Oscar Watch '04: The Acting Bait
By Kit Bowen, Hollywood.com Staff
| Monday, October 25, 2004
Macedonian conquerors, fanciful playwrights, alcoholic writers, lonely and/or neurotic housewives, stage divas, kick-ass assassins and even Jesus Christ--this year is chock full of diverse and riveting Best Actor and Best Actress possibilities. Here's a rundown of likely contenders whose excellent performances just might put Oscar gold in their hands next February.
The Actors
Jim Caviezel, The Passion of the Christ
Could anything be more Oscar worthy than playing Jesus Christ during the last 12 hours of his life? I think not. Sure, it's controversial and religiously one sided, but Caviezel pours his Catholic heart and soul, as well as his blood (and we're talking a lot of blood), sweat and tears, into the role. This tour de force came from somewhere deep within, and the Academy won't overlook the effort.
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Everyone really wants the likable Depp to win an Academy Award. After turning in an Oscar-nominated performance last year as the devilish rogue in Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp became Hollywood's golden boy. But comic roles generally don't get you the Oscar. Now, there's Finding Neverland, in which Depp takes on the role of playwright J.M. Barrie who, with the help of a widow and her young boys, comes up with the magical story of Peter Pan. The part consists of all the Depp qualities we love--imaginative, whimsical, sly--but in a decidedly serious tone. He's a shoo-in.
Jamie Foxx, Ray
So is this guy. Foxx was not only terrific in Collateral, his turn as the late rhythm-and-blues man Ray Charles has everybody talking, especially about how eerily close the actor looked like the real thing. Talk about changing your appearance. As Foxx himself explained to Entertainment Weekly, about the role that entailed wearing prosthetics modeled on Charles' actual eyes, no less, ''If you could open your eyes you would cheat on how your body would move. But if you can't see, you can't cheat.'' Plus Foxx, an accomplished pianist in his own right, did all his own playing, mastering Charles' technique on the keys. That's dedication--and the way you get an Oscar nomination.
Christian Bale, The Machinist
Speaking of changing appearances, this year the award for most drastically altered goes to Bale, who shed upwards of 60 pounds from his six-foot-two frame and dropped to a ghastly 120 pounds for his role as a sleep-deprived, mentally disturbed factory worker in The Machinist. Now, everyone knows when you so totally change your appearance to play a part, you're almost guaranteed an Oscar nomination. Two recent cases in point: Charlize Theron, who gained weight and plucked her eyebrows in Monster and Nicole Kidman donning an ugly prosthetic nose in The Hours. No one may actually see this little indie film, but if distributor Paramount Classics send out those screeners, the Academy members should take notice.
Paul Giamatti, Sideways
Giamatti is a funny little guy, with a sort of sweaty-yet-lovable quality about him, who has been quietly creeping into our subconscious by often outshining his higher-profile co-stars in films such as Man on the Moon, Duets and Confidence. But that all changed last year when Giamatti blew just about everyone away with his gravel-voiced, neurotic portrait of comic-book creator Harvey Pekar in American Splendor. With his anonymity fading, Giamatti is now being touted for his performance in the latest film from Alexander Payne (About Schmidt), the much ballyhooed film Sideways, playing a drunk, depressed writer who fancies himself a wine expert, taking a debauched trip through California's wine country with his best friend. This could be Giamatti's year--and if it isn't, it will be soon enough.
Liam Neeson, Kinsey
Few of us can forget Neeson's heart wrenching, Oscar-nominated performance as real-life Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler in the Oscar-winning Schindler's List. Now, Neeson is looking at getting his second nod, playing another kind of hero--the notorious academic Alfred Kinsey, who shocked an entire nation with his 1948 study Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, opening up the taboo subject of human sexuality in a staunch conservative world. Hmmm, doesn't sound like times have changed much.
Jeff Bridges, The Door in the Floor
In this adaptation of John Irving's A Widow for One Year (at least the first third of it, anyway), Bridges gives another stellar turn as a hard drinking, womanizing children's book author trying to cope with the tragic death of his son as well as his dissolving marriage. Even though the film was released way back in June, the Oscar buzz is still on, mainly because its one of those juicy roles Bridges seems to always sink his teeth into with gusto and leave an indelible impression.
Other possibilities: Jim Carrey's uncharacteristically subdued but endearing portrait of a man in love in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Kevin Bacon's reformed pedophile trying to start a new life in The Woodsman; The Motorcycle Diaries's Gael Garcia Bernal as the young, yet to be discovered revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guerva; Jude Law's cad about town in Alfie; Christopher Walken as yet another quirky father figure in Around the Bend; and Bill Murray as a sardonic, aging oceanographer stuck on an expedition from hell in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
Next Page: The Actresses