Best Supporting Actor 1993

[The Original BJ]

When I saw Schindler's List for the first time, some years ago, I couldn't fathom how Ben Kingsley's incredibly moving performance wasn't also nominated alongside Ralph Fiennes's. Then I saw the rest of these movies, and realized I wouldn't have a clue who to bump (if anyone) from this lineup. So I'll just leave it at this: all of the nominees are excellent, and Kingsley was too.

But one of these nominees was the most excellent, so to play the game...

I think one of the reasons some of us have difficulty with actors playing mentally disabled characters is that too often, their performances can devolve into a mess of affectations that don't resemble a character so much as actorly thesping. I have no such qualms with Leonardo DiCaprio's work in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. DiCaprio's performance feels so natural and lived-in that he almost doesn't seem like an actor at all, just a fun-loving kid with a lot of energy who needs quite a bit of extra help sometimes. His last scene with Darlene Cates in the bed is magnificently played, as Arnie gradually realizes his situation -- the range of emotions the actor plays in this scene, and the poignant amount of time it takes to move through each one, is absolutely heartbreaking. Though he can fall flat in the wrong role, I think DiCaprio has continued to give exciting performances as an adult, though I'm optimistic that his best work is still ahead of him.

Pete Postlethwaite gives an utterly lovely performance in In the Name of the Father. He really had such a great face for a character actor, with those big eyes and bulging cheekbones, and it's used to such heartfelt effect as Day-Lewis's caring but indignant father here. He makes for such a perfect proletariat dad, too -- had he lived in an earlier era, it's not hard to imagine Postlethwaite playing a similar character for John Ford. I don't think, given the competition, he quite has a scene that kicks him into win consideration, but he's hugely effective in the role and it's nice he got this mention before he left us too soon.

The most impressive thing about John Malkovich's totally unhinged work in In the Line of Fire is the way he underplays so much of the role, so that when he finally has outbursts of intense anger they feel surprising, disturbing, and 100% earned. It would have been easy for an actor to play this entire character at 11, but Malkovich's relative restraint is so much more effective. In hindsight, Malkovich would go on to play versions of this character a lot -- there's some irony in the fact that the role of himself in Being John Malkovich seems, to me, the part that showcases the actor in the most original and inspiring way -- but there's no denying that Malkovich's work here makes for a bracing and hugely entertaining villain.

I agree with the folks who would describe Tommy Lee Jones's turn in The Fugitive first and foremost as "cool," but I also think there's a layered performance beneath the more obviously clever moments. I think Jones makes clear that his pursuit of Ford -- and his growing uncertainty about his target's guilt -- take a genuine toll on his character, and I think the dramatic weight that the actor brings to his role really helps elevate this summer action flick. Jones is a very smart actor, and I've liked him a lot over the years, so I find it hard to complain that he has an Oscar, especially for a role that's such a wonderful showcase for his strengths, but...

...I think Ralph Fiennes gives one of the greatest performances in the history of this category, and he gets my vote -- even in this strong field -- without any hesitation. I remember some years back, when the AFI did a list of the Greatest Heroes & Villains in the movies, Fiennes's Amon Goeth placed very highly on the Villains list. And I remember thinking, that just seems flat-out wrong. Because what Fiennes created in Schindler's List was more than a screen villain -- a Wicked Witch of the West, a Hannibal Lecter, or even, to use a more recent (and very comparable) example, a Hans Landa (from Inglourious Basterds). Fiennes shows a man consumed by pure evil...who happened to be a completely average, mundane human being. The actor treats his character's comings-and-goings at the camps, where he commits infamous numbers of ungodly acts, as the banal day-to-day duties of a man going through the motions of his job. What makes this character so disturbing is his humanity, humanity that Fiennes reveals by suggesting that Goeth was just an ordinary man consumed by an ideology that led him to commit atrocities. It's truly astounding how Fiennes finds the right note for this character -- allowing the audience to see that Goeth is both a horrible man AND one still capable of human feeling, and that his crimes were the result of a flesh-and-blood person and not a monster. Fiennes's work is operating at a completely different level than that of most screen villains, and for cutting to the heart of evil so precisely and so horrifically, it feels almost trivial to say he deserves something as silly as an Oscar for his work...but deserve it he did.

