Why Cillian will definitely win the best actor Oscar!*
* May not actually be definite, but he’s on the same track as Daniel Day Lewis!
GOLDEN Globe winner Cillian Murphy looks nailed-on to win Best Actor at the Oscars in March – according to an Irish Mail on Sunday prediction formula that would impress J Robert Oppenheimer himself.
And it’s not just us who say it – the Corkman is hot favourite with the bookies and industry voices to win one of the top four most prestigious Oscars.
The 47-year-old won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama last Sunday for his portrayal of the physicist and ‘father of the atomic bomb’ J Robert Oppenheimer, in Christopher Nolan’s critically-lauded biopic.
Of the seven previous Irish Golden Globe successes in categories eligible for an Oscar (ie for movies – the Golden Globes celebrates television as well), only Daniel Day Lewis (who was born and raised in England but was the son of Laois-born poet Cecil Day Lewis) has gone on to land the big one.
He followed his 1989 Oscar win for My Left Foot with another for There Will Be Blood in 2007 and a third in 2012 for Lincoln – the latter two coming after Golden Globes successes. Interestingly, while nominated for a Golden Globe for My Left Foot, he was beaten by
Tom Cruise’s performance in Born on the Fourth of July.
In more recent years, U2 won a Golden Globe for their song
The Hands That Built America (from Gangs of New York) in 2003 but lost at the Oscars to Lose Yourself by Eminem.
And in 2014 their song Ordinary Love, from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, won a Golden Globe, but lost to Let It Go from Frozen two months later.
Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe last year for The Banshees of Inisherin and for In Bruges in 2009. He was nominated for an Oscar for Banshees but lost out to Brendan Fraser for The Whale.
And Saoirse Ronan followed up a Golden Globe win for Lady Bird in 2018 with an Oscar nomination but lost to three-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand (for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) two months later.
However, Farrell and Ronan won their Golden Globes in the categories of best actor/ actress in a comedy or musical. Day Lewis – like Murphy – won (or was nominated) in the drama category, which industry experts say is much more likely to translate to Oscars’ success.
Fionnuala Halligan, who is executive editor of the UK-based industry magazine Screen International, said drama ‘tends to do better at the Oscars’.
‘It is hard for comedy because people want the awards to have meaning; they want the awards to reflect the business,’ she told the MoS. ‘They tend to vote for the heftier performances.’
For that reason, she does not expect Barry Keoghan to repeat his Golden Globe nomination for Saltburn at the Oscars: ‘If there’s going to be a comedy nomination, it’s going to be Paul Giamatti for The Holdovers,’ she said.
Another detail that bodes well for Murphy is his nomination this week for a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award.
The SAG winner for best actor has gone on to lift the Oscar 23 times since 1995. Day Lewis followed both of his Golden Globe wins with a SAG award, before scooping his Oscars.
Murphy, who has never previously been nominated for an Oscar, is favourite to win at the SAG awards, which are voted on by fellow actors.
‘It tends to be that if an actor is well-liked by their peers and gives a great performance, then there you go – end of story,’ Ms Halligan said.
‘Then following the SAG and the Golden Globes you would have the momentum.
‘That’s not to say things can’t change, but [Murphy] does have some momentum.’
The Dublin-born film expert thought Murphy’s would be ‘the performance to beat’ after seeing Oppenheimer.
But she added that she expected fellow Irishman Andrew Scott to give him a run for his money after seeing All Of Us Strangers.
‘But since [film studio] Searchlight aren’t really pushing it for awards in the US, I personally would see that [Murphy] is the favourite,’ Ms Halligan said.
The other Irish Oscar-winners for acting roles are Brenda Fricker, who won in 1989 for her supporting role in My Left Foot, and Barry Fitzgerald, who took Best Supporting Actor for 1944’s Going My Way.
‘People tend to vote for heftier performances’
‘Hard for comedy as people want meaning’