Hong Chau and Claire Foy: An Oscar Reversal of Fortune

This year’s crop of Supporting Actress hopefuls is a vast one and easily the toughest to predict of the four acting races. Earlier in the week, the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards named their nominees. For Supporting Actress, only three performers managed nods in both: Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin, and Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Additional contenders for the Globe are Dolly de Leon (Triangle of Sadness) and Carey Mulligan (She Said). For Critics Choice – it is Jessie Buckley (Women Talking), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), and Janelle Monae (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery).

Of the 8 actresses vying for victory, there are two surprising women not being talked about. Hong Chau (The Whale) and Claire Foy (Women Talking) were snubbed by the Globes and Critics Choice. I have had Foy listed at #1 in my Oscar picks for many weeks and I’ve had Chau in and out of my high five. Their double omissions put them at a disadvantage. There are only six Supporting Actress Oscar nominees in the past decade who missed both the Globes and Critics Choice: Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook), Laura Dern (Wild), Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread), and Marina de Tavira (Roma). It is worthy of note the other two were from just last year – Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) and Judi Dench (Belfast). None of them won the Oscar so you can bet Foy will at least drop from #1 when I update my predictions this weekend.

On the flip side, there are also 6 women who did land Globe and Critics mentions and were ignored by the Academy. They are Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year, Helen Mirren from Trumbo, Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers, and Caitriona Balfe for Belfast.

The two I’m holding back on are quite interesting…

Hong Chau in 2017’s Downsizing and Claire Foy in 2018’s First Man. They were both expected to pick up nods from the Oscar voters and didn’t. In 2022, they find themselves in the opposite situation. After being left off the ballots for two major precursors, they could miss a nomination and no one would be taken aback. Yet as the Academy showed with Foy’s Women Talking costar Jessie Buckley last year and Dame Judi, this branch could go their own way and include either (especially after noticeably ignoring them a few years back).

I’d rather be Bassett, Condon, and Curtis right now when it comes to viability. For Chau and Foy – the odds aren’t in their favor like they were five and four years back. Those odds didn’t help them then. Perhaps their longer ones will prove to their benefit this time around.

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