Matt Damon in Invictus
The Supporting Actor gongs are just as important as the two main acting awards and recognise performances that support the central character.
Last year Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger triumphed on the night, both performances did well during the awards season and this year it looks like it’s going to be another closely fought battle.
First of all we are going to take a look at the performances that could be in the running for Best Supporting Actor.
Christoph Waltz is many people’s favourite to scoop the award on Oscar night for his outstanding turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
He is nothing short of brilliant as German officer Hans Landa aka "The Jew Hunter" who is restrained and raving mad all at the same time that you can't help but like him
Despite a career that has spanned thirty years Inglourious Basterds is the role has propelled him to global fame and I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and say he is a dead cert for a nod.
Matt Damon has had a great 2009 with the lead role in The Informant which could give him a slim chance of a Best actor nod.
However it’s his role in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus that could bring him his first Oscar in the form of Best Supporting Actor.
The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid.
Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team, led by Damon, as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.
It would be Damon’s second acting Oscar nomination after being nominated for Best actor for his role in Good Will Hunting, he went on to win Best Original Screenplay with Ben Affleck.
Stanley Tucci could be the real dark horse of the awards season for his role in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones.
Tucci takes on the role of George Harvey who rapes and kills fourteen year old Susie Salmon and undertakes a radical transformation that saw him with prosthetic teeth and a ginger wig.
It’s a harrowing and powerful performance from Tucci and a nomination wouldn’t come as a surprised.
Tobey Maguire could also feature amongst the nominees for his role in Brothers alongside Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal.
In recent years Maguire has mixed and matched his roles moving from the big budget blockbuster to the more dramatic roles like Brothers.
Despite his long and varied career Maguire has never been Oscar nominated but the role of Sam Cahill could see that change.
Thirty-something Captain Sam Cahill and his younger brother Tommy Cahill are polar opposites. A Marine about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, Sam is a steadfast family man married to his high school sweetheart, the aptly named Grace, with whom he has two young daughters.
Tommy, his charismatic younger brother, is a drifter just out of jail who's always gotten by on wit and charm. He slides easily into his role as family provocateur on his first night out of prison, at Sam's farewell dinner with their parents, Elsie and Hank Cahill, a retired Marine.
Shipped out to Afghanistan, Sam is presumed dead when his Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains. At home in suburbia, the Cahill family suddenly faces a shocking void, and Tommy tries to fill in for his brother by assuming newfound responsibility for himself, Grace, and the children
Mark Wahlberg returns to the big screen in the new year with The Lovely Bones, yes that old chestnut again, and could see him bag another Oscar nomination.
Lets face it some of his acting choices haven’t been the best recently, Max Payne I mean what was he thinking? But he appears to have got his mojo back with Peter Jackson’s latest movie.
Wahlberg takes on the role of Jack Salmon who is left to pick up the shattered pieces of his family after his oldest daughter Susie is raped and murdered.
Unhappy with the police are making with the case Jack does some detective work of his own as he tries to uncover his daughter’s killer.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in The Oscars Matt Damon