actress in that film” (Jeff Wells).
Amidst all of this fuss, it’s probably worth pointing out that a studio can’t pick which category a performance goes in. That’s up to the voters, who are specifically instructed not to pay attention to “for your consideration” ads, and to vote for actors in whichever category they think is right.
And if they’re confused about where a performance belongs, they can even vote for it in both categories to increase the actor’s chances.
Years ago, Susan Sarandon's Oscar campaign for "Atlantic City" pushed her in the Supporting Actress category; when the nominations came out, Oscar voters had rejected that suggestion and given her a Best Actress nomination.
And more recently, Kate Winslet's Best Actress win for "The Reader" came on the heels of the Weinstein Company's aggressive Supporting Actress campaign, undertaken partly because the company didn't want Winslet going up against her leading performance in "Revolutionary Road," for which she wasn't nominated.
When it comes to Manville, I'd say that whether she ends up in lead or in supporting, the British actress has a very good chance of being nominated. And regardless of the category, I’d say that Penn is a longshot.
