FLASH: SEAN PENN GOES SUPPORTING
I learned today that Sean Penn, who has won the best actor Oscar twice during the past decade, will be pushed in the best supporting actor category for his performance as former ambassador Joe Wilson in Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” (Summit, 11/5, trailer).
Pundits, including myself, had assumed Penn would be pushed in the best actor category because a great deal of the film focuses on the domestic trials and tribulations faced by Wilson and his wife, the outed American spy Valerie Plame Wilson, who is played by Naomi Watts. I don’t have any solid number to share with you at the moment, but I can tell you from having seen the film that Watts doesn’t have much more screen time than Penn.
The move, however, is not completely unjustifiable — unlike, say, Kate Winslet being pushed in the best supporting actress category for what was obviously a lead performance in “The Reader” (2008), a suggestion that the Academy rejected by nominating her — and making her a winner — for it in the best actress category. In this case, one could argue that the film is about what happens to Watts’s character and how Penn’s character reacts to it, which is the general formula for most parts that get pushed in the supporting categories.
Besides, it makes eminent sense for those who would like to see Penn nominated. As respected as he is as an actor, he was not going to be able to crack the top five in the best actor field, which is packed this year with flashier and, frankly, more impressive performances. The best supporting actor category isn’t going to be a cakewalk, either — as many three guys from “The Social Network” and two guys from “True Grit” could make the cut, boosted by strong performances and their films’ overall strength, and then you’ve still got Geoffrey Rush (“The King’s Speech“), Christian Bale (“The Fighter“), Vincent Cassel (“Black Swan“), Sam Rockwell (“Conviction“), Mark Ruffalo (“The Kids Are All Right“), Bill Murray (“Get Low“), and Michael Douglas (“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps“) — but it’s still a more plausible option.
Penn may be helped by the fact that he doesn’t just play an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration’s behavior (in “Fair Game” he’s really the surrogate for everyone who watched what happened to his wife and was outraged), but has actually been one in real-life for years. Moreover, he has generated lots of goodwill over the past year for his truly selfless efforts to help with the recovery effort in Haiti (just Monday night he received the Hollywood Humanitarian Award at the Hollywood Film Festival’s awards gala).
Photo: Sean Penn as Joe Wilson in “Fair Game.” Credit: Summit.
Tags: Bill Murray, Black Swan, Christian Bale, Conviction, Doug Liman, Fair Game, Geoffrey Rush, Get Low, Haiti, Joe Wilson, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Douglas, Naomi Watts, Sam Rockwell, Sean Penn, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Reader, The Social Network, True Grit, Valerie Plame Wilson, Vincent Cassel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps