The Rundown 2020: Supporting Actress

For our tenth Rundown article, we look at Best Supporting Actress. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Supporting Actress as well as general commentary about the race. Thursday, we’ll cover Best Supporting Actor.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner Predictions

Maria Bakalova – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Glenn Close – Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman – The Father
Amanda Seyfried – Mank
Yuh-jung Youn – Minari (WL R) [New] (PP O) (TB O) (TL R) [New]

Runner-Up Predictions

Glenn Close – Hillbilly Elegy (WL R) [New] (PP O) (TB O) (TL R) [New]

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Wesley Lovell: For the acting categories, the male side of the ledger has pretty much been settled since the beginning of the year. On the female side, it’s been a tough competition with nearly everyone taking the lead at some point or for some reason. That’s more true of the lead category than supporting, but this category has four real competitors for the award. Olivia Colman is the only one who hasn’t moved into the lead position at some point, likely because she recently won. Amanda Seyfried was the first leader of the season, but was quickly eclipsed by Maria Bakalova and Yuh-jung Youn who ran roughshod over the competition at the critics awards. Then, from left field, comes Glenn Close in a film critics hated. Close has now tied Peter O’Toole as the all-time Oscar loser with eight nominations to date without a single Oscar. Close is due, but do voters like Hillbilly Elegy enough to honor her for it? Doubtful. That brings us back to Youn and Bakalova with Youn taking the lead after her Screen Actors Guild award win. Bakalova could still challenge and could fill the young ingénue slot that Seyfried was expected to occupy this year. Seyfried isn’t entirely out of it, but her chances have diminished enough to make this a two-horse race with two possible spoilers coming up fast on the outside track.
Peter J. Patrick: South Korean actress Yuh-jung Youn should be an easy winner here, but misplaced career recognition for Glenn Close could muddy the waters.
Tripp Burton: This feels like a wide-open field, and every time that things seem settled it all changes again. The SAG win for Youn Yuh-jung makes me feel like she is our frontrunner right now — she may be the best chance to honor Minari, and her crowd-favorite performance seems to really resonate with voters.
Thomas La Tourrette: Originally it seemed that Glenn Close was finally going to win an Oscar on her eighth nomination. Even though the movie was not well reviewed, she seemed unstoppable. Then her movement just slowed down to the point that I doubt she will win, especially when she did not win the Golden Globe. Losing the SAG hurt her chances even more. Maria Bakalova seemed poised to take on frontrunner status, even though Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is not the usual Oscar winner. She turned in a masterful comic performance, but comedy is rarely given awards. So that even though she has over a quarter of the precursors, she is unlikely to win. Neither Amanda Seyfried from Mank nor Olivia Colman from The Father have much of a chance of winning. That leaves Youn Yuh-Jung as the unconventional grandmother from Minari as the probable winner. Little known in the US, she has been described as the Korean Meryl Streep and looks poised to get her first Oscar at the young age of 73. Even though she has over half the precursor awards, including the prestigious SAG, she is probably not a strong frontrunner, but I still expect her to win unless Glenn Close ekes out a last-minute upset.