Was there any beating Benicio del Toro for Best Supporting Actor?
Realistically, probably not. From the moment people started seeing Traffic, the name was on the trophy, with critics like Kenneth Turan immediately singling him out as the film's best performance. Come awards time, he collected a haul of hosannas from the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, LA Film Critics, National Society of Film Critics, and the Screen Actors Guild. His SAG win was particularly miraculous, considering they bumped him up to the Lead Actor category, suggesting that the industry was eager to award that performance no matter where it was placed (it's also indicative of the lack of a real frontrunner in Lead Actor throughout the season).
As tends to be the case with Best Supporting Actor, the Oscar Five was a done deal for a while. The BAFTAs nominated Billy Elliot's Gary Lewis and Gladiator's Oliver Reed, but those were very British decisions: Lewis's performance wasn't a standout here the way young discovery Jamie Bell or previous Oscar nominee Julie Walters were, while, as Inside Oscar 2 describes it, the idea of anyone else nominating Reed, who died during that film's production and whose performance was "completed" with the use of CGI, was too morbid to consider. Some critics' groups, including NYFCC and NSFC, made mention of Fred Willard's hilarious turn in Best in Show, but always as an also-ran, not the winner. And The Contender's villain Gary Oldman filled the SAG slot left vacant by Del Toro's promotion, but his public feud with the film's director Rod Lurie and distributor DreamWorks, plus his reported insistence that he campaign as Lead, left a sour taste in many Academy members' mouths, even if the performance is that film's best.
So no, there was no disrupting the quintet of Del Toro, Oldman's co-star Jeff Bridges, surprise possible upset Willem Dafoe of Shadow of the Vampire, early favorite Albert Finney of Erin Brockovich, and the acclaimed Joaquin Phoenix of Gladiator. And there was no disrupting Del Toro's march to Oscar victory:
Here's how I'd rank them, had I a ballot:
5. Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck
Shadow of the Vampire
second of four nominations; LAFCA Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor, NYFCC Awards runner-up for Best Supporting Actor, SAG Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Creepy, creaky, comical, the only thing in this movie that really works, because he embraces the weird. Dafoe doesn't get lost under all the makeup, he's genuinely terrifying at times, and there's a commitment to the performance that makes it shine just a little more than, say, a particularly viral SNL skit. Just a little, though.
4. Jeff Bridges as President Jackson Evans
The Contender
fourth of seven nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor, SAG Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Bridges is the cool, laidback, but quietly cunning President you wish was on your side, a fantasy, someone who projects intelligence if not quite decency. He makes a barely-there character shine, lending this POTUS his natural charisma. Feels less like a nomination for the performance than one for the fantasy.
3. Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus
Gladiator
first of four nominations; National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actor of 2000; BAFTA Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globes nominee for Best Supporting Actor, SAG Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor and Best Ensemble
Excels at the kind of sneering villainy that made Jay Robinson so fun in The Robe, convincingly delivers the daddy-issues complexity pathos that made Christopher Plummer such a standout in The Fall of the Roman Empire. Phoenix is so committed that he never seems too much, even when snot and spit drip from his weeping bitch face. Fine work.
2. Benicio del Toro as Javier Rodriguez
Traffic
first of two nominations [21 grams]; BAFTA Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globes winner for Best Supporting Actor, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor, SAG Awards winner for Best Actor and Best Ensemble; LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Supporting Actor, NYFCC Awards runner-up for Best Actor
The closest thing to a moral center the film has, Del Toro's Mexican cop upholds the law and tries to stay honest while also figuring out just which side he's helping in the cartel wars. If you like the film, you love this performance, not just because he's the most interesting character, but because Del Toro fully embodies this man, his strength, his doubts, and his tightrope walk through the grey, in his posture (malleable to all sorts of situations, now lithe, now seductive, now coiled and ready for action), in his silences (communicating the end of a friendship and a prophecy of doom in just a look), in his dialogue (delivered in both English and Spanish; his scenes with his partner's girlfriend are poignant, he speaks in an entirely different register with her than with anyone else).
1. Albert Finney as Edward L. Masry
Erin Brockovich
fifth and final nomination; SAG Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor; BAFTA Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Unfussy, the comfort of a veteran performer who can telegraph a character's whole history in a single shot. He's a yeller, a fighter, simultaneously exasperated by Erin Brockovich and admiring of her - only he, as a professional debater and listener, can match her freak. Finney takes us from a hard-working but jaded man to someone whose passion is reawakened: he's a yeller, a fighter, and once he sees what he can play, he loves taking on the big guys. This is a man who learned to take the victories where he could, and teaches Erin something about guarding your own heart in this business, but she teaches him to see the people and the possibility. I love watching him with Roberts, they are magic together.
The ceremony really got going at this point, with eight competitive awards - Sound (Gladiator over Cast Away, The Patriot, The Perfect Storm, U-571), Sound Editing (U-571 over Space Cowboys), Cinematography (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon over Gladiator, Malèna, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Patriot), Makeup (Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas over The Cell, Shadow of the Vampire), Documentary Feature (Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport), Documentary Short ("Big Mama"), and Visual Effects (Gladiator over Hollow Man, The Perfect Storm) - an Honorary Oscar presentation to cinematographer and sometime-director Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus, Sons and Lovers), and a recap of the previous week's Scientific and Technical Awards, presented by Renee Zellweger.
Next: Best Original Score, nominees being Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Gladiator, Malèna, and The Patriot. We'll listen and discuss tomorrow...
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