2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (May) – Can Olivia Colman be the Favourite?

Erik Anderson May 24, 2018

Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney (Backseat) is still #1 and she’s going to stay there, I expect, for a long time. Unless there’s some crazy plan to push her in lead she should dominate here.

The month does see some movement from a trio of actresses all angling for a spot in the top 5. Nicole Kidman bumps up one to #4 for Boy Erased, which just revealed its first official pics this week (and with a trailer forthcoming) but the fun battle to me is between two queens: Oscar nominee Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots and Golden Globe winner Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in The Favourite. Both films are poised for some healthy fall festival appearances and inevitably will be compared against each other at every turn. Robbie benefits from being her film’s sole supporting female while Colman will face some internal competition from Oscar winners Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, depending on how Fox Searchlight decides to play them. Robbie does have studio competition (Focus Features) in Oscar winner Nicole Kidman.

A pair of players see dips this month; Emmy winner Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk was perched at #2 in April but falls to #5 for May. Screen Actors Guild winner Claire Foy (First Man) tumbles to Earth (aka out of the top 5) but I’m not sure if that’s a wise choice on my part. She has the quintessential supporting wife role here Janet Armstrong, spouse of the first man on the moon. While her role (and its length) remains to be seen, Kathleen Quinlan found herself Oscar-nominated for 1995’s Apollo 13 in a nearly identical part as Marilyn Lovell (wife of Jim Lovell).

This is going to be a very fluid category, I think. I can see any number of the Next Up and Other Contenders legitimately vying for a spot. If Widows is as strong as I think it will then Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo can start closing in on the ‘O’ of her EGOT. Oscar winner Tilda Swinton could break through the ultraviolence of Suspiria (and out from under hours of makeup) to earn her first nomination after her win that she was denied for with We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Then, as always, there’s Meryl Streep. I’m not anticipating that her role in Mary Poppins Returns will be much more than her role in Suffragette but that didn’t stop many people (myself included) from having her in the race.

Janelle Monáe (The Women of Marwen) pops in as the month’s sole debut.

Here are my predictions for Supporting Actress for May 24, 2018.

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

1. Amy Adams – Backseat

2. Margot Robbie – Mary Queen of Scots

3. Olivia Colman – The Favourite

4. Nicole Kidman – Boy Erased

5. Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk

6. Sissy Spacek – Old Man and the Gun

7. Claire Foy – First Man

8. Vera Farmiga – The Front Runner

9. Emma Stone – The Favourite

10. Michelle Yeoh – Crazy Rich Asians

NEXT UP

Cynthia Erivo – Widows

Tatiana Maslany – Destroyer

Janelle Monáe – The Women of Marwen

Ruth Negga – Ad Astra

Kristen Wiig – Where’d You Go, Bernadette

OTHER CONTENDERS

Jennifer Aniston – Dumplin’

Kathy Bates – On the Basis of Sex

Annette Bening – Georgetown

Lucy Boynton – Bohemian Rhapsody

Linda Cardellini – Green Book

Zoe Chao – Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Blythe Danner – What They Had

Laura Dern – JT Leroy

Adèle Exarchopoulos – The White Crow

Eiza González – The Women of Marwen

Denise Gough – Colette

Salma Hayek – The Hummingbird Project

Lena Headey – Fighting with My Family

Carol Kane – The Sisters Brothers

Diane Kruger – The Women of Marwen

Lisa Lu – Crazy Rich Asians

Teresa Mahoney – Peterloo

Rachel McAdams – Disobedience

Chloë Grace Moretz – Suspiria

Alison Pill – Backseat

Charlotte Rampling – The Little Stranger

Elena Sofia Ricci – Loro

Emily Rios – If Beale Street Could Talk

Andrea Riseborough – Burden

Julia Roberts – Ben is Back

Amy Ryan – Beautiful Boy

Léa Seydoux – Kursk

Anna Deavere Smith – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Meryl Streep – Mary Poppins Returns

Tilda Swinton – Suspiria

Holland Taylor – Gloria Bell

Marina de Tavira – Roma

Katherine Waterston – Mid 90s

Jacki Weaver – Widows

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (MAY)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (May)

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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.