[koook160]

4. Leonardo DiCaprio for This Boys Life

Yes, because being in 90% of a movie and being the main character is supporting if you're a young person. Please, at least be somewhat honest if you're going to engage in category fraud. Not that it's really possible to do those things at the same time.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

I'll throw some much-needed (for this board, anyway) moral support Tommy Lee Jones' way. Unlike most of you seem to, I do think he gives a great performance in The Fugitive, and I'm glad he won. Yes, it's a cool role that could be effectively played with a simplistic "badass" presence, but I don't see that as all Jones is bringing to the table (although it most certainly is one of the things he's bringing to the table, and an important one). His performance is essential to the character's memorability, and to making the movie as good as it is, and I'd argue that most of what he brings to the part is more than just charisma and coolness. The dry humor, the implacable professionalism, the wily intelligence, the growing respect for Kimble, the increasing doubts about his quarry's guilt, his refusal to let that doubt compromise his pursuit... This is quite possibly Jones' finest moment on film, both as a star, as a persona, and as an actor, and it's a well-deserved Oscar win.

In spite of all that, though, I ultimately cast my vote for Ralph Fiennes. Just a phenomenal, unforgettable performance that towers over everybody else this year.

Incidentally, can I play the contrarian and suggest that 1994's lineup is far superior to this year's? I like the nominated performances of DiCaprio, Malkovich, and Postlethwaite to one degree or another, but none would have made my ballot, which -- in addition to Fiennes and Jones -- would include Sean Penn (Carlito's Way), Val Kilmer (Tombstone), and Jeff Daniels (Gettysburg) in their places.

The depth of the category this year is astonishing: All the nominees are at least somewhat deserving, and besides Penn, Kilmer, and Daniels, Chazz Palminteri (A Bronx Tale), Jack Lemmon (Short Cuts), Ben Kingsley (Schindler's List), André Dussollier (Un Coeur en Hiver), and Sam Neill (The Piano) are, I'd argue, all worthy of consideration.

[Sabin]

Yeah. I'll join the chorus. Is this the best lineup? I don't know. I don't feel like doing the work of comparing and contrasting but this is certainly the kind of lineup that this category should look like. All different performances, all in pretty great films, all supporting performances. I'm a bit surprised that Tee didn't mention Ben Kingsley as the most obvious omission. I would have pegged him before Sean Penn. He's impossibly sympathetic in Schindler's List, and that's not something I often find him to be in films. More so, I would peg him as a possible challenger to Tommy Lee Jones. But he certainly doesn't warrant a nomination over any of these gentlemen.

The first off has to be Tommy Lee Jones who won because more than giving a great performance in The Fugitive, he won for being fucking cool. I can't begrudge him because we're talking about Tommy Lee Jones. And when else would he have won? Never. He wasn't going to win in 2007 for any movie. Instead of saying "Why doesn't Tommy Lee Jones have an Oscar?" we are instead saying "Tommy Lee Jones is fucking cool in The Fugitive." Is it great acting? No, but it's one of our most underrated actor's finest moments.

Next off...who knows? I haven't seen In the Line of Fire or The Fugitive in ages so I don't know which one I prefer now, but I've always felt that The Fugitive loses something in the third act, that after Harrison Ford takes down the one-armed man the film just goes through the motions and cannot quite top itself. It's still a barreling, throttling ride that remains entirely personable, which is almost entirely due to Harrison Ford's brilliant casting. In the Line of Fire has more on its mind than The Fugitive and it also features a brilliantly cast lead. Malkovich and Eastwood bring out the best in each other when they're just on the phone together. Can anybody tell me if they actually spoke to each other during the scene? They lend a different kind of credibility to In the Line of Fire than Harrison Ford and TLJ do to The Fugitive. If you cast Kevin Costner in The Fugitive, it might still work. But I need Clint Eastwood to buy into a Secret Service man who let down JFK. And John Malkovich is incredibly entertaining in this role. He's having a lot of fun. I just don't think it deserves an Oscar.

There are actors and there are movie stars. Actors can become invisible in any role. Movie stars bring their persona to different roles. I value them both the same. Leonardo DiCaprio is a movie star who wants to be an actor, and it's not working out. There are roles that he excels at like The Departed, and then there are roles where he acquits himself nicely but he's undone for one reason or another. I don't think he's ever gotten closer to being a great actor than in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? With every year that goes on, he's more and more exceptional. And he accomplishes a rare feat of even getting us to laugh with Arnie. The scene where he kills the grasshopper is both touching and kind of funny honestly. If there was ever a time where I would consider voting for somebody playing special or challenged, it's here.

