By As you may have noticed, we’ve begun awarding awards to things that deserve awards. The Supporting Actor category is one that’s generally ignored for various reasons. One, the lead actors were too damn good, and two, sometimes a supporting actor doesn’t get material required to make a standout performance. This year, however, things were truly different.
We had a whole mess of standout performances from the folks that were only supposed to shine in the sidelines, but somehow turned in the most impressive showcase of talent in years. But who was the cream of the crop? Sure it was hard to decide, but as always with these things, there was only one winner…
And who else could win this? The competition was pretty stiff with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Masterful performance, Alan Arkin’s Argonomical old man powers, Leonardo DiCaprio’s unchained faux-racism, and Javier Bardem definitely crumbled our skies (it was neck and neck between Bardem and Waltz). But in the end, it had to be Waltz (I mean even the Academy agreed with us here, and those guys sometimes know what they’re talking about).
Waltz’s turn as Django Unchained‘s Dr. King Schultz was truly something special. As Schultz, Waltz was punchy, demure, sly, and silky smooth all at the same time. In fact, Schultz was such an inspired character, I wrote an entire essay about it. As mentioned in our Oscar predictions, we stated that the true job of the Supporting Actor was to turn in a performance that elevates the main actor’s performance as well. And I hardly think anyone would disagree that Waltz made Django Unchained as good as it was. And to think, we almost ended the year without it. Full Review.
Javier Bardem- Skyfall
Phillip Seymour Hoffman- The Master
Alan Arkin- Argo
Leonardo DiCaprio- Django Unchained