Oscars afterglow: How many of this year’s acting nominees will be back next year?
As we wind down this year’s Oscar season, we at Gold Derby are already looking forward to next year’s. Clearly, we can’t get enough. But next year’s Academy Awards season could also concern this year’s as the Oscars afterglow effect could be in full force. Actors can often garner a quick follow-up nomination after breaking through in the nominations list the year prior. Eddie Redmayne accomplished this when he followed up his 2015 Best Actor win for “The Theory of Everything” with a 2016 Best Actor bid for “The Danish Girl.” Similarly, Octavia Spencer was nominated for Best Supporting Actress two years in a row — in 2017 for “Hidden Figures” and in 2018 for “The Shape of Water.” So, which of these year’s acting nominees could return next year? Let’s take a look.
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper has an exciting project that should be out in time for next year’s Oscars. He directs and stars in “Is This Thing On?,” which his friend Will Arnett writes and co-stars in. Plot details are being kept under wraps but Cooper has been nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor for both of his directorial entries so far: “A Star is Born” and this year’s “Maestro” (for which he’s also nominated for Best Original Screenplay). It’ll be on the radar.
Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”) and Colman Domingo (“Rustin”) both earned their first Oscar nominations this year and they’ve got interesting projects lined up. Wright will feature in “The Batman Part II” as Commissioner Gordon while Domingo will feature in two biopics about musical legends. He’ll play Nat King Cole in the biopic of the same name while he will feature in Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael Jackson biopic “Michael.” It’s that one that Domingo could be back in the Oscars conversation for next year — he plays Joe Jackson, Michael’s father. It feels like a Supporting Actor nomination is realistic.
Meanwhile, Cillian Murphy will portray Australian writer and activist Richard Neville in “Hippie Hippie Shake.” It could be another hit biopic for Murphy, who is expected to win Best Actor this year for “Oppenheimer.” His closest rival, Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”) doesn’t have anything on his slate at the moment.
Best Actress
Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) are in a two-way fight for Best Actress. Stone collaborates again with Yorgos Lanthimos for her film and she has two upcoming Lanthimos projects on her slate. “Kinds of Kindness” plot details are scarce but “Poor Things” actor Willem Dafoe and “The Favourite” star Joe Alwyn will also feature in the film. The other Lanthimos project is untitled and it’s not clear if it’ll be in the running for 2025. But “Kinds of Kindness” should be. So far, Stone has earned two Oscar nominations for two projects with Lanthimos. Could it be three for three?
Gladstone, meanwhile, has a coming-of-age story (“Jazzy”) and a complex drama from writer Charlie Kaufman (“The Memory Police”). The latter follows a select number of people who can remember things that go out of existence on a strange island while the Memory Police try to erase their memories forever. It could see Gladstone back in the Best Actress conversation.
Meanwhile, Annette Bening (nominated for “Nyad”) will feature in a high-profile project — Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s next outing as a director. It’s untitled as of yet but will star Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale while the plot is a take on Frankenstein in 1930s Chicago that will center on social change. It doesn’t sound a million miles away from “Poor Things” so if this is released in time for 2025 (it’s in pre-production), it could be a hot contender.
Sandra Hüller (nominated this year for “Anatomy of a Fall”) will feature in a stirring drama set in East Germany in the 1990s that concerns the reunification of the country. “Maestro” nominee Carey Mulligan doesn’t have anything on her slate that seems like it could enter the 2025 Oscars race, however.
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr., who is expected to win this category for “Oppenheimer,” has no major films as an actor but he is producing Richard Linklater’s next movie, a John Brinkley biopic. Meanwhile, Sterling K. Brown (“American Fiction” nominee) will lead the line in “The Defender,” a legal drama following Scipio Africanus Jones, who defended 87 men wrongfully accused of murder. That could see him quickly reinstated to the Oscars lineup next year now that the academy has shown they like him as a performer. “Poor Things” nominee Mark Ruffalo has a curious entry — he will feature in Bong Joon Ho‘s next movie “Mickey 17” opposite Robert Pattinson. The story follows a robot trying to defeat his clone on an icy planet. It’s unclear when this will be released but it should come in time for next awards season.
“Barbie” Ryan Gosling will feature in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller‘s “Project Hail Mary,” which depicts an astronaut trying to save Earth from outer space. This could be this year’s “Gravity,” perhaps, so might Gosling get an Oscar nod for leading the line in an almost-solo film set in space like Sandra Bullock in “Gravity” or Matt Damon in “The Martian?” Let’s see. Meanwhile, “Killers of the Flower Moon” star Robert De Niro will feature in Barry Levinson‘s “Alto Knights,” which will follow Italian American mobsters Vito Genovese and Frank Costello in the 1950s. De Niro is currently credited as playing both men, which is intriguing.
Best Supporting Actress
This category is a little slimmer. Danielle Brooks (“The Color Purple”), Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”), Jodie Foster (“Nyad”), and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”) all don’t have anything major on their slates that could be in the Oscars running next year. However, “Barbie” nominee America Ferrera could be a serious contender for Best Actress next year. She will star in Paul Greengrass‘ “The Lost Bus,” which will depict what went wrong in California’s Camp Fire. Matthew McConaughey is also starring in this and the academy loves Greengrass, so it could be a genuine contender.
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