Who will win Best Supporting Actor?
Although Sean Penn is current favourite, there's still all to play for in this category.
Getty/Samir Hussein/WireImage
- Patrick Cremona
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Of the four acting categories at this year's Oscars, supporting actor is the only one made up entirely of nominees whose performances come in films included in the best picture line-up. The closely matched selection comprises two stars from Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another and one each from Sinners, Sentimental Value and Frankenstein – with the frontrunner in the race having switched multiple times over this long awards season.
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At time of writing, two-time best actor winner Sean Penn has emerged as the favourite for his turn as heinous villain Colonel Lockjaw in One Battle After Another. Back-to-back victories at two of the most important precursor ceremonies – the BAFTA Film Awards and the Actor Awards – alongside the generally strong performance of the film across the board, suggest he'll be a tough man to beat, and it's easy to make a case that he'd be a deserving winner.
In Lockjaw, Penn expertly embodies one of the most odious antagonists put to the screen in years, delivering a twitchy, deeply disturbing physical performance that viscerally captures the character's creepy, pathetic nature as well as both his insatiable lust and deep-rooted insecurity. He's a character who would certainly fit in with a handful of previous winners – joining other chilling villains like Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men) and Heath Ledger's Joker (The Dark Knight) as memorable victors in this category.
Sean Penn as Colonel Lockjaw in One Battle After Another WB
For a long while, it looked like Penn's biggest competition may come from his One Battle cast mate Benicio del Toro, who plays an altogether more sympathetic character in karate teacher turned radical community leader Sensei Sergio St Carlos. Del Toro enjoyed strong results across various critics circle awards, but has failed to muster a major win at any of the more telling precursor shows – and it now looks a long shot that he'll win the same prize he won 25 years ago for Steven Soderbergh's Traffic.
Instead, if anyone is to unseat Penn as the favourite at this stage, it looks like being Stellan Skarsgård for his turn as film director Gustav Borg in Sentimental Value. Of all the nominees, he – along with Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein – is the most likely to be found guilty of category fraud, with his role very much registering as a leading one to most viewers. But such a charge didn't stop Kieran Culkin from taking this prize last year, and Skarsgård – who already has the Golden Globe to his name – would be a popular choice: a veteran actor who's worked across both auteur and blockbuster cinema for decades finally getting his due for one of his most rich and layered performances.
Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning as Gustav and Rachel in Sentimental Value. MUBI/Nordisk Fil/Memento Distribution
As for Elordi, a win at the Critics Choice awards back in early January seemed to put him very much in the running, but he's failed to build on that momentum. And though his impressively understated and unexpectedly tender performance as The Creature – a character played by more actors than just about any in cinema history – has been widely heralded, it seems he's not really in the race for now. The way his career is going, it seems likely his time will come in the not-too-distant future.
Which leaves us with Delroy Lindo. The veteran London-born actor had been considered something of a surprise nomination, not because his terrific, tragic turn as Delta Slim in Sinners was in any way undeserving, but because he'd been left off many of the other nominations lists. But Lindo is another consistently strong performer who seems overdue an Oscar, and though he still seems an outside bet at this stage, few would deny that his charismatic, soulful portrayal of the ageing harmonic player would be a brilliant choice of winner.
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And if this awards season has taught us anything, it's rule out Sinners at your peril: there's a lot of passionate support behind the film, and that could very well help sweep Lindo to victory.
Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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