Watch scenes from the Best Supporting Actor nominee performances at the 96th annual Academy Awards, as well as interviews with the Oscar nominees below. The 2024 Oscars were presented on Sunday, March 10, and you can check out the list of winners here.
Sterling K. Brown, known for the long-running series “This Is Us,” earned his first Oscar nomination for “American Fiction,” as Cliff, a newly emerged plastic surgeon with confusing problems. Relationships with Brother Monk (played by Jeffrey Wright) and Sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross).
Based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, writer-director Cord Jefferson’s satire delves into the struggles Monk faces both professionally and with his family. Cliff tests this bond the brothers share, with their tense communications drowned out by the same old thing. Making fun of a brother or sister.
In this scene, Cliff asks Monk’s girlfriend, Coraline (Erika Alexander), about her brother:
Brown, who has won three Emmy Awards (for “American Crime Story,” “This Is Us” and “Lincoln: Divided We Stand”) and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, told The Hollywood Reporter that the script for “American Fiction” was one of the most productive he’s ever read. It was also a welcome revival of speed after six years of “This Is Us. “”It was really important to me to find roles that didn’t feel like Randall Pearson,” he said. It’s also someone to take care of rather than the user who takes care of everything. It’s great to be the person to deal with. “
Discussing the character of Cliff, Brown described to Deadline the attitudes he faced when, while studying business at Stanford, he decided to become an actor, a decision that most of his family members didn’t understand. “It’s not a very productive comparison, but it’s the most productive thing I have with my personal experience of saying that Cliff is gay, and not even a decision that he was able to express because I think he knew he wouldn’t because he probably had enough indicators around him. “I think we all, to some extent, have this feeling of being outdoors, that everyone understands what it’s like to be part of the club, and then you feel like you’re outside the club. I think I had that feeling when I chose to be an actor. I think Cliff has it for being gay and finding a way to find his tribe, settle for it, and get comfortable with yourself.
“So it doesn’t matter if other people agree with your resolution or with your lifestyle, because your convenience allows you to be what you want to be and move through the world independently,” he said.
“American Fiction” is available on VOD.
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Robert De Niro has collaborated with director Martin Scorsese on 10 films that explore the tolls of physical and emotional abuse, from “Mean Streets” — his groundbreaking film — to “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the true story of an Osage killing spree. Early 20th century Indians who owned valuable oil rights to their land in Oklahoma.
De Niro plays William Hale, a rancher and businessman known as the “King of the Osage Hills,” a friend of the Native Americans, a benevolent member of the network who helps the Osage, and even speaks their language. But when oil is found on Osage’s property, Hale plans a series of murders that will allow white men who marry Osage women to inherit his fortune.
In this scene, Hale criticizes his nephew, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), for a botched homicide that was intended to look like a suicide:
In this scene, Hale is rarely very reassuring as he tries to convince his nephew Ernest that he is safe from the law, or that Hale is simply looking out for Ernest’s most productive interest by asking him to relinquish his rights to a potential fortune. 「I mean, would you accept it as true with this guy?」
At a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival last year, De Niro admitted he didn’t perceive the duality of his character: “I don’t perceive much of him,” he said. “They gave him to be charming, they gave him to convince people. . . Why does he betray them in this way?
“I think a component of that in him, I guess, is sincere. That’s just the other component by which he betrays them, a sense of entitlement, I guess you can say simply. We have become much more aware of systemic racism after George Floyd. And that’s it. . . This is the banality of evil.
Notably, this is the first time DiCaprio, who starred with De Niro in 1993’s “This Boy’s Life,” has worked with De Niro and Scorsese on the same feature film, even though they gave the impression that they were combined in a short film, “The Audition” in 2015.
“They’re amazing together,” DiCaprio told “Sunday Morning. ” Their shorthand, the way they communicate, is almost through sign language. It’s nodding and saying, “I know, I know. ” I mean, it’s amazing to watch!”[Scorsese joked that, unlike the shorthand he has with De Niro, what he has with DiCaprio is “useful. “]
This film marks De Niro’s eighth Oscar nomination as an actor; he won twice, for “The Godfather II” and “Raging Bull. “
“Killers of the Flower Moon” streams on Apple TV and is available on VOD.
