Christopher Plummer is this year's frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Continuing our Countdown to The Oscars, we are pleased to present our analysis of the Best Supporting Actor category. Like with this column’s previous entries, we examine each nominee’s chances for earning the esteemed Academy Award so that you the reader will have an idea of what to expect come time for the ceremony on March 7th. We here at Movie-Thoughts like to spur debate, so let us know what you think! Tell us if you agree, disagree, and why. In the end, it’s all for fun anyways, right?

Also see: Best Supporting Actress, Best Actor

Best Supporting Actor

We find that this year Christopher Plummer is the most likely to win because of the combination of his age/long tenure as an actor, the quality of his performance, the weight of his performance, the novelty that this is his first Oscar nomination, and the fact that the only thing he has decreasing his odds are the strong suites of the other nominees. Meanwhile, all the other candidates have various issues that could anchor their dreams of delivering a teary-eyed acceptance speech. Critical and/or press momentum haven’t been playing much of a role with this particular category, with the exception that The Lovely Bones (for which Stanley Tucci is nominated) is the only film relevant to this category that has received overwhelmingly negative reviews. With all of this said, let’s get to it!

MATT DAMON – Invictus

Pros: Damon has skyrocketed to the “A” list in Hollywood over the past few years, and it’s arguably because of his ability to embody every aspect of his characters. I won’t presume that he’s a method actor, but his performances make the suggestion. The biggest argument to support this is his performance as whistle-blower Mark Whitacre in 2009′s The Informant!, where thanks in part to director Steven Soderbergh’s attention to detail he assumes every element and trait of his written character. Such concentration on so many details allows him to use his characters almost like disguises, hiding the fact that he’s actually his own person. There are some journalists and critics who suspect that this nomination was due to Damon’s performance in The Informant! rather than Invictus, and depending on the truthfulness of this notion he may or may not have good or poor chances of winning.

Cons: Luckily, there aren’t any glaring weaknesses in Damon’s skills, but he does have a couple disadvantages. One disadvantage is the one that seems to plague a handful of actors and actresses every year, which is their youth. Like some other nominees, Damon has proven that he is dependable for acting at a high level for an extended period of time. His competition this year includes elder veterans Christopher Plummer and second-time-nominee Woody Harrelson. Plummer is reaching the end of his esteemed career, but this is his first Oscar nomination. Harrelson was last nominated for an Oscar in 1997 for The People vs. Larry Flint, but didn’t win. The Academy may elect to give either of them the award for fear that this may be their last nomination (for Plummer because of his age, and Harrelson because of his inconsistency with acting in “Oscar worthy” projects). Regarding his nomination being for his performance in Invictus or The Informant!, if it is for the former he is safer than if it is for the latter. Usually when the Academy goes out of their way to nominate someone it’s because they want to honor them with that nomination but don’t consider them good enough to win. And one reason to believe the charade is true is because Damon’s screen time was significantly shorter in Invictus, and his role as rugby team captain Francois Pienaar is not nearly as complex as his role in The Informant! So to sum up, the only confirmable thing Matt Damon has going against him is his competition, which if you’re an actor is how you want it to be.

Odds: Has a chance

WOODY HARRELSON – The Messenger

Pros: Harrelson’s career has been for the most part flying under the radar the past few years, despite his involvement with a number of noteworthy pictures. From the Oscar nominated No Country for Old Men, to the technologically innovative A Scanner Darkly, to the critically acclaimed A Prairie Home Companion, to comedies like The Grand and the recent Zombieland, Harrelson has been comfortably choosing roles that fit either his personality or skill level. His performance in The Messenger indeed showcases his skill level, which proves to be impressive. Its impressiveness can be said to be due to the emotional range he displays on screen, and along with this he is able to give these emotions complexity; which is the mark of a genuinely talented actor. As said before this is Harrelson’s first Oscar nomination since 1997, which is a 13 year drought. The Academy might give him this year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar if it thinks Harrelson wont be back for another 13 years, despite his talent.

Cons: Strangely, if Harrelson does not win the Oscar this year it could actually indicate good news. It may indicate that the Academy expects to see him in another award-worthy performance in the future (he’s only 48 years old). On the negative side, though, we can speculate that the Academy is nominating him for The Messenger because it could not deny the richness of his performance, yet it may not take his talents seriously overall because of his penchant for the strange (Zombieland, 2012, Surfer Dude, Semi-Pro, etc.). Officially, I choose to push aside such speculation and simply suggest that the biggest hurdle Harrelson will have to face is his competition.

