George Clooney, Max von Sydow
George Clooney and Max Von Sydow chat away at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills held on Monday, February 6, 2012. Clooney is a Best Actor nominee for Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Von Sydow is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. (Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.)
Clooney’s competition for the Best Actor Academy Award consists of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz’s A Better Life, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Jean Dujardin for Michel Hazanavicius‘ The Artist.
In the acting categories, Clooney has three previous Oscar nominations: he won as Best Supporting Actor for Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005), and was nominated as Best Actor for Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton (2007) and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air (2009). Here’s wondering if Clooney — who gets shortlisted every other year — will earn his fifth acting nomination for a movie released in 2013. Among the myriad possibilities (in case those do get made and get a release next year) are The $700 Billion Man, Enron, Human Nature, The Monumental Men, The Boys from Belmont, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Von Sydow’s 2012 Best Supporting Actor competitors are SAG Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe winner Christopher Plummer for Mike Mills‘ Beginners, Nick Nolte for Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior, Kenneth Branagh (as Laurence Olivier) for Simon Curtis‘ My Week with Marilyn, and Jonah Hill — whose nomination seriously upset Adolf Hitler — for Moneyball.
Unlike George Clooney, Max von Sydow, who’ll be turning 83 next April 10, doesn’t have a whole array of movies lined up — though Matt Whitaker’s Truth & Treason is reportedly in the pre-production stages. Von Sydow, however, has an extensive list of highly prestigious credits: more than 100 movies spread over more than six decades.
Among von Sydow’s most important efforts are the many films (certainly not "movies") he made with Ingmar Bergman, including The Seventh Seal, The Magician, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Shame, and The Passion of Anna, opposite Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, and others; George Roy Hill’s Hawaii, with Julie Andrews; George Stevens‘ The Greatest Story Ever Told, with von Sydow as Jesus Christ; Jan Troell’s The Emigrants and The New Land; William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and, more recently, Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
The 2012 Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 26, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. In the United States, the Oscarcast will be broadcast live by the ABC Television Network.