On our message board, the UAADB (Unofficial Academy Award Discussion Board), we have an annual tradition where we look at the year’s Oscar nominees in certain categories and try to decide if the individual will make a return to the Oscars at some point in the near future. There’s also a bonus section for predicting what non-nominated talent who was a major competitor during the given year will soon become an Oscar nominee.

I’m turning that concept into a 7-week feature for Cinema Sight. In addition to the acting and directing categories that our members traditionally cite, I’m going to throw in Animated Feature bringing the category count to six plus an additional week for the bonus section.

We start off our first week with Best Actor. Below are the five actors nominated for Best Actor this year. Each section is followed by a small gallery of all of their Oscar-nominated roles.

Best Actor

Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

(2 nominations {2007, 2016}, 1 win {2016})

When Casey Affleck was first nominated for an Oscar in 2007 for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, many thought he had delivered a career-changing performance. While he only managed to pick up five precursor awards thanks to the juggernaut that was Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, his career didn’t so much take a different turn, but it began to find more interest among critics and film enthusiasts.

His performances in 2007’s Gone Baby Gone was well regarded, but a questionable directorial effort in Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre I’m Still Here almost dismantled his career in 2010. He bounced back and delivered a lauded performance in 2013’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and a well reviewed one in that same year’s Out of the Furnace.

Landing the role in Manchester by the Sea was a happy accident for the actor as the role was supposed to go to producer Matt Damon who had to back out of the film. Under Kenneth Lonergan’s able direction and poignant screenplay, Affleck turned in one of the most celebrated performances of the year, capturing more than 86% of the precursor awards, the most won by an actor in any category in seven years (Christoph Waltz won 92% of precursors for Supporting Actor in 2009). Although the out-of-court settlement he reached with two women who worked on set with him on prior films and had accused him of sexual harassment was a fairly strong story throughout Oscar season, voters couldn’t ignore the gravitas of the performance and gave him the Oscar.

Affleck is the kind of actor who can turn a victory like this into a long career of strong lead performances, but whose chances at a second Oscar seem limited. He has five projects on deck for the next two years. Starring as Meriwether Lewis in the Lewis and Clark miniseries won’t bring him Oscar recognition, but his other four films have a better chance.

This year, he has slated for release a film by his Ain’t Them Bodies director, David Lowery, called A Ghost Story. There aren’t many details available, but it’s scheduled for a July 7 release. The title itself doesn’t sound too exciting and the Summer release isn’t ideal for Oscar contenders. For 2018, he has two films in pre-production and one that’s currently filming. The former films are Villain by regular TV director Mikael Marcimain, which has no information available; and The Old Man and the Gun, which is also being directed by Lowery and co-stars screen legend Robert Redford. The heist film sounds like a potential box office draw, but the premise isn’t something the Academy has typically gravitated towards. The final project, currently filming under his own direction, puts Affleck into the role of a father trapped with his daughter in the woods. Affleck’s prior directorial effort wasn’t well received, but a lot depends on the script.

Ultimately, his immediate future seems underwhelming, but I suspect he’ll land a future Oscar nomination, but will never come close to the winners’ podium again.

Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge

(1 nomination {2016})

Andrew Garfield has been working in film since his mid-20s, but it took only two years for him to make a name for himself. 2007’s Boy A was barely seen, but received plenty of positive attention, including for the young actor’s performance. Although he appeared in a handful of higher profile films over the next decade (Lions for Lambs, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and Never Let Me Go), it was his co-starring role in David Fincher’s The Social Network that enabled him to fully burst onto the scene and land the coveted role of Peter Parker in the first reboot of the Spider-Man franchise: The Amazing Spider-Man.

Before Social Network earned him praise, his performance in Never Let Me Go was well received, as too was his work in the new Spider-Man film. Unfortunately, the second film in that rebooted franchise was a critical flop and the box office shrugged, forcing him to shift gears. The same year as his high-profile flop, and the ultimate demise of the Amazing Spider-Man series, he managed to snag several laudatory notices for his work in 99 Homes opposite twice-Oscar nominated Michael Shannon (also nominated in 2016 in the supporting category).

