Will Claire Foy or Jean Smart be the next to win Best Supporting Actress Oscar after taking home Emmys?
Five of the last eight winners of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress were previous Emmy champs. At this year’s Oscars, there are multiple Emmy winners gunning for that prize. Will any of them be able to continue the trend?
It all started in 2014 when Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for her performance in “Boyhood” nearly a decade after winning her first Emmy for “Medium.” In 2016 Viola Davis won the Oscar for “Fences” over a year after winning an Emmy for the first season of “How to Get Away with Murder.” In 2017 Allison Janney, who had received seven Emmys over the course of 15 years, won an Oscar for “I, Tonya.” In 2018 Regina King won an Oscar for “If Beale Street Could Talk” after pulling off three surprise Emmy wins over the course of three years. And in 2019 Laura Dern won an Oscar for “Marriage Story” over two years after winning an Emmy for the first season of “Big Little Lies.”
The Emmy winners who are in contention for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars this year are Claire Foy (“Women Talking”) and Jean Smart (“Babylon”). Let’s take a look back at their prior success at the Emmys and consider the roles that could get them the Oscar.
In “Women Talking,” Foy plays Salome Friesen, the younger daughter of her family’s matriarch, Agata (Judith Ivey). Foy previously won two Emmys for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II on “The Crown,” and both times were considered upsets. In 2018 many were predicting Elisabeth Moss to win Best Drama Actress for the second year in a row for “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Yet Foy managed to prevail for her second and final season as a series regular on her show. Then at the 2021 Creative Arts Emmys, Mckenna Grace was expected to win Best Drama Guest Actress for the fourth season of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” But Foy, who was ranked third in Gold Derby’s combined odds, pulled off a big shocker of a win for only two minutes of screen time in a fourth-season flashback on “The Crown.”
Shortly after winning her first Emmy, Foy was actually predicted to receive a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as Janet Armstrong in “First Man,” but she was snubbed that time. According to Gold Derby’s combined predictions for this year’s race, though, she is currently in second place with 17/2 odds for “Women Talking” (behind her co-star Jessie Buckley).
In “Babylon,” Jean Smart plays Elinor St. John, a formidable film critic and Hollywood journalist during the industry’s transition from silent to sound in the late 1920s. Over the past 22 years Smart has managed to win five Emmys. The first two were in Best Comedy Guest Actress for her recurring role on “Frasier” in 2000 and 2001. The third was Best Comedy Supporting Actress in 2008 for her role as Virginia Newly on “Samantha Who?” Her two most recent wins were Best Comedy Actress for her starring role as Deborah Vance on “Hacks” in 2021 and 2022.
As of this writing Smart is in ninth place with 40/1 odds for Best Supporting Actress in “Babylon.” But the film hasn’t started screening yet (to date we only have the trailer to go on), so we’ll have to wait and see how Smart will stand out in a big ensemble cast that also consists of Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, and Eric Roberts.
So will Claire Foy or Jean Smart be adding an Oscar to their Emmys on her awards mantel next March 12?
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