If it were up to me, Judd Hirsch would be a prime contender for the Supporting Actor Oscar. In Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Hirsch is an absolute standout, despite only having a 10-minute cameo.
Vanity Fair is predicting Hirsch might win the Oscar, it’s even in their headline, “Judd Hirsch Might Win an Oscar For This Scene”. Almost every pundit believes Ke Huy Quan has it in the bag. Not so fast. “The Fabelmans” is 150 minutes, and yet the moments you remember most is the monologue Hirsch delivers to Sammy.
In case you’re wondering, the Supporting Actor race is VERY WEAK this year and basically down to Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin), Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans), Brad Pitt (Babylon), Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), Eddie Redmayne (The Good Nurse) and, ugh, Ben Whishaw (Women Talking).
That’s seven contenders. There is also some buzz going on for Ben Foster’s performance in “Emancipation.”
Regardless of the limited screentime, I do believe the 87 year-old Hirsch is going to very much be part of the Oscar conversation. Hirsch plays an elderly uncle on Michelle Williams’ side of the family. He’s Uncle Boris, the man who storms in during a family funeral, bunks with young Sammy, and gives him the down-and-dirty truth about the suffering life of an artist. He warns his great nephew, there will be pain coming, but it’s a risk worth taking.
It’s not like Boris had any experience working at the movies either, his artistic life has mainly been taming lions in a traveling circuses, but he sees himself in young Sammy Fabelman. You can sense Spielberg was greatly affected by the short time he spent with his eccentric Yiddish-talking uncle, and it seems to be the defining moment where he realizes that he was made for the movies.
Is it bad in asserting that I only really know Hirsch, in film, from “Independence Day,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “Ordinary People”? The latter was coincidentally also Hirsch’s last Oscar nomination. In his over 50 years of acting, Hirsch has had 24 film credits. He’s primarily known for TV and theater.