Oscars 2013 Predictions and Preferences: Best Actor and Best Actress

It’s Oscars predictions week, and today, I’m going to talk about the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees. This year, the lead acting categories are the inverse of the supporting acting categories. One winner is a lock, and the other is completely up in the air.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Note: This category has two first-time nominees, a second-time nominee, a previous winner of Supporting and Lead Actor, and a two-time winner of Best Actor. Nice mix.

Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis. This isn’t even close. Not that the other guys aren’t very talented, but Day-Lewis is in a different category entirely. He obviously did an incredible amount of research into this role, and yet his performance seemed effortless. He became Lincoln. My dad is a Civil War buff, and he came home from seeing the film in a daze, saying, “I feel like I just met Lincoln.” Were he not a contender this year, I would vote for Denzel Washington.

Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis.

Confidence Level In Making This Prediction: 99% – again, only because I never predict 100% for anything.

Possible Upset: Please.

For Your Consideration: Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained; John Hawkes, The Sessions; Logan Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi; Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Note: This category has three previous nominees and no previous winners. The two first-time nominees are, coincidentally, the youngest AND oldest nominees to appear in this category. The ages of the Best Actress nominees range from 9 to 85, and the records were broken by a black girl and a woman in a non-English-speaking performance. How cool is that?

This has also been the hardest race to predict all year. Prognosticators couldn’t even decide on which five would be nominated. Chastain and Lawrence were the only certainties. People didn’t know whether to pick Wallis, Watts, Riva, Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren. They thought the Academy would never nominate a nine-year-old for a lead performance, but everyone thought Hitchcock was bad. They thought the Academy would nominate one French-speaking performance, but which one?! Viewers hoped that Watts would be overlooked so they wouldn’t have to watch a tsunami movie about white people (or maybe that was just me and my friend). Eventually, though, the Academy made up their minds and chose the above five.

I’ve also seen comments about how Wallis doesn’t deserve a nomination because how much can a six-year-old really “act,” and how much of it was directing and editing, and no, you are wrong, and also, shut up. ALL successful (and unsuccessful) film performances are a combination of acting, collaboration with the director, and editing. The exception to the rule is someone like Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, where I’m pretty sure Spielberg’s contribution to the performance was to say to DDL, “Imma let you do your thing and just film it, okay?” But he’s the exception. Leave Quvenzhane alone!

Should Win: My favorite performance this year came from Quvenzhane Wallis. She didn’t make me think, “Oh, she’s good – for a kid.” She knocked my socks off. Fierce, moving, scary, she brings Hushpuppy to life in a way that wowed me. However, I don’t want her to win, because she’s nine, and I’m always afraid of children stars having their lives ruined by the time they’re teenagers. Hollywood is mean and she should go to school! Therefore, I’ll pick Emmanuelle Riva as the “should win,” as she was excellent and a close second favorite.

Will Win: Emmanuelle Riva. I learned my lesson about discounting the BAFTA winner. In recent history, Viola Davis and Julie Christie have won Golden Globes and SAGs, but their competition – Meryl Streep and Marion Cotillard – won the BAFTA and then won the Oscar. I think the same will happen this year. On the other hand…

Confidence Level in Making This Prediction: Barely 50%. Jennifer Lawrence does have the SAG Award and one Golden Globe. Jessica Chastain has the other Golden Globe and the Critic’s Choice Award.

Possible Upset: Emmanuelle Riva IS the upset, because right now, Jennifer Lawrence is still widely considered the frontrunner with Riva slowly gaining on her. In this case, the upset is my prediction. However, I am not discounting Lawrence at all, because Silver Linings Playbook is popular with the Academy, and Harvey Weinstein KNOWS PEOPLE.

For Your Consideration: N/A. I haven’t seen the other actresses that once had a shot at this award (Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone, Helen Mirren in Hitchcock, Rachel Weisz in The Deep Blue Sea.) I am interested in seeing Weisz’s movie, though.