Odds: Has a chance

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER – The Last Station

Pros: Plummer’s turn as the legendary Leo Tolstoy may prove to be his career defining role, which is saying something about a man who helped give us such classic performances as Captain Von Trapp (The Sound of Music) and Rudyard Kipling (The Man Who Would Be King). His performance here is saturated with charisma and has layer upon layer of complex attitudes, emotions, and mind-sets, each of which are revealed to us in accordance to their appropriate inducements (the shrilling of his wife, the innocence of his private secretary, the pushing of his chief disciple, etc.). Plummer does all he can to convey a man who is strongly conflicted because of the disparities between the causes of his fame and what he recently discovers might be his true beliefs. Like many performances over the years that are both revealing yet enigmatic, his is the type that the Academy usually eats up.

Cons: He doesn’t really have many things working against him. His talent is undeniable, the performance in question is impressive on many levels, and he’s the most tenured of all the nominees. While one can argue that his competition also has plenty of reasons to be optimistic, Plummer is the most likely to win simply because he has nothing working against him besides said competition’s strong suites.

Odds: Likely

STANLEY TUCCI – The Lovely Bones

Pros: Tucci’s biggest edge might be the growing momentum of his career. From being a no-name less than a decade ago, to high-exposure roles in Big Trouble, The Terminal, The Devil Wears Prada, The Hoax, and another 2009 entry Julie and Julia, he is gradually getting bigger and bigger parts. Not only are his parts in The Lovely Bones and Julie and Julia of respectable size, but with The Lovely Bones in particular his role is actually pivotal and drives the whole story. Tucci takes advantage of such a role by playing with it and making it more interesting than it arguably has any right to be, being that his character is a deplorable child murderer (though villains are by nature more interesting, say some).

Cons: While Stanley Tucci has a lot of momentum pushing his career at the moment, there are still a couple of things that may keep him from winning the almighty Oscar. One of those things is that although he played a character that drove the story of The Lovely Bones, he has yet to actually carry a movie. The difference between driving a film’s story and carrying an entire film is that the latter need not be the former – in a superhero film the hero carries the story (because he is the focus) but the villain drives the plot (because he introduces the conflict). This may not seem like much of a problem because the category under which he is nominated is Best Supporting Actor, and this is a valid argument. However, to believe that no member of the Academy takes this shortcoming into consideration is to be naïve. Critical response for The Lovely Bones was generally negative, and this is a big obstacle for Tucci. Some of that negative criticism was even in reference to Tucci’s role as pedophile/serial killer George Harvey, saying that the role as it was written was not very revealing – or to use another cheap descriptor, “involved.” What this means is simply that not much about the character is made known besides the fact that he’s a vicious murderer who likes little girls – there are no explanations, investigations, speculations, or any background information. These missing pieces are the reasons for why many critics and Academy members see such roles as two-dimensional or “flat,” and the actors who play such characters are typically not Oscar winners.

Odds: Unlikely

CHRISTOPH WALTZ – Inglourious Basterds

Pros: Talent should not come into question with this German actor, as he has an established and respected career back in his homeland. This is obviously not a facet that is by default unquestionable, but for purposes here we will accept Germany’s and the Academy’s admiration for that career. Waltz’s success with Nazi Colonel Hans Landa has much to do with the nature of the part, playing the easy to hate antagonist (or rather, the antagonist you love to hate). The charisma of the character as written by director Quentin Tarantino shows up on screen to the level that Tarantino no doubt hoped for. Waltz steals every scene that he’s in, charming the viewer into liking him even while simultaneously showcasing a particularly vile nature. The intelligence of the character adds to this strange appeal, and to Waltz’s credit he makes this intelligence appear genuine – by that I mean he is successful in making it appear that he himself is a genuinely brilliant sleuth, and doesn’t make obvious his dependence on the script for that intelligence. The end of the film (which I wont divulge) reveals a three-dimensionality to the character, which makes Waltz’s chances at least better than Stanley Tucci’s.

Cons: Waltz’s chances are not hindered by his lack of popularity in the U.S., as some of you might think. It doesn’t help, but it doesn’t really hurt either. Rather, the biggest thing working against him is simply the level of competition. For reasons mentioned for Christopher Plummer, Matt Damon, and Woody Harrelson, they hold the edge. Like Tucci and Plummer this is Waltz’s first Oscar nomination, and because there are three nominees with this commonality this year such a fact may not be a negative point for any of them. Because Plummer was able to portray more due to his character’s greater depth, he holds the edge over Waltz. The tone of Inglourious Basterds is hardly serious, and that might give the Academy grounds to appreciate Plummer’s performance over Waltz’s. The reasoning behind this would be to say that Plummer’s performance falls under much more scrutiny, and the fact that his character is based from a cultural figure as gigantic as Leo Tolstoy adds a lot more to that. Waltz had greater freedom with his interpretation of his character than Plummer had with his, and many people believe that having less freedom takes more discipline and skill as an actor. I would bet that the members of the Academy share this line of thinking.

Odds: Has a chance