This year’s pool of nominees for the Academy Awards’ Best Actress category has a bunch of familiar faces back in the hunt, plus a couple of debutantes that made huge splashes on the silver screen just the same.
And unlike this year’s nominees for Best Actor (which you can easily scope out via our special preview here), these fine damsels of the thespian arts’ are a little too close for comfort in the race for the golden statuette.
Let’s now run down the five nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and how each of them stands at winning the coveted Oscar. Once you’ve brushed up on the marquee male and female categories of the film industry’s most prestigious awards ceremony, check out our coverage on the Best Picture category as well to round out your Academy Awards betting experience.
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Oscars: Best Actress Odds and Preview
Favorite
Brie Larson (Room)
Brie Larson’s breakout performance in Room has captivated most critics and filmgoers, that most of those same people that gave glowing reviews have her locked already to win the Best Actress in a Leading Role award at the Oscars. With that in mind, she is rightfully and currently priced at -350 as the leading favorite to take home the gold in just her first-ever Academy Award nomination.
In Room, Larson harrowingly plays the role of Ma, a protective and devoted mother who was trapped and made to raise her five-year-old son, Jack, in a restrained shed aptly named “Room”. As Jack grows curious about the world outside of Room, Ma finally submits to the idea of escaping their confines, but only to be challenged with the harsh realities of the outside world.
Although Larson has had critical praise for her previous work – most notably from the 2013 indie darling Short Term 12 – Room is undoubtedly her biggest role to date, which evidently brought out the best of her normally pensive and mysterious persona.
Considering that the rest of the nominees already had previous success in Oscars’ past, and that Larson fittingly took home the Golden Globe for Best Actress already, the Academy will more than likely be inclined to tout a relatively new female lead that’s more than deserving of their award just the same.
Sleepers
Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
When 21-year-old Saoirse Ronan takes to the screen, she makes sure that she has your full attention. And in Brooklyn, her latest outing, she got the role that she was literally born to play.
The film highlights the trials of an Irish immigrant girl named Eilis Lacey, who falls in love with a local New Yorker only to be put in a dilemma where she has to decide whether she should stay in Brooklyn or tend to a pressing family matter back in her homeland.
Born in The Bronx and raised in County Carlow, Ireland, Ronan is a perfect fit for the part of Eilis, and conveyed much of her lineage’s traits in full display on Brooklyn indeed. However, the movie falls short of the gravitas that Room ultimately brings to the table, which would probably explain why Ronan is only priced at +500 to win Best Actress come February 28.
Cate Blanchett (Carol)
No stranger to success at the Academy Awards, Cate Blanchett’s third-career nomination for the lead actress in Carol could very well solidify her as one of the all-time greats. In director Todd Haynes’ gorgeous period piece, Blanchett plays the titular character that gets intertwined in a same-sex relationship with a much younger woman during the 1950s.
Similar to Ronan as Eilis Lacey Brooklyn, though, Blanchett’s role of Carol Aird does not bring as much emotional weight as Larson’s character in Room. In addition, the Australian gem had just recently won the Best Actress award for her role in Blue Jasmine in 2014, and even already has a Supporting Actress nod to her credit as well from her part in 2005’s The Aviator.
With such accolades under her belt already, we may have to wait another year for Blanchett (+700) to add another golden statuette to her already impressive resume should the Academy grant the Best Actress award this year to another burgeoning star.
Jennifer Lawrence (Joy)
Speaking of young actresses on the rise, it’s pretty much safe to assume that 25-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is no longer and up-and-comer, but rather a truly bankable leading lady for years to come.
Lawrence’s latest performance as Joy in the film of the same name portrays the rise of an ambitious Italian-American entrepreneur-turned-matriarch of a successful dynasty. With such a compelling premise and her magnetism as a gruff leading lady, Lawrence became the youngest actress to reach four lifetime Oscar nominations.
Working against her prospects of winning a second leading role Oscar, though, is that many claim Joy to be writer/director David O. Russell’s most uninspired work to date. Throw in the thought that the general public might probably have gone tired of Russell’s go-to ensemble of Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro for the past few features of his, and J-Law’s current price of +800 at winning another Oscar seems just about right at this point.
Long Shot
Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
From virtually out of nowhere, veteran actress Charlotte Rampling earned one of the five Best Actress slots for her role in the underrated drama 45 Years. In the film, the 69-year-old Brit plays the wife of a couple that’s about to celebrate their wedding anniversary, only to be taken aback by a ground-breaking discovery.
In the four decades of her acting career, Rampling has never been nominated for an Oscar at all, until now. Then again, her current nod was quite a shock on its own, considering that she wasn’t nominated for the three other notable awards preceding the Oscars (Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA) .
Many also felt that the Academy just needed a token elderly Englishwoman (see: Helen Mirren, Judi Dench) as one of the annual candidates for the award, and Rampling’s inclusion does indeed feel forced in this context.
If you’re the type who likes to bet on those going up against nearly insurmountable odds, then banking on Rampling to win it all at +3,500 is as good as it gets for a major haul and upset alike.
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