But it's between Pete Postlethwaite and Ralph Fiennes, and I'm going with Fiennes for reasons I'll address in a bit. Postlethwaite could not have been terribly expected but he's incredible in In the Name of the Father. I'm a sucker for performances by fathers who love their sons. I can't help it and I don't want to. He has a beautiful, real face, and we've never quite known what to do with him here. Ben Affleck never really understood him in The Town. He brings a terrifying quality that doesn't deserve the end that he gets. But yeah. It's a case of the performance being the character and vice versa, and you love both.

But I'm voting for Ralph Fiennes for this reason. I have a very big problem with Schindler's List. And that is that I don't know what the film is about. More than being a moral film, it's an act of remembrance on an epic scale, and beautifully done. Regardless of my issues, it is a devastating film to watch and incredible filmmaking that doesn't take away or distract. For the film to exist as a panorama of the Holocaust (which is the act of remembrance it wants to be) it needed to address the three figures who propagated the event and it ignores a big one. We have the business profiteer. We have the sociopath. Where is the man who goes along with it? Where is the person who is not strong enough to turn against the tide but in other situations would be not all that bad a person? I need another point of contrast to understand Oskar Schindler's conversion. I need to see more people turn a blind eye to understand why the business profiteer is the only one who can recognize loss.

And Fiennes keeps it balanced. His "subplot" is a parallel narrative that could have seemed awfully silly if Ralph Fiennes wasn't so compelling. There's Oskar as the Good Nazi and Amon as The Evil Nazi, and there is something not simply problematic but cheap seats about the other prominently featured Nazi being a sociopath. It's simplistic, goddammit! More than simplistic, he fucking falls for a Jewish girl! But Fiennes validates the focus. If he wasn't so goddamn good, the movie's seams would have shown more than they do. I'm talking about the way he underplays it, how he sexualizes his character's awakening. It's not a debut, but it feels like one. One of the many reasons why Schindler's List is notable is that it introduced us to Ralph Fiennes, an incredible actor who isn't used as strongly as he should be.

[Reza]

My picks for 1993:

1. Ralph Fiennes, Schindler's List
2. Leonardo DiCaprio, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
3. Sean Penn, Carlito's Way
4. Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive
5. John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire

The 6th Spot: Ben Kingsley, Schindler's List

[ksrymy]

Close, but no cigar. Landau starred in Mission: Impossible, which ran from 1965 to 1969. The Fugitive, which ran from 1963-1967, starred David Janssen. Barry Morse played the part that Tommy Lee Jones won his Oscar for. It was loosely based on the real life case of Dr. Sam Sheppard who spent ten years in jail for the 1954 murder of his wife, but was acquited on a re-trial in 1966 when the series was at the height of its popularity.

Wow, I must be tired today. I would NEVER confuse those shows.

[FilmFan720]

I'll join the parade of people calling this a milestone year for the category. I really find no fault on this list...they are all in my top 6 of the year, hands down.

I would replace Postlewaithe with Ben Kingsley, but don't begrudge him the nomination, especially with all the nominations Kingsley has picked up over the years.

Tommy Lee Jones is a lot of fun in The Fugitive, rattling off a handful of great one-liners with a serious aplomb that is so fun to watch. His character may be the shallowest of the 5 here, but you can't overlook what Jones does with so little to work with.

John Malkovich has one of his best screen roles with In the Line of Fire, and I agree with everything that Mister Tee says about that film. I do, however, take a slight reservation with the claim that he has never lived up to his possibility. Maybe on film that is true, but as a stage actor he has to be considered one of our greatest living actors (he gave the tribute at World Theatre Day this year), but maybe my Chicago roots are speaking too loudly here.

Ralph Fiennes creates one of the great film villains of all time in Schindler's List, and I am very tempted to vote for him.

But then there is Leonardo DiCaprio. This is truly his best accomplishment on screen, a role so touching and honest that I still have a hard time believing that this is the same DiCaprio we have today. When I saw it in my younger days, I thought he was actually a handicapped kid in the film.

