Lead vs. Supporting Acting

The San Francisco Chronicle had a good article last weekend about the difference between the lead and supporting acting categories at the Oscars. Much a source of confusion as to what the criteria are for determining a performance as "lead" or "supporting," the bottom line is that there is no criteria. The academy members decide through the nominating process. The article quoted the Academy's communications director:

"The actor's achievement is (automatically) eligible in both categories and it's entirely up to the actors' branch. The leading and supporting categories are tabulated at the same time by Price Waterhouse. Let's say John Pavlik is up for an award and half of the voters think it's supporting and half think it's lead; whichever of those reaches the magic number first (about 20 percent of ballots cast) is the category he's nominated in."

Given this wide-open discretion, it's no surprise that studio Oscar campaigns can have a big influence as to whether an actor is "put up" in one category or another. Factors such as a star's popularity and clout and the expected field of other actors vying for a slot therefore are as likely influences as more intuitive measures such as minutes of screen time or centrality to the film's story.

Arguing over whether a lead nominee is really a supporting performance and vice-versa is a longtime staple of Oscar season. This year there are two such lead performance nominees whose characters, when considered in terms of screen time and story centrality, should really be considered supporting performances.

The Devil Wears Prada is about a young woman's (Anne Hathaway) experience working as personal assistant to a devil of a fashion magazine editor (Meryl Streep). Hathaway has more screen time and her character is more central to the story, yet Streep is up for lead actress. Likely a decision reached because 1) Anne Hathaway, while a rising star making efforts to appear in Oscar-worthy films (Brokeback Mountain, for example), is still not considered Oscar-worthy herself, 2) the field for supporting performances is more crowded this year, and 3) Meryl Streep is...Meryl Streep. So she appears in the lead category, which, despite the apparent inconsistency, was no surprise at all.

Similarly, The Last King of Scotland is about an idealistic young Scottish doctor (James McAvoy), who rather than follow in his father's practice, ventures off to Africa to do humanitarian work, but instead ends up becoming the personal physician to the country's dictator (Forest Whitaker). McAvoy's is the story's main character and he clearly has more screen time, but Whitaker's role is showier, Whitaker is well-liked and under-recognized, and McAvoy is a virtual unknown, so Whitaker takes the lead nomination. Interestingly, McAvoy was even getting a bit of buzz for a supporting nomination, which could have led to the bizarre (but not unprecedented, see The English Patient below) situation of a larger role being nominated in the supporting category and a smaller role in the lead category from the same film.

My take on a few other notable examples of the folly of the lead vs. supporting categories:

Collateral (2004). Jamie Foxx was on fire during the 2004 Oscar season, hands down the frontrunner to win Best Actor for his performance in Ray. However, the actor was also getting considerable attention for his appearance in the summer thriller Collateral. Strangely, he ended up getting a supporting actor nomination for Collateral, despite clearly being that movie's central character. Sure, Tom Cruise was in it too, but he played the much smaller role of the nasty antagonist.

The English Patient (1996). Ralph Fiennes' role was clearly the main character in this film, but how to categorize the roles of the film's two actresses -- Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas -- was less clear. Binoche played the nurse to Fiennes ailing character in the films later scenes, while Thomas played the love interest in the earlier scenes. Given to desire to push the film as an epic romantic drama, Thomas was pushed for a lead nomination, while Binoche was deemed a supporting player. Interestingly though, Binoche actually had more screen time. I'm sure she's not complaining though, as she walked away with a little statue and Thomas did not.

Tootsie (1982). Dustin Hoffman was the obviously the film's lead, Teri Garr clearly a supporting role, but what about Jessica Lange? She wasn't in the film enough to be seen as a lead, yet, she was clearly more central and had more screen time than Teri Garr. In the end, both were nominated for supporting actress, to which Garr was nonplussed. Lange won.