Best Actor
Colin Firth
Two nominations, zero wins
The film: “The King’s Speech”
The performance: As King George VI, Firth’s performance is less about bestowing a sense of royalty than it is about a sense of deeply personal struggle. Charting simultaneously George VI’s initial reluctance to take the throne and his inability to communicate due to a crippling stutter, Firth is not only able to pull off a believable vocal stutter but to make you believe he’s trying to hide it even as he’s performing it. He turns the act of being king itself into a performance; the film explicitly equates being a monarch with being an “actor,” and Firth stuffs his performance with moments that carefully investigate that notion.
Who could upset? James Franco, “127 Hours”
Best Actress
Natalie Portman
Two nominations, zero wins
The film: “Black Swan”
The performance: Portman studied ballet for a year prior to filming, harshly dieting to trim her frame to almost dangerously skinny proportions. And while her dancing is certainly impressive and represents a stunning amount of effort, it’s her ability to convey deep fragility in her face that truly stuns. Take the moment when she calls her mother to tell her she’s won the top role in her company’s production of “Swan Lake” — her face gradually crumbles to a childlike mess of quivering features. In a film featuring dozens of oppressive close-ups, Portman more than responds to the challenge; her complex facial nuances are even more impressive than her dancing, and they instill the terror in the film’s shifty moves between reality and hallucinations.
Who could upset? Annette Bening, “The Kids Are All Right”
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale
First nomination
The film: “The Fighter”
The performance: When he first shows up on screen, Christian Bale is nearly unrecognizable. Playing a crack-addicted, washed-up prizefighter, his wiry frame and thin hair are the complete opposite of his iconic Bruce Wayne (“The Dark Knight”). Bale’s Dicky Eklund is the culmination of a decade’s worth of transformative, demanding roles where the actor has willingly stripped weight, gained muscle and tried his best to find ways to enter the complex psychologies of his characters. He lends Dicky a sense of true tragedy, of a man wholly undone by his fatal flaws, but in his many humorous and flamboyant moments, he also makes him stunningly real and accessible.
Who could upset? Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”
Best Supporting Actress
Melissa Leo
Two nominations, zero wins
The film: “The Fighter”
The performance: Melissa Leo’s emotionally manipulative mother and business manager is the kind of performance that usually devolves into parody or caricature. While she enters the film a conniving schemer, one who refuses to recognize the needs of her boxer sons so long as she can net a profit off them, Alice Ward gradually recognizes her flaws even if she cannot figure out how to correct them. Her decisions on camera create an uncompromising, detestable figure who is nevertheless wholly identifiable and empathetic — a truly demanding and artful balancing act.
Who could upset? Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”