2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (July) – Emma Stone rises; Cynthia Erivo is coming

Erik Anderson July 17, 2018

While queens are fighting, Cynthia Erivo is plotting her takeover of Best Supporting Actress in Bad Times at the El Royale

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A crazy thing happened in the last week with regard to Supporting Actress. Well, two things. First; the Fox Searchlight costume drama The Favourite beat the other queen battle royale film Mary Queen of Scots from Focus Features to the punch by dropping its very well received trailer first. That trailer gave us A LOT of Olivia Colman’s Queen Anne, a fair amount of Rachel Weisz’s Lady Sarah and not much of Emma Stone’s usurper Abagail. Then, the film tested for audiences and word came in that who would go supporting vs lead was completely up in the air. After talking with a rep from Fox Searchlight myself they were undecided as to category placements for Colman, Weisz and Stone. For this month I still have Colman at #2 but Emma Stone has moved up from #5 to #3. Rachel Weisz wasn’t even a factor for me here last month but she debuts at #10 by default.

Right now it’s a guessing game and my Supporting Actress and Best Actress predictions for The Favourite will have you seeing double until something definitive happens, including the actual completed film being seen. But, with a solid contender in Best Actress with their other fall release Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Melissa McCarthy) the studio is unlikely to make anything but a smart and shrewd choice. They just got two Best Actress nominees in last season and one of them won.

You may have noticed, if you read yesterday’s Supporting Actor predictions and write-up, that I dropped Jeff Bridges from the chart. Well, Bad Times at the El Royale was another film that tested recently (it seems mostly for length as my source said it’s currently 2.5 hours) and early thoughts of another nomination for the Oscar-winning actor might be out of reach. But, surprisingly, the one who could be in the running is Cynthia Erivo. That’s Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, to be clear. While I’ve been working on the possibility that Widows could be her path (both films are from 20th Century Fox) word is Erivo’s role and performance in Bad Times is far baitier here. It’s an exciting thought; a contender to come from a place you weren’t expecting and even better when you thought it was going to come from somewhere else. Just keep her on your radar is all I’m saying. She enters the chart as the highest debut at #9.

Amy Adams (Backseat) is still locked in at #1 (although I’ve seen people predicting her in lead, which, based on the script and previous tests, is strange) and Nicole Kidman holds on to the #4 spot for Boy Erased, which Focus Features released the first trailer for today.

Margot Robbie (Mary Queen of Scots) tumbles just a bit but stays in the top 5 and Meryl Streep (Mary Poppins Returns) goes back to the Next Up section.

Here are my 2019 Oscar predictions in Best Supporting Actress for July 17th, 2018.

Green – moves up
Red – moves down
Blue – chart debut

1. Amy Adams – Backseat (Annapurna)

2. Olivia Colman – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

3. Emma Stone – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

4. Nicole Kidman – Boy Erased (Focus Features)

5. Margot Robbie – Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features)

6. Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)

7. Claire Foy – First Man (Universal)

8. Vera Farmiga – The Front Runner (Sony)

9. Cynthia Erivo – Bad Times at the El Royale (20th Century Fox)

10. Rachel Weisz – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

NEXT UP

Tatiana Maslany – Destroyer (Annapurna)

Ruth Negga – Ad Astra (20th Century Fox)

Sissy Spacek – The Old Man & the Gun (Fox Searchlight)

Meryl Streep – Mary Poppins Returns (Walt Disney)

Marina de Tavira – Roma (Netflix)

OTHER CONTENDERS

Jennifer Aniston – Dumplin’

Kathy Bates – On the Basis of Sex (Focus Features)

Annette Bening – Georgetown

Lucy Boynton – Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox)

Linda Cardellini – Green Book (Universal)

Blythe Danner – What They Had (Bleecker Street)

Laura Dern – JT Leroy

Cynthia Erivo – Widows (20th Century Fox)

Denise Gough – Colette (Bleecker Street)

Salma Hayek – The Hummingbird Project

Lena Headey – Fighting with My Family (MGM)

Teresa Mahoney – Peterloo (Amazon)

Leslie Mann – Welcome to Marwen (Universal)

Rachel McAdams – Disobedience (Bleecker Street)

Janelle Monáe – Welcome to Marwen (Universal)

Sarah Paulson – Bird Box (Netflix)

Alison Pill – Backseat (Annapurna)

Julia Roberts – Ben is Back (Roadside Attractions)

Amy Ryan – Beautiful Boy (Amazon)

Anna Deavere Smith – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)

Tilda Swinton – Suspiria (Amazon)

Katherine Waterston – Mid 90s (A24)

Jacki Weaver – Bird Box (Netflix)

Jacki Weaver – Widows (20th Century Fox)

Merritt Wever – Welcome to Marwen (Universal)

Michelle Yeoh – Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (July)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.