Penelope Cruz in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics)
At The Wrap, Steve Pond offers some cool insights into the Oscar ballots. For instance, in all but one category, voters are supposed to write down the name of the film — not the talent — on the ballot. So, if your best director picks for the 2010 Academy Awards are Pedro Almodóvar for Broken Embraces, Kiyoshi Kurosawa for Tokyo Sonata, and Michael Haneke for The White Ribbon (one can always dream), you have to write down Broken Embraces, Tokyo Sonata, and The White Ribbon.
The one exception to this rule is the acting category, in which Acting Branch voters must write down the name of the performers and their corresponding films. So, if you're voting for Yolande Moreau in Séraphine, you must write down Moreau's name and the name of the film. Else, you might write down, say, Meryl Streep, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers people wouldn't know if you want Streep for Julie & Julia or It's Complicated.
And if you're dimwitted enough to just write down Julie & Julia, they may think you may be voting for Amy Adams. Either way, your vote would be disqualified. The same would happen if you vote for, say, Helen Mirren in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Sandra Bullock in Avatar.
But the most interesting bit of information found in Pond's must-read piece is the following, in which he quotes a letter from acting branch governors Annette Bening, Tom Hanks, and Henry Winkler sent to Acting Branch voters:
"And then there’s this: 'If you think that a performance occupies a middle ground between leading and supporting, you may list it on your ballot in both categories.' [italics in the text] If a performance receives enough votes to be nominated in both categories, the letter says, PricewaterhouseCoopers will record a nomination 'in the category in which it received the most support.'
"(Technically, PwC tallies votes in the leading and supporting categories simultaneously, and the moment an actor receives a nomination in one category, he or she is eliminated from consideration in the other.)"
That may explain Kate Winslet's nomination as best actress for The Reader (above, with David Kross) last year, when The Weinstein Co. had been pushing her in the best supporting actress category so she wouldn't compete against herself in Revolutionary Road. (And thus have one of her performances disqualified, which is quite likely what happened.)
Now, what I find curious is that from what I've read before, if a performer got enough votes in both the lead and supporting categories for the same performance, s/he would automatically be nominated as a lead and the supporting nod would be discarded. The supporting performer in sixth place would then be shortlisted with the other four. According to what Pond quotes in his article, that is not the case.
Also, if the Oscar ballot counting is done simultaneously, and "the moment an actor receives a nomination in one category, he or she is eliminated from consideration in the other," how would the PwC people know who got the most votes in each category?
Photo: The Reader (Melinda Sue Gordon / The Weinstein Co.)
