There’s really no reason to spend any more time predicting this category than Isabella Rosselini appears on screen in Conclave. BAFTA could still do the most BAFTA thing imaginable and actually hand its prize to Rossellini, whose Sister Agnes holds out longer before handing Ralph Fiennes’s Cardinal Lawrence access to the Vatican’s entire database than has any single U.S. federal branch when DOGE has came knocking. But realistically, for months this Oscar has been Zoe Saldaña’s to lose, no more so than when it became painfully clear that Wicked’s Ariana Grande was just about the only alternative choice putting up much of a fight.
Even as Emilia Pérez’s Oscar campaign has gone full Chernobyl, Saldaña has repeatedly been propped up as one of the film’s 13 nominations expected to still sail through unscathed (more on the other one or two in due time). If anything, her candidacy—which to this point rested on her being a workhorse who’s consistently paid her dues, honing her triple-threat talents in a category-slumming lead role, universally recognized as transcending her surroundings—just secured the awards season’s last and most unexpected power boost. Saldaña, attached as she is to this year’s classic Oscar villain and somehow saving face even as the “from penis to vagina” production number keeps racking up meme points, is now also this year’s prime sympathy vote.
Will Win: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Could Win: Isabella Rosselini, Conclave
Should Win: Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
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