My choices for the year:

1. Leonardo DiCaprio, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
2. Ralph Fiennes, Schindler’s List
3. Ben Kingsley, Schindler’s List
4. John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire
5. Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive

[Mister Tee]

Sign me on for "best slate ever in this category" -- people said so at the time, and I see no need for revisionism. A measure of how strong it was: when Carlito's Way opened in October, a significant number of critics declared Sean Penn a shoo-in for a nomination; yet it's hard to argue he should replace any of these five. Beyond that, there was Chazz Palminteri, who (along with director/co-star Robert DeNiro) adapted his stage success A Bronx Tale and made a big enough impression to start a career, yet barely rated consideration. (His nod a year later was at least partially a make-up for his) Any one of these seven would have been undeniable candidates in a lesser year. And I'd argue all five eventual nominees might have won with lesser competition.

That said, we must pick among the stellar group.

Probably Italiano is right, that winner Tommy Lee Jones was the least deserving. The Fugitive was a quite entertaining late summer attraction, and Jones provided the personality in the film. But his performance was one more noted for "cool" moments, rather than insightful ones. He won largely on box office and career points. Not a disgraceful win, but a disappointing one in context.

For me, Pete Postlethwaite is eliminated next. I think he's perfectly solid in an interesting role, but he doesn't quite take it to the next level, the way the remaining three candidates did. I'm certainly glad for him his career had this milestone.

The next three I think would have been not only acceptable winners in normal years; they'd have been the sort of winners we'd applaud years later -- really top of the line choices.

I was introduced to Leonardo DiCaprio early in the year with This Boy's Life. Though I found the movie a bit less than advertised, I thought DiCaprio was the real deal...well more interesting than DeNiro in the film. That he then came up with the Gilbert Grape performance later in the year made it a huge breakthrough (of course, it was a year for multiple credits: Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter, Debra Winger, Anthony Hopkins all had more than one major hit in that bounteous year). We all sneer at how easy it is for actors to get nominated for "retard" work, but I think it's hard to work up much animosity toward DiCaprio's gentle, affecting work. I'm still waiting for him to approach this level as an adult actor.

Speaking of breakthroughs...Ralph Fiennes was unknown to most of us when he stepped forth as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He was pretty sensational, in a way he's struggled to match on screen since. I can certainly understand alot of people going for his evil-yet-somehow-human Nazi figure.

But I'm the one who voted for John Malkovich, at least partly in support of his film, In the Line of Fire. Because the film was a genre piece, and because its summer commercial thunder was a bit stolen by the later-opening The Fugitive, I think In the Line of Fire has become somewhat under-rated. It got exceptional reviews when it opened; I thought it was a certain best picture nominee, until the year turned out to be so stuffed with contenders. It did get screenplay and editing nominations along with the supporting nod, indicating it had clout in hipper branches. But Janet Maslin at the Times, among others, seemed much more favourably disposed toward The Fugitive, which hurt the film's critical cache. I think Maslin really missed the boat here. The Fugitive, as I said, is thoroughly enjoyable...but I find Line of Fire substantially richer, thematically. (If you think in HItchcock terms, Fugitive is one of the baubles -- To Catch a Thief, maybe -- but Line of Fire is closer to Strangers on a Train or Shadow of a Doubt). The relationship between Eastwood and Malkovich is fascinating -- inspiring Eastwood to, I think, his best screen acting (better than either of his nominations), and Malkovich to create one of the most fascinating, insinuating villains of recent memory. The film peaks, for me, in the scene where Eastwood is dangling from the rooftop, and Malkovich offers him the chance to kill him by putting the barrel of Eastwood's gun in his mouth. Eastwood's character is literally offered the chance to do the secret service man's job: give up his life to save the president's life. But he knows no one will understand he's done it, and thus he'll be denied the redemption he's been seeking all film long. I'm told Malkovich improvised the gun-in-mouth gesture...which shows how in tune with both his character and the overall film he was.

As Italiano says, Malkovich was at that point still expected to be a world-class actor, something at which he's fallen short, at least in American terms. But in memory of this one peak I feel he reached, and in tribute to a film I think history has short-changed, he gets my vote here.

[mlrg]

Ralph Fiennes

[ITALIANO]

I checked and yes, it was actually shown on Italian tv in the 60s... I don't know how successful it was here though - the fact that I had never heard of it probably means that it never achieved the cult status it seems to have in the US.

[Big Magilla]

(I think it was based on a tv series which, while completely unknown in Italy, must have been very popular in the US).

