Leading Actor 2006

Favorite category time! And with 3 performances that I've actually never seen before which is always nice. A fresh take is great to have. Which also begs the question: Is a first impression definitive? I'll say usually yes. But sometimes it's easy to change your opinion. I know that there's been a few films and performances that just didn't click until the second or third time I saw them. But I also like to think I'm not being overly critical or hateful with this blog and have been very open with my mind. It's something interesting to think about because critics always write about a film after seeing it once, so how many would change their reviews after a year or ten? It will be interesting to revisit all of my reviews after some time and see how they all hold up. On to the performances, though!

2006 Best Actor

Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

(I'll preface this by saying that I actually already wrote this review and it was the last one I had to write before publishing. Blogger screwed up somehow and I thought it was published but it didn't save anything I wrote which absolutely infuriates me. Second time this has happened! Grrrr. Anyway, I'll try to sum up what I wrote already.) It's really easy to see why Whitaker won Best Actor over the other nominees in this group. The performance is flashy unlike the rest of the nominees which absolutely sets him apart. Your eyes are glued to the screen whenever Whitaker is around and you end up wanting to return to him whenever the film focuses on the white doctor. Whitaker always seems to be holding back his acting abilities in other things I've seen from him and here he just absolutely let's go and turns everything up to 11. Ugandan President General Idi Amin is larger than life and quite the showman in reality and Whitaker is able to not only capture that essence but fully inhabit the character without devolving into caricature.  He's loud, bombastic and full of bravado but is able to eschew the overacting in favor of a more balanced and nuanced portrayal. The way Amin can be angry and blaming everyone but himself for his failures one moment only to morph that anger into raucous laughing and figuring out a way to turn the situation into someone else owing Amin a favor is a difficult display of emotions to pull off. Amin is a multi-layered person but instead of everything being revealed layer by layer, it's all presented as one mix of layers throughout the entire film. Whitaker does a marvelous job of navigating that rough acting terrain that lesser actors would have stumbled around in. Whitaker seems to enjoy this challenge and it shows in his deservedly rewarded performance.

Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond had the potential to be a very powerful movie with a message worth paying attention to. Instead, we got a self important, preachy mess with too many stock characters. One of the highlights, however, was DiCaprio's Zimbabwean diamond smuggler who helps a man get his family back so that he can get a huge diamond the man found. From the beginning, it's easy to guess how the story is going to play out. We know DiCaprio is going to convince Hounsou to take him to where he hid the diamond even though it takes a while to get to that point. Where DiCaprio excels is in how his character evolves throughout the story. It would be easy to have his character be a one-dimensional selfish smuggler that has an abrupt change of heart three-fourths of the way through to complete the most obvious character arc of all time. But DiCaprio takes the slow and subtle approach that works wonderfully well. His character stays obsessed with the big diamond but he comes to understand that helping Hounsou find his son and family is equally as important. That gradual realization is what sets DiCaprio apart from other actors. He's a soldier of fortune but even with all his personal problems, he shows he still has a heart beating somewhere in his chest. And it's not the sappy type of realization, either. It's not some Oscar bait-y moment where the score swells and DiCaprio has some lengthy monologue with tears in his eyes. It grows organically within the context of the film and feels like a real, natural moment. DiCaprio is for sure the best thing about Blood Diamond as he flexes his acting muscles as the brooding smuggler, showing that he's much more than a pretty face.

Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson

This is the Gosling we have come to expect in every film he's in. An actor in control of his craft. Dan is a drug addict that is able to function as a history teacher in inner city Brooklyn. Though he does come to school hungover, disheveled, and depressed. He lives off one night stands with bar floozies and flings with a teacher he works with. All of that summing up an addict that can't handle anything more than the drugs in their life. Gosling is actually a decent history teacher, shunning the required history "binder" and teaching real life history lessons to the kids so they understand dialectics and how/why history changes. Gosling inhabits the character as usual and gives a very natural performance. With drug addicts you typically get the extremes of the disease portrayed onscreen, but Gosling and the writers/directors forgo that easy avenue and let us into the life of a functioning addict. It's incredibly interesting and engaging to watch play out because Gosling is charming and doesn't need the coke/crack/alcohol to pick up women at the bar late on a school night. Luckily Gosling doesn't treat his character as a stale addict and we are entreated to a different portrayal of what an addict is and it makes us question what we know. That makes us question what we know and allows us to engage more as a viewer. It may not be the most flashy performance of the year but it definitely feels like the most real one of the year.

Peter O'Toole - Venus

I instantly liked O'Toole in this. Yes, instantly. He's delightful. He's funny and witty. He's charming. This is only the second movie of his that I've seen (the first being Lawrence of Arabia) and I'm very pumped to continue reviewing his performances if this is any indication of the quality. I know he's a hugely respected actor and basically is acting royalty and this clearly shows why. O'Toole shows that he is a force to be reckoned with. Just the way he acts is amazing. It's instantly powerful and engaging at the same time. We know O'Toole is one of the best actors of all time, but here he demonstrates just how easy he makes that distinction look. He is a hilarious actor. He does all of the British humor in a very subtle way, yet I was laughing hysterically throughout this movie and a lot of that was because of Mr. O'Toole. I can understand why the Academy liked his performance. If I had not watched it, I would have guessed it was the Academy rewarding an actor considered one of the best ever and wanting to see him nominated again and possibly win. But this nomination is absolutely warranted. It's fantastic and shows the depth of Mr. O'Toole's acting because it is so varied. He longs for the young woman but never makes it truly creepy or weird and we as the audience commiserate because we've all been in a situation where someone hasn't returned our favors. It's a universal performance that probably only Peter O'Toole could pull off.

Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness

Will Smith gives a very workman-like performance here. And I know that comes off as a put down but it's meant in a very nice way. That is to say it's a solid performance. A typical Will Smith performance. There's certainly nothing flashy and Smith tries to come off as an everyman and relatable character and I'd say that he does. However, does it really stand out? Especially among these nominees? It's competent and worth watching. I'd even argue worth nominating, just not worth winning. It's a great thing that Will Smith has achieved a level of acting that is this stable, on par with say Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington or even his fellow nominee Leonardo DiCaprio. That means must see characters and performances that are usually loved and you know that if he's in a film it will be a must see. Any sub par performance is just a blip. So Smith's father that experiences tough situation after tough situation only to persevere in the end (even if those tough situations dragged on for a bit) is a strong, well deserved nomination. My only negative, which is minor really, is that it doesn't set itself apart from the rest of the field. It's good, not great. It is absolutely Oscar bait-y but never devolves into the pedantic, weepy, cliche role we come to expect from those type of films. I imagine we'll see Will Smith nominated again some day.


Another great group of actors. And yes, this now seems like an echo of the previous reviews but it always seems to ring true. An interesting year since it was the first time in awhile that all of the nominees in this category were totally different from the Best Picture nominees. And it was 44 years between first and last Best Actor nominees for Peter O'Toole, a record. As I said before, it's obvious why Whitaker won this year. All the rest of the nominees turn in serious/quiet/subtle performances while Whitaker gets to flex his acting chops by bringing a fun, loud character to life. In saying that, I do like Peter O'Toole just a bit more. It's one that I'd like to watch again. Whitaker then Gosling next but I feel that could change with some distance from this category. I really enjoyed both of those roles. Then DiCaprio and Smith are next since I felt those were weaker especially compared to the others.

Oscar Winner: Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland
My Winner:   Peter O'Toole - Venus
Forest Whitaker
Ryan Gosling
Leonardo DiCaprio
Will Smith