Colman Domingo could be Oscar bound for two roles this year
Daniel Montgomery recently wrote a wonderful item explaining that Colman Domingo — with his starring roles in “Rustin” and “The Color Purple” — could become the 13th performer to earn two acting Oscar nominations in the same year. The full list of the previous 12 can be found in Daniel’s piece, but Domingo would follow in the recent footsteps of Scarlett Johansson (nominated for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit” in 2020) and Cate Blanchett (nominated for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” and “I’m Not There” in 2007).
Daniel speculates whether or not Domingo, who is up for Best Actor for “Rustin” and Best Supporting Actor for “The Color Purple,” could win either award. But will Domingo even be nominated? Sure, there are a dozen stars who have landed two acting bids in the same year but there are far many more who have come close to earning dual bids but ultimately missed out on or both of those potential bids. Let’s take a look at an unlucky seven recent examples of those.
Actresses
Emily Blunt has come close to an Oscar nomination on several occasions, including for “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Girl on the Train.” However, she never came closer than she did in 2019 when she was appeared in both “Mary Poppins Returns” and “A Quiet Place.” She contended for the former at both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. At SAG she was nominated for both — Best Actress for “Mary Poppins Returns” and Best Supporting Actress for “A Quiet Place”; she won for the latter. However, BAFTA (her home country!) overlooked her completely — and so did the Oscars.
Kate Winslet, who has a total of seven Oscar nominations and one win to her name, had a great year in 2009. She won Best Actress for “The Reader” and also starred in “Revolutionary Road.” She was nominated for Best Actress at BAFTA for both films. At the Golden Globes, she won Best Drama Actress for “Revolutionary Road” and Best Supporting Actress for “The Reader.” She won Best Supporting Actress for “The Reader” at the SAGs while she was nominated for Best Actress for “Revolutionary Road” there, too. And she won Best Supporting Actress at the Critics Choice for “The Reader” as well. She was positioned as a lead at the Oscars for “The Reader” and that category confusion led to her being snubbed for “Revolutionary Road.”
And then there is Meryl Streep, who appeared in both “The Hours” and “Adaptation” in 2003. At BAFTA, she was nominated for Best Actress for “The Hours” and Best Supporting Actress for “Adaptation.” At the Golden Globes, she was nominated for Best Drama Actress for “The Hours” and won Best Supporting Actress for “Adaptation.” She was overlooked for both movies at the SAGs and earned a Best Supporting Actress bid for “Adaptation” at the Critics Choice Awards. That ended up correlating at the Oscars, where she was nominated only for Best Supporting Actress for “Adaptation.” Her co-stars in “The Hours” — Nicole Kidman (winner of Best Actress) and Julianne Moore (nominee for Best Supporting Actress) — were nominated.
Actors
Bradley Cooper is already a nine-time Oscar nominee but could have actually had more. He appeared in two Best Picture nominees in 2022 — “Licorice Pizza” and “Nightmare Alley,” and was a producer of the latter. His lead performance in that Guillermo del Toro movie was brilliant but he was snubbed by all major awards groups. He was nominated at SAG for Best Supporting Actor for Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Licorice Pizza,” showing that the appetite was there for his supporting turn in that movie.
Andrew Garfield had a better time of it in 2022, however, when he starred in both “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Garfield was nominated for Best Actor for “Tick, Tick… Boom!” at both SAG and the Critics Choice Awards, while he won Best Comedy Actor at the Golden Globes for the same picture. He went on to earn a Best Actor Oscar bid for that movie. However, he could have also earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” which was a hot project that year. Indeed Garfield’s co-star Jessica Chastain won Best Actress at the Oscars.
That same year Sacha Baron Cohen appeared in both “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” at both SAG and the Critics Choice Awards. Then, at the Golden Globes, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and won Best Comedy Actor for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” The Oscars overlooked his performance for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” but he did pick up a bid for Best Supporting Actor for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”
Leonardo DiCaprio won Best Actor in 2016 for “The Revenant” has a total of seven Oscar nominations to his name, including one for Best Actor in 2007 for “Blood Diamond.” That year, however, he also starred in Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.” This caused mix-ups at some awards groups, such as BAFTA, who nominated DiCaprio for Best Actor for “The Departed” but overlooked him for “Blood Diamond.” At the Golden Globes, however, he was nominated for Best Drama Actor for both movies. At the SAGs, he was nominated for Best Actor for “Blood Diamond” and Best Supporting Actor for “The Departed.” And at the Critics Choice Awards, he landed two Best Actor bids for both films. At the Oscars, though, he missed out completely for “The Departed,” which went on to win four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for Scorsese.
So, how will Domingo do? His role in “Rustin” looks to be a classic Best Actor choice. The movie is a biopic and Domingo portrays a real person, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. We know how much the Oscars love this sort of role — Austin Butler in “Elvis,” Will Smith in “King Richard” (winner), Javier Bardem for “Being the Ricardos,” and Garfield for “Tick, Tick… Boom!” are all recent examples of actors nominated for biopics. At the moment, we are predicting that DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), Cooper (“Maestro”), and Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”) will be nominated alongside Rustin for Best Actor.
Domingo also appears as Mister Johnson in “The Color Purple,” the role originally played by Danny Glover in Steven Spielberg‘s 1985 movie. Domingo is currently predicted to earn a Best Supporting Actor nomination alongside Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”), Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”), and John Magaro (“Past Lives”).
So, it remains to be seen whether Domingo can land both bids to become the 13th performer to earn two acting nominations in the same year. Perhaps Domingo will go the way of Robbie, Winslet, Streep, Garfield, Baron Cohen, and DiCaprio and earn just one of the two bids? Or will Domingo just be an also-ran and join the likes of Cooper and Blunt to miss out completely? Let’s wait and see how one of the most interesting narratives of this upcoming awards season will unfold.
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