Extremely popular actually. I believe it had the most-watched finale in TV history up until the M*A*S*H finale.

It's also highly cited as one of the greatest and most influential shows in American TV (and maybe world TV for all I know).

It also got Martin Landau into the mainstream.

Close, but no cigar. Landau starred in Mission: Impossible, which ran from 1965 to 1969. The Fugitive, which ran from 1963-1967, starred David Janssen. Barry Morse played the part that Tommy Lee Jones won his Oscar for. It was loosely based on the real life case of Dr. Sam Sheppard who spent ten years in jail for the 1954 murder of his wife, but was acquited on a re-trial in 1966 when the series was at the height of its popularity.

[ksrymy]

(I think it was based on a tv series which, while completely unknown in Italy, must have been very popular in the US).

Extremely popular actually. I believe it had the most-watched finale in TV history up until the M*A*S*H finale.

It's also highly cited as one of the greatest and most influential shows in American TV (and maybe world TV for all I know).

It also got Martin Landau into the mainstream.

[Big Magilla]

I don't know if this is the best line-up ever in this category, but it is certainly one with which I have no quarrel. All five nominees were at the top of their game and all five deserved their nominations.

Pete Postlethwaite as Daniel Day-Lewis' dad in In the Name of the Father was the surprise. The Globes had nominated Sean Penn in Carlito's Way along with the other four and the BAFTAs would nominated Ben Kingsley in Schindler's List, but Oscar made the right choice.

Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) and John Malovich (In the Line of Fire) were superb in popcorn flicks, but for me it was between evil incarnate Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List and the innocent Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape with innocnece winning out.

[ITALIANO]

Wow. Unlike for the other three acting categories - whose most legendary races happened before I started following the Oscar (actually often before I was even born) - at least for Best Supporting Actor I can actually say: "I was there": one of its best line-ups happened during my time, and it's this one.

In typical Academy fashion, the least deserving won (before someone says it, and since most here will think it anyway: a typical case of vote-splitting, the four best canceled each other out and the worst profited from this, etc. Sasha Stone will be proud of me now). It's not that Tommy Lee Jones was that bad of course, and we know that he can be very good, but for some reason the movie, which was just average action fare and not especially exciting action fare, was a big hit back then (I think it was based on a tv series which, while completely unknown in Italy, must have been very popular in the US). Tommy Lee Jones was clearly a respected actor, and the moment The Fugitive made the Best Picture list with four infinitely superior movies we all knew he'd won.

This made our disappointment more bearable, of course - we were prepared to the fact that four brilliant performances didn't really have a chance to win. Because for example even In the Line of Fire was "just" an action movie, but a more intriguing and more intelligent one, and John Malkovich was extremely effective, and I'd say extremely subtle, too, as the non-cliched "bad guy". (What an actor he was and still is, and what an interesting, unconventional American he seems to be. Too bad cinema seems to have never fully handled his potential - Malkovich could have become one of the greatest film actors of his time, but even in Italy - where at least once he used to live - after Bertolucci he only got those Nespresso advertisements with fellow expat George Clooney).

Leonardo Di Caprio may have given a good performance last year in J. Edgar, but not as good as the one in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, which is still probably his best (I'm not sure he'd be too happy reading this). A beautiful, touching, believable portrayal of innocence in a movie which is probably more celebrated today than it was when it first came out.

These two were very, very good. The next two were even better - and it's actually very difficult for me to make a choice. Pete Postlethwaite or Ralph Fiennes? Both were not famous names at the time - though of course Fiennes soon would become, almost reluctantly, a star, and Postlethwaite, who obviously didn't have the same kind of appeal, would still become a familiar face playing atypical supporting roles. (He had, by the way, a strange, unique face). Both were given intense, memorable characters; both seemed to completely immerse themselves in these characters, to "become" these characters. For different reasons, their approach to these roles could be studied in acting schools; I pick Postlethwaite now, but I can't exclude that this is partly because Fiennes's performance is at times, and rightly, deeply disturbing.

[Precious Doll]

This is the best line-up in the history of this particular category with every performance displaying each actor at the top of their craft.

My choices:

1. Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive
2. Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List
3. John Malkovich for In the Line of Fire
4. Leonardo DiCaprio for This Boys Life
5. Leonardo DiCaprio for What's Eating Gilbert Grape?