Golden Globes: Rooney Mara and Alicia Vikander to Compete in LEAD

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that puts on The Golden Globes has deemed Rooney Mara in Carol and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl as LEAD, despite both actress being pushed in supporting by their respective studios, The Weinstein Company and Focus Features both GoldDerby and Deadline reported today.

This comes right on the heels of the announcement this week that David O. Russell’s Joy would be competing in the Comedy or Musical category, which forced a lot of folks to change up their predictions.

This does even more. Now the Drama Lead Actress category is rather stacked, including Mara facing her co-star Cate Blanchett. Fringe contenders here like Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years, Carey Mulligan in Suffragette and Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road might be on the outside looking in.

And what does this do for Supporting Actress? With those two previously locked ladies out we could see fringe contenders march right up to the plate. Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy, the ladies from Joy (Diane Ladd and Isabella Rossellini) now will enjoy a more comfortable chance at a nomination and Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight stands a great shot now.

So, change those predictions again, people. It’s gonna be a bumpy year.

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.

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