Two years later, he was in yet more high profile films, one of which would net him his first Oscar nomination. Martin Scorsese’s passion project Silence was well received by some, but not all. Garfield did receive plenty of praise for it, but it was Mel Gibson’s return to Hollywood favor, Hacksaw Ridge, that saw the actor scoring Oscar attention in the role of a conscientious objector whose faith helps deliver him into safety as a medic protecting his fellow soldiers on the battlefield.

Garfield is a smart actor and, with a single exception, has made fairly strong choices in projects. He is very likely to appear at the Oscars again, and possibly soon. There are only two films currently on his radar. Both are in post-production and both are tentatively scheduled for 2017. The one most likely to release this year is Under the Silver Lake directed by It Follows helmer David Robert Mitchell. It is a modern noir crime thriller, but there isn’t much else known about the film. Mitchell’s prior effort was incredibly well received, so this could be a good project for him even if it doesn’t scream Oscar contender.

His other option is Breathe, directed by motion capture acting pioneer Andy Serkis and written by hit-or-miss scribe William Nicholson (Shadowlands, Nell, Gladiator, Les Miserables (2012), Unbroken). It co-stars Claire Foy, Diana Rigg, and Hugh Bonneville. The story of an adventurous young man stricken with polio has all the earmarks of an Eddie Redmayne-style performance that could generate plenty of sympathy and votes. This is Serkis’ directorial debut, so the question of quality has to be foremost on one’s mind.

If Breathe doesn’t bring him hefty Oscar consideration, there are bound to be even more performances available to him. Being in his mid-30s certainly helps his longterm viability. I expect multiple more nominations for Garfield in the future and an eventual win seems plausible.

Ryan Gosling – La La Land

(2 nominations {2006, 2016})
Ryan Gosling’s TV debut came at the age of 15 in a guest role on Are You Afraid of the Dark?. From there, he made a serious run in similar endeavors across the television landscape before landing his first big screen role in 1996’s Frankenstein and Me. Yet, it would be 1997’s Breaker High, and especially 1998’s Young Hercules, that would put him into a regular role before his breakthrough film performance in Remember the Titans in 2000. From there, his choices weren’t great, but he gained significant prominence in 2004 as the romantic lead in box office hit The Notebook.

His first Oscar nomination came in 2006 as a teacher in the film Half Nelson, a film that plays a lot like Stand and Deliver, except for its lead character (Gosling) being a drug addict. This twist enabled the young thespian to show great range and he followed that with an oddity called Lars and the Real Girl, which won him some critics prizes and was one of the short list of contenders for a Best Actor nomination. After a three-year hiatus, Gosling made a brilliant return in the Derek Cianfrance drama Blue Valentine, which landed him yet again in the thick of the Best Actor race.

He would flirt with an Oscar nomination once more before landing his second Oscar nomination with a quiet, understated performance in Drive. While the film proved to be a tough sell to the Academy, Gosling received strong reviews, which would be his last for five years. In 2016, Gosling started out showcasing his considerable comic chops alongside Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys, but it was his co-starring role in Damien Chazelle’s paean to Old Hollywood musicals, La La Land, that would get him back to the Oscars.

No one has denied his acting ability. He’s given far too many strong performances to ignore that in favor of the myriad weak films he’s appeared in over the last five years. He has three films due out this year. The already dead-in-the-water Terrence Malick film Song to Song; the sequel of a legendary sci-fi film, Blade Runner 2049; and a re-team with Chazelle for the biopic First Man, which details the life of American astronaut Neil Armstrong. Chazelle is a hot property right now and the role seems tailor-made for Oscar consideration. I think Gosling will not only show up at the Oscars next year, but could conceivably win and, if not now, I see no reason to believe that he won’t one day hold a little golden guy.

Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic

(2 nominations {2007, 2016})

If there’s an actor so likely to be a major Oscar contender, but whose history suggest otherwise, it’s Viggo Mortensen. A domineering presence on the big screen, Mortensen made his cinematic debut in 1985 as an Amish character in Harrison Ford’s Witness. Over the next several years, he’s made appearances in other films that had big Oscar profiles, or at least were made by major Hollywood figures, such as Carlito’s Way, Crimson Tide, and The Portrait of a Lady. During that decade, he also made appearances in a number of films that have largely been forgotten.

It was 1997’s G.I. Jane that finally brought him forcefully into the limelight. The performance led to a number of prominent roles in films like A Perfect Murder, the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, and 28 Days. However, it was an event picture in 2001 that made Mortensen a household face and name. In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Mortensen played the determined ranger Aragorn and became instantly recognizable to legions of potential new fans.

While he never earned enough attention to be an Oscar contender for those films, he would pick up his first serious Oscar chatter in 2005 for his performance in A History of Violence, and then secured his first nomination two years later as the lead in David Cronenberg’s next film Eastern Promises. Although Mortensen has appeared in a number of films that, on paper, were considered Oscar bait, the actor’s eccentric choices earned him nothing until Captain Fantastic in 2016.

Although Mortensen now has a visible two nominations under his belt, he has nothing currently on the schedule and, with the number of idiosyncratic choices in his recent filmography, it’s possible that he never finds another genuine Oscar vehicle again. Without knowing what he has coming down the pipe, it’s impossible to know if he’ll have something soon or if he’ll have to wait until his 60s or 70s for his next shot at the Oscar, a prize he is likely to never obtain.

Denzel Washington – Fences

(7 nominations {1987, 1989, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2012, 2016}, 2 winS {1989, 1989})
First seen on television in 1977, Denzel Washington had his first big screen credit in 1981 opposite George Segal in Carbon Copy. A solid career followed leading to his first Oscar nomination in 1987 for Cry Freedom, which was followed by a stint on St. Elsewhere followed immediately by his first Oscar-winning role in Glory in 1989.

What followed is one of the most storied careers in film history, resulting in a third Oscar nomination in 1992 for Malcolm X. A series of acclaimed and popular performances followed through the 1990s, but he didn’t make it back to the Oscars until 1999 with his performance as legendary boxer Hurricane Carter in The Hurricane.

Not content to focus entirely on box office successes, Washington took home his second Oscar on his fifth nomination in 2001 for Training Day, an uncharacteristic performance for the actor. He continued on in several projects that were equal parts Oscar baity and audience-pleasing through the 2000s. Already the most nominated black actor in Oscar history, he padded his totals in 2012 with Flight and this year in Fences, for which he won his first Screen Actors Guild award.

There is little doubt that the immensely popular actor will continue accruing nominations over the next few decades and it is incredibly likely that he will become the first black actor to win more than two Oscars (he was already the first and still only to win two). The question becomes when will he win that next Oscar. A fiery performance like the one in Fences provides his best opportunity, but it may be a few years before they give him that honor as it’s a very exclusive club and if Meryl Streep is any indication, they won’t feel the need to do it for some time.

Washington has two projects coming up and only one of them has any Oscar potential. The first is a follow up to his 2014 hit The Equalizer. The Equalizer 2 is slated for 2018, but the first film wasn’t an Oscar competitor and the Academy seems to detest sequels, so don’t expect anything there. The other project, which is still in pre-production and has no firm release date announced, is from writer-director Dan Gilroy. Gilroy’s screenwriting filmography is familiar, though largely uninteresting. However, his directorial debut was incredibly well received and that film’s star Jake Gyllenhaal won numerous awards and likely came close to an Oscar nomination in 2014. Gilroy did get a nod for his screenplay, which suggests he may be building a career as a go-to Oscar writer/director.

That film is titled Inner City and there isn’t much information out there. It’s also an original project, so we won’t know more about it until it finishes production and gets a release date. The film, which currently lists the premise as an attorney seeking to right the wrongs of his late partner, seems like it will provide Washington with a meaty role, but how poignant the film is will determine whether he will be in line for another Oscar or at least another nomination.

That’s everyone for the Best Actor category. We’ll be back next week with a look at the Best Supporting Actress category.