What Makes an Oscar-Winning Performance?
By Joao Santos
Film fans and pollsters have for years debated and analyzed just what kind of performances are awarded Oscars. In the early-year run-up to the awards ceremonies, everything from campaigns to alternate award ceremonies (Golden Globes, BAFTAs etc.) are used to predict who will come out triumphant on the big night. However, in recent years, certain results have bucked the trend – CODA’s success and Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Ke Huy Quan being just two that come to mind – making such debate hotter than ever. In this article, I will analyze just what makes a modern-day Oscar winning performance, first looking at historic trends, then category-specific characteristics, then modern-day phenomena, before finally using my results to predict the crop for the 2024 Academy Awards.
To no surprise, dramas tend to win out over comedies, particularly biographical dramas. Since the Academy’s inception, a staggering 83 actors have won Oscars for playing characters based on real people, and this year there are multiple in contention – Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein and Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, to name just two. These performances also adhere to another winning trend, that of having their characters mentioned in the title: since 1929, over a third of Best Actor and Actress recipients have had their characters alluded to in their film’s titles. Biographical performances also tend to include aggressive physical transformations or demanding ordeals for a role, with this sense of sacrifice for art being loved by the academy and always mentioned in Oscar campaigns – Rami Malek watched Freddie Mercury’s Live Aid performance over 100 times to prepare for Bohemian Rhapsody, or vegan Leonardo Dicaprio ate raw bison and slept in animal carcasses to prepare for The Revenant. English-speaking actors and roles are also naturally favored: the USA has 205 acting winners, the UK comes in second with 47, and third is France with 4. Other historic trends include recognizing musicality - both in actors showing musical talent (Renee Zellweger for Judy, Emma Stone for La La Land) and musicians who make the leap into acting (Cher for Moonstruck, Lady Gaga for A Star is Born) – as well as rewarding breakout stars (Lupita Nyong’o for Twelve Years a Slave) or long-overdue veterans (Leonardo Dicaprio, again for The Revenant).
There are also some trends that are more category-specific. Roles as political leaders are often shoe-ins for Best Actor (Gary Oldman as Churchill in Darkest Hour, Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln), whilst villains are the go-to winners in the Supporting Actor category (Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, J.K Simmons in Whiplash). Meanwhile, Best Actress winners, given the men who vote for these categories, tend to only win while they are young: 34% of Best Actress recipients landed the prize while they were still under 30, whilst only one Best Actor winner has ever been under 30 – Adrien Brody, for The Pianist aged 29. Older actresses tend to win Supporting Actress, where the Academy seems to love mother characters, as 8/10 of the last decade’s winners have played mothers.
There have also been some emerging trends that have begun to change who exactly takes home the acting prizes. The concept of an “Actor Renaissance”, where actors who have been long gone from the limelight come back with a vengeance, has resonated with many voters, with Brendan Fraiser for The Whale and Ke Huy Quan for Everything, Everywhere, All At Once serving as examples from just last year. Similarly, following Parasite’s historic win as the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture in 2020, pollsters are now looking outside of the English language for winners, although this has not yet fully translated into acting awards. Finally, following the “Oscars So White” outcry in the media, which led to the Oscars having historically-low viewership and ratings, the Academy has begun to make amends in the direction of more diverse nominations, as actors of color have often been limited to the supporting categories – Halle Berry remains the only black woman to have ever won Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball in 2002.
With this in mind, here are the very-early predictions for the Acting winners of 2024 (I am not liable for any betting losses this may lead to, though I am happy to take a cut from any wins). Best Actor will go to Bradley Cooper for Maestro, as he is a long-overdue veteran playing the titular character in a biographical drama (the role also had both sacrifice – Cooper supposedly spent “6 years to conduct 6 minutes of music” – and physical transformation, courtesy of makeup artist Kazu Hiro who has also led both Gary Oldman and Charlize Theron to Oscar success). Best Actress will go to Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon: not only is the film another biographical drama, she is also both young (37) and would be the first Indigenous woman to win Best Actress. Best Supporting Actor will go to Robert Downey Junior in Oppenheimer, playing a villain and long overdue for a “Renaissance” win, whilst Best Supporting Actress will go to Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers, a relative newcomer in a mother role.
Again, all things are subject to change and what matters most are the campaigns, so happy guessing!