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In “Oppenheimer,” Robert Downey Jr. embarks on an act of harassment and conversion of his portrayal of Lewis Strauss, a member of the board of trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who visits J. Robert Oppenheimer after the good fortune of the prominent physicist at Los Alamos – and who would later be Oppenheimer’s antagonist as head of the Atomic Energy Commission because of Oppenheimer’s public stance against nuclear weapons.
In this scene, Strauss is invited to an emergency assembly when he learns that radiation – a signal of a nuclear bomb through the Soviet Union – has been detected in the North Pacific:
Strauss, dismayed by the Soviet Union’s nuclear progress, was determined to build more and bigger bombs than the Russians, and believed that Oppenheimer, who had been a blatant opponent of nuclear proliferation, stood in his way. His crusade to discredit Oppenheimer includes advice that he was a spy. A closed-door hearing through a protection committee of the Atomic Energy Commission would vote to cut off Oppenheimer’s security clearance, making it highly unlikely that his studies would continue.
In this scene, Strauss speaks to a Senate aide (Alden Ehrenreich) about the testimony given against him at a Cabinet confirmation hearing in relation to the attacks on Oppenheimer:
The son of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. , Downey Jr. came to the immense Marvel Cinematic Universe in his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man, leader of the Avengers. But his résumé showed a wide diversity of characters in barely a hundred films. from “Chaplin,” “Good Night and Good Luck” and “Zodiac,” to “Tropic Thunder,” “Sherlock Holmes,” and “The Judge. “With “Oppenheimer,” he plays well with his personal charm to hide Strauss’s charm. Unscrupulous tactics and anger when his plans blow up in his face.
Downey, who won the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe for his performance, told W Magazine that he “jumped at the chance” to appear in Christopher Nolan’s film: “Everything about the role of Lewis Strauss was. . . “I know that we are all a combination of what our personality is and who we are. Nolan invited me to look in the mirror at an unexplored component of myself. And the character, to me, is anyone who’s ever felt angry about someone who was more vital than them. It gave me a lot of time to think. I wondered if in the past I looked like that in people’s eyes. And I wondered, if I were them, if I wouldn’t go out and destroy myself. “
A big challenge was when the character called to play said, “To be still, which is not easy for me,” he said. “And part of the explanation for why is that I’m middle-aged. If, at this point, I can’t sit back and stand there and tell the truth, then I’ve done something wrong a long time ago. “
Of his role in the blockbuster film, Downey told The Associated Press, “One of the things specific to Nolan that’s now apparent is exciting, high-impact, large-scale filmmaking; However, there is also this exploration of the subtleties of each of them. of us, adding our weaknesses and flaws and all those things that are hard to describe. And I painted this old picture, very non-public and also shocking, in a cool way. “
“Oppenheimer” streams on Peacock and is available via VOD.
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Greta Gerwig told “60 Minutes” that she wrote the role of Ken in particular for Ryan Gosling, though she had never met him, even going so far as to write it in the script she co-wrote with Noah Baumbach: “He said, ‘Ken Ryan Gosling,'” she noted.
And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more suitable actor for the role (though there’s a lot of Ken in the film). Gosling has been effective both in dreamy romantic roles (“The Notebook,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Blue Valentine,” “Drive,” “La La Land”) and in films portraying men torn apart by loss or isolation (“Blade Runner 2049,” “First Man”).
In “Barbie,” set in a pink phantasmagoria known as Barbie Land, Ken is the embodiment of Barbie props: the attractive boy whose purpose turns out to be to make Barbie look good, whether it’s on the beach or in Barbie’s car.
In this scene, Ken, eager to impress Barbie (Margot Robbie), confronts Ken (Simu Liu), threatening to “get away from the beach,” which proves violent:
But Ken begins to question his role after accompanying Barbie to the genuine world (i. e. , Santa Monica, California), where Ken witnesses a country where men are powerful, wealthy, and horseback riding. In fact, it’s the men who look like they’ll be running the show. So when it’s time to return to Barbie Land, her goal is to turn it into a patriarchy, with men in charge and doing the kinds of things that brothers do.
