Watch scenes for the performances nominated in the category of best supporting actress at the 95th annual Academy Awards, as well as interviews with the stars at the links below.
The Oscars will be presented on March 12.
Angela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
Angela Bassett (whose credits include “Boyz n the Hood,” “Malcolm X,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” “Strange Days,” and “Mission Impossible: Fallout”) received her first Oscar nomination for her starring role as singer Tina Turner in the 1993 biopic “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” Three decades later, she became the first actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for a performance in a Marvel superhero film.
In “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Bassett reprises her role as Ramonda, Queen Mother of Wakanda, mother of the late T’Challa, who seeks to protect her nation and the power it possesses through its exclusive control of vibranium.
In this scene, she strips General Okoye (Danai Gurira) of her power, following a fateful confrontation with a race of superhumans desperate to acquire vibranium.
Bassett won the Golden Globe for her performance.
“Queen Ramonda, for me, is just, at its core, a representation of the strong women that I’ve had in my life who’ve raised me, of the strong women I see, my love for them, my appreciation of them,” Bassett told “CBS Mornings.”
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is playing in theaters, available on demand and on home video, and streaming via Disney+.
Hong Chau, “The Whale”
In Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” Chau plays Liz, a nurse who is caring for a morbidly-obese English teacher, Charlie (played by Oscar-nominee Brendan Fraser). Liz is practically the reclusive man’s only friend, the only person who could possibly convince him to get the medical attention he so obviously needs. She is also protective of him, with regard to a visiting missionary who is intent upon “saving” Charlie.
In this scene she examines Charlie after he experiences chest pains, with an air of patience and tired resignation. But we will learn that not only is her connection to Charlie closer than that of a caretaker; Liz also learns that she has been lied to by Charlie about his money, which he’d planned to leave to his estranged daughter.
Chau’s credits include “Inherent Vice,” “Big Little Lies,” “Homecoming,” “Watchmen,” “Driveways,” and “Downsizing” (for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award). She’d actually stepped away from acting, having recently had a baby, but Aronofsky had written the part of Liz for her (even though the script didn’t specify the character as being Asian).
“The Whale” got Chau back before the camera, and she has continued with roles in “Showing Up” (opposite Michelle Williams) and “The Menu” (with Ralph Fiennes).
“The Whale” is Chau’s first Academy Award nomination.
“The Whale” is playing in theaters, and is available on demand and on home video.
Kerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Kerry Condon (“Rome,” “Better Call Saul”) won the BAFTA Award for her performance as Siobhán, the sister of Pádraic (Colin Farrell), who acts as a go-between in her brother’s efforts to make amends and re-establish his broken friendship with Colm (Brendan Gleeson). At the same time, she is looking beyond the tiny island off the Irish coast where she lives with her brother, looking for a future for herself on the mainland.
In this scene, Siobhán addresses a very unwelcome overnight guest, Dominic (Oscar-nominee Barry Keoghan), who questions why she’d never gotten married.
In this scene she gently lets down Dominic and his romantic aspirations:
Condon had a long history working with Irish playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh, appearing in his plays “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” and “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” as well as his 2017 film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
She told “CBS Mornings” that while she initially thought her character in “Banshees” wouldn’t be as much fun as the roles she played in McDonagh’s plays, she decided that “it was actually a bit harder, because it was for a more mature girl. Like, I don’t think I could have done this if I was 18 or 19. I needed all of these years of, like, learning things about life and disappointments and sadness.”
This is her first Academy Award nomination.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” is playing in theaters, available on demand and home video, and streaming on HBO Max
Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
She leaped to fame as the star of the 1978 shocker “Halloween,” and quickly became the movies’ “Scream Queen,” in such horror films as “The Fog,” “Prom Night” and “Terror Train,” and in hard-edged thrillers like “Blue Steel.” But Jamie Lee Curtis’ greatest gifts are in comedy, as evidenced by her sprightly turns in such hits as “Trading Places,” “A Fish Called Wanda,” “True Lies,” “Freaky Friday” and “Knives Out.”
In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Curtis plays Deirdre Beaubeirdre, a divorced IRS auditor investigating the mess of a tax return submitted by Evelyn and Waymond Wang (Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan).
Curtis would play variations of her character in the alternate worlds that are revealed in The Daniels’ multiverse action-comedy, including a love interest for Evelyn Wang, in a universe where they both sport hot dog fingers. (Consequently, Deirdre must play the piano with her toes.)
Playing Beaubeirdre, Curtis got to let it all hang out, literally. “I know women like Deirdre Beaubeirdre,” she told “Sunday Morning.” “I think we all do. We all have had so many disappointments, so many opportunities that then break your heart. And I think that Deirdre’s heart has just been broken. I know her. And I love her.”
Curtis won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance. This is her first Academy Award nomination.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is now in theaters, and available on demand and home video, and streaming on Showtime
Stephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Stephanie Hsu (whose credits include “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Path,” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”) stars as Joy, a young queer woman struggling in her relationship with her mother, laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh). In addition to the mother-daughter tensions that are exacerbated by her Asian immigrant’s traumatic past, Evelyn also finds herself pitted against a nihilistic manifestation of Joy from an alternate universe.
In this scene, Joy transforms into Jobu Tupaki, a powerful being who threatens to destroy every universe.
In this scene, the main universe Evelyn reconciles with Joy, who fears that, unlike what other multiverse versions of Joy may offer her mother, she is only Joy: “Here, all we’ll get are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes any sense.”
“I think one of my favorite things about ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ is that it’s about so many things, that it’s somehow able to transcend identity politics,” Hsu told CBS Bay Area station KPIX. “That it is centered around a Chinese family, but it launches into the multiverse, so many things are happening all at once, that you forget that you’re focusing on a Chinese immigrant family.”
This marks the first Academy Award nomination for Hsu.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is now in theaters, and available on demand and home video, and streaming on Showtime
Also:
See more:
