For most of the fall season, the pundits, predictors, whatever you want to call them, were saying that Brendan Fraser was going to win Best Actor at the Oscars. I feel like the tide has slightly changed, don’t you?
Collin Farrell started winning all of these critics groups awards, while Fraser was barely getting any of them. He was the one with the most critical acclaim, not Fraser. And, for good reason. Farrell’s work in “The Banshees of Inisherin” was its own unique beast — co Stanton changing moods and tone until it hits you hard at the climax.
It didn’t help that, after all the overblown standing ovations Fraser received at various film festivals, a sort of redemptive acknowledgment of what he went through, “The Whale” was finally released. Critics were very mixed on it. Yes, Fraser got the best ink from these tepid reviews, but people started to wonder, maybe there was a tad of over exaggeration when it came to how good Fraser actually was in the film? The fat suit narrative didn’t help.
Then, the buzz for Austin Butler started to heat up again. It felt like Cannes all over again, where you couldn’t pass by a person who didn’t talk about the young actor. His momentum started to lessen as the fall movies kept trickling in, but now he’s kinda back. His Globes win surely helped, but it was more the fact that his was a performance that was so good that it’s kind of hard to forget about it, even nine months since the film’s release.
And so, we are left with three actors who will duke it out for the the biggest male acting prize in the works: Fraser, Farrell and Butler. My gut tells me that Austin Butler has got this one in the bag. Just a hunch. It’s definitely the showiest performance, at least, definitely more flashy than Fraser’s 600 pounder.
Farrell is the best of the three, but his work in ‘Banshees’ is so subtle and incredibly meticulous in its insistence to not be overtly stylized that some voters might look past his wonderful work. And, while we’re at it, the same can be said of fellow nominee Paul Mescal, whose nomination for “Aftersun” should already be seen as a major “win.”
Factoring in other sources, Sasha Stone and Clayton Davis have Fraser winning. Anne Thompson and Thelma Adams are in the Farrell camp. Scott Feinberg is the lone wolf banking on Butler.
Also, an Awards Daily poll of readers has amassed close to 3000 participants and Butler is currently in the lead.
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