Actor in a Lead Role
"Never go full Bernstein. Man, everyone knows you can never go full Bernstein."

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Cillian Murphy, Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer
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I loved this guy in Peaky Blinders. While he plays Oppenheimer with some similarities, he shows real range in the flawed, conflicted consequential man. I would be happy with any of the others winning (and have more sentimental hopes for three of them), but this trophy is his.
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Bradley Cooper, Leonard Bernstein in Maestro
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Unlike Robert Oppenheimer, who we all know but don't have a voice and a face in our heads, this was a challenge. Cooper met that challenge and not just because of the makeup. I doubt he'll win, but boy is this guy trying. Maybe the 13th try will be the charm?
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Jeffrey Wright, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison in American Fiction
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This guy is the best performer in anything he appears in. (No cracks -- Merriam Webster says I can end a sentence with anything, you fuck.) Wright even kept me watching Westworld on HBO when I had no idea what was happening and Evan Rachel Wood stopped taking her robot clothes off!
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Paul Giamatti, Paul Hunham in The Holdovers
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Why do I want this guy to win an Oscar so badly? He's talented, so he'll surely get one someday. He's also lived an ultra privileged life (his father was President of Yale and then Commissioner of Major League baseball). But ever since I first saw him in Howard Stern's Private Parts (the movie, ya freak), I've had an affinity for his work. I also have a few curmudgeonly figures like him in my life. You know who you are.​
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Colman Domingo, Bayard Rustin in Rustin





Kindly Old Coot

That one guy -- the teacher...like Jill. He had a crazy eye. The Pullover, I think it was. Or was that the blonde joke Jill made me stop telling. Anyway, I can relate to the eye thing.
GET OFF MY LAWN

A couple of black guys, but one is an opera singer and the other one is a robot. That's what they should all be -- singers or robots.