In one of the film’s musical highlights, Ken (dressed as a mink) leads a hard-fought dance with all the other Barbie Land Kens to the Oscar-nominated song “I’m Just Ken,” written by Mark Ronson and Andrew. Wyatt, one of this year’s nominees for Best Original Song:
Gosling told Variety that he almost quit the role of Ken, earning him his third Oscar nomination. “It’s the hardest role I’ve ever had to play,” he said. “It’s like a string act: with tiny shorts and no blouse – no net. “
“In a way, everything I did led me to [Ken],” Gosling continued. “And I can’t say this. There were times when I was doing it and I thought, ‘I haven’t felt like I did. ‘I’ve worked so hard since ‘Blue Valentine. ‘ There were times when I put down ‘Blue Valentine’, I was absolutely emotionally exhausted, lying on the floor of the car on the way home, empty. And it was even harder to play Ken. I thought, “How do I feel about this movie?”
Gosling worked out 4 hours a day and took dance categories to improve Ken’s abs. He also limited his nutrition to nothing. ” It’s just coffee,” he said.
“Barbie” is currently streaming on Max and is available on VOD.
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The list of nominees for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor matches that of the Screen Actors Guild, with the exception of one: in Willem Dafoe’s “Poor Things,” the Academy chose Mark Ruffalo, who had already been nominated for 3 Oscars (for “The Kids Are Fine,” “Foxcatcher” and “Spotlight”).
A “Frankenstein” story through steam punk, Yoros Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” stars Emma Stone as the product of a mad scientist’s experimentation in which she implants the brain of a fetus into the frame of a suicide victim, Bella (played by Stone).
When we meet Bella, she is a child/adult woman with a minimal vocabulary who is just learning how to use her physique. This piques the interest of a Lothario, Duncan (played by Ruffalo), who takes it upon himself to “teach” Bella. , most commonly in the physical realm.
In this scene, while Bella is excited to find the dance, he tries to fit it in, beat after beat:
Duncan can be characterized by his jealousy and possessiveness, which manifest when the scoundrel takes Bella out into the world, only to realize that the young woman learning from an independent philosopher excludes her, in the process, from his life.
In this scene, Duncan discovers that Bella is maturing faster than his jealousy appreciates her:
In this interview with the Associated Press, Ruffalo compares “Poor Things” to other films in his career, from small independent films to Marvel superhero extravaganzas: “I love making videos and I like to push myself. Some things, like this, are much more expressive, and because it’s humor, it has a different kind of energy. Maybe it’s less difficult for the public to see, maybe. . . But I feel like I bring the same amount of care and love to them. . Maybe. It doesn’t look like it, but I feel like I’m trying!”
“People start seeing you in a safe way, and then you start seeing yourself in a safe way, and it’s very annoying. . . I’m so glad that George and Emma saw me there when I did. I don’t even see myself in that.
He told Deadline that the boldness of his portrayal of Duncan reminded him a lot of his early days in the theater, “where he was very brave and quite dangerous. For some reason, over the years, I’ve kept myself very restrained, and each and every role I’ve played demanded it. It’s a role no one would have expected me to play. “
Ruffalo said he didn’t get any notes from the Lanthimos shoot about how quirky its functionality deserves to be, and if the director laughed, Ruffalo knew he was going in the right direction. Otherwise, Lanthimos might say, “Enough is enough. “
In the end, Duncan is a damaged soul, torn apart by Bella’s rejection. Ruffalo told Deadline, “I have friends I know who say, ‘I love Duncan. I was shooting for him. I felt so bad for him,’ or the guys were like, ‘Man, I didn’t know what to do. ‘Do this guy. But in the end, I thought, oh my God, poor guy. I felt a lot of sympathy for him.
“Poor Things” streams on Hulu and is available on VOD.
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