Chasing the Gold: Ariana Grande Shakes Up the Race

Few Oscarological tenets are as dogmatically observed as the correlation between Best Supporting Actress winners and musicals nominated for Best Picture. Most pundits currently expect Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) to carry forth a streak started by Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago) in 2002 and upheld in 2012 and 2021 by, respectively, Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story). Since her film did not compete for the academy’s top prize, Jennifer Hudson is an outlier—but that hardly matters, considering Dreamgirls received more nominations than any other 2006 release and would have certainly contended for Best Picture had the category been expanded three years earlier. 

After Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-winning crime thriller/rock opera became a perceived heavyweight this season, Saldaña shot to the top of pundits’ predictions and has comfortably remained there since September. Playing an attorney who manages the affairs of a cartel boss (Karla Sofía Gascón) seeking gender-affirming surgery, Saldaña reminds audiences of her considerable skill as both a singer and dancer. Expected to join her for a nomination are Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Saoirse Ronan (Blitz), and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Nickel Boys). But a gust of laudatory wind from the north, if you will, has blown Wicked into the race for Best Picture—and with it a viable Best Supporting Actress contender in Ariana Grande.

Though once common, instances of multiple musicals competing in the same above-the-line categories nowadays are nonexistent, making this year’s field a potentially unique one in the modern era. Can the winning streak withstand multiple supporting ladies from Picture-nominated musicals vying for the prize? Should Saldaña and Grande cancel each other out, Deadwyler, Jones, and Ronan appear best advantaged. The latter’s victory could boost Emilia Pérez’s chances in another category, where one of its stars will almost certainly square off against Ronan—Best Leading Actress. The four-time nominee, tipped to receive two acting nods this year, has gotten louder praise for her top-billed performance as a recovering alcoholic in The Outrun than she has for a smaller turn in Steve McQueen’s WWII drama, but a Supporting win would block the possibility of a Still Alice-style result in Leading and leave open a clear path for Karla Sofía Gascón to take the gold. 

There’s still a very good chance, of course, that Saldaña or Grande winds up the winner. Not unlike recent Oscar recipient Robert Downey Jr., Saldaña is a multi-tentpole veteran who’s being celebrated for displaying dormant or previously unseen talent; a pop star performing well in a musical, on the other hand, may not be appreciated as the same kind of flex. Nevertheless, Grande’s film won’t be as divisive as Emilia Pérez has been so far and, like Chicago, Les Mis, and West Side Story, is based on a beloved stage production. 

Though a vote split could, as earlier demonstrated, theoretically help Emilia Pérez (so long as the gain is Ronan’s), Grande might prove detrimental to the Netflix MVP’s nomination haul by simply cracking the lineup—even if Saldaña ultimately takes the Oscar. Right outside the projected Top 5, Selena Gomez is angling to occupy a slot alongside her Emilia Pérez co-star. Gomez has friends in high buildings, so to speak, but will two Disney-Channel-alum-turned-pop-stars manage to clinch nominations in the same year? The Only Murders in the Building Emmy nominee has garnered favorable notices (and is a quarter of this year’s Best Actress recipient at Cannes) for playing the title character’s scorned wife. Still,  the role is significantly smaller than Saldaña’s and doesn’t provide the sort of scene-stealing material that made “Banshee boys” Barry Keoghan and Brendan Gleeson a package deal two years ago. Her character also isn’t as integral to the film as Stephanie Hsu’s is to Everything Everywhere All at Once. If the academy falls for Emilia Pérez the way it did for EEAAO, Gomez is likely to partake in the spoils. However, if the movie gets as polarized a reception from voters as it has from critics and underperforms on the morning nominations are announced, she might be its most expendable bid. In a contest between the two, Grande’s co-lead performance enjoys an edge over Gomez’s coattail candidacy.

Wicked’s embargo has yet to lift, but early word indicates that the race for Best Supporting Actress is far from over. If Saldaña and Grande both snag nominations (and their films are recognized in Best Picture), will one of the two women prevail and preserve the Supporting Actress/BP-nominated-musical stat, or will Wicked’s insurgency split the vote and break the spell?