Watch scenes from the performances nominated in the category of best supporting actress at the 97th annual Academy Awards, as well as interviews with the nominees below. The 2025 Oscars will be presented on Sunday, March 2.
Searchlight Pictures; Universal Pictures; A24; Focus Features; Netflix
Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
In James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” we follow the path of the young singer-songwriter beginning with his arrival in New York City in 1961. Dylan’s rise to fame is not immediate, being in the shadow of another star in folk music circles, Joan Baez (best supporting actress nominee Monica Barbaro). But the two soon connect and share a passionate affair, despite Dylan living with another woman (Elle Fanning).
In this scene, Dylan and Baez sing a duet of a song in Dylan’s notebook. Their easy musical chemistry just might lead to something more:
As the film advances, their rocky relationship becomes the subtext of their public performances. In this scene, they sing a duet at the Newport Folk Festival of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe,” a song with hidden undercurrents, in particular for Fanning watching from off-stage:
Baez would record several Dylan songs, and their relationship continued for a few years. She would later tour with Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the mid-’70s, and the two collaborated on projects into the ’80s, with their ’60s romantic association becoming fodder for memoirs, music treatises and documentaries. (Baez herself recalled her first impression of Dylan in her 1987 autobiography, “And a Voice to Sing With”: “His eyes were as old as God, and he was fragile as a winter leaf.”)
Barbaro told the Los Angeles Times she understood Baez’s attraction to Dylan. “She fell in love with the poet, the person willing to say what he was willing to say. I think she fell in love with the words themselves and how he was saying things she was trying to find the words for,” Barbaro said. “And they were so young. If I try to unpack my relationships at 20 … I can’t imagine that being inspected on a public level for decades to come.”
To play Baez, Barbaro studied the guitar and took vocal lessons for a year to match Baez’s incomparable soprano. “Every conversation about Joan’s voice, you hear about her vibrato, the key she sings in and the angelic quality. It was about getting those things so it was recognizable,” she told the Times. “I leaned into getting as close to her as possible. And on the day, you put the preparation on the shelf and receive the person in front of you in a real authentic moment.”
In this interview for Variety, Barbaro, costar Timothée Chalamet and Mangold discuss the singing sequences. Barbaro said, “In terms of the music, I mean, it was important to all of us to not have a bunch of sort of carbon copies of these musicians, or any sort of sign of mimicry in the film, and yet they have to be recognizable versions of these musicians.”
Of the movie’s message — how art used to address issues like social justice and war — Barbaro told the Times, “The coolest thing about this film is getting to see audiences who lived then and [see them] feel like their time was understood.”
Barbaro studied dance and ballet while growing up in the Bay Area. She graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and acted in “Chicago Justice,” “The Good Cop,” and the Tom Cruise blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick,” as Lt. Natasha “Phoenix” Trace. This is her first Oscar nomination. She also received two Screen Actors Guild nominations for her performance.
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, “A Complete Unknown,” released by Searchlight Pictures, is playing in theaters and is available via VOD.
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Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
Based on the long-running Broadway musical, “Wicked” is a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” presenting the origin story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. What was her relationship with the Good Witch of the East, and how did it turn so bad?
The story is told in flashback through Glinda, the ravishingly popular student at Shiz University, where the two meet. Initially an outcast, Elphaba attracts the attention of a professor of magic, Madame Morrible — and Glinda finds herself eagerly trying to get into both their good graces, for her own advancement.
Watch this excerpt of Glinda selling herself as a tutor to her new charge — best actress nominee Cynthia Erivo — in the ways of becoming “Popular”:
In 2018 Grande appeared alongside the stars of Broadway’s “Wicked,” Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, in a televised concert celebrating the show’s 15th anniversary, “A Very Wicked Halloween.” Grande sang “The Wizard and I” (which in the show is sung by Elphaba). Three years later, Grande had her first audition for the part of Glinda in the movie version.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Grande discussed her audition process for “Wicked,” for which she sang “No One Mourns the Wicked” and “Popular.” “Even though it was very clear that I was going in for Glinda, I also sang ‘The Wizard and I’ and ‘Defying Gravity’ twice. … I just remember leaving buzzing,” she said.
The casting of Grande as Glinda, and Erivo as Elphaba, was universally praised, as they were seemingly born for the parts. Chenoweth, the actress who originated Glinda on stage, told “Entertainment Tonight” that when Grande won the role, the young singer called her: “And we both squealed. She said, ‘I need your help.’ I said, ‘You don’t need my help. Just do you.'”
In December Grande was interviewed by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation about her performance in the film. “I’ve loved these songs since I was 10 years old, and I’ve sung them for fun in the car, in the shower, growing up,” she said. “Even when I got older, when I was nervous to perform or something, I would turn to the soundtrack for comfort when I was warming up to do a show. It’s just funny because when you spend time with the lyrics and dig into what’s happening in-between the lines, you get to know what’s happening in a very different way than just singing in a car.”
Grande described the questions she asked of her character: “Why is she so fascinated with Elphaba? What is the magic that [Elphaba] has that Glinda doesn’t? And what are her insecurities? And what’s not on the page — what’s motivating her to give [Elphaba] the hat, when deep down she doesn’t want to?”
Months before her first audition, Grande worked with her vocal coach to prepare: “The vocal cords, like any other muscle in the body, they’re habitual; you have to train them to do new things. And I naturally have a high range and I sing whistle tones and I sing high notes, but it’s very different than singing coloratura soprano, a classical operatic. I knew I wanted to go in for Glinda, so I wanted to train my voice as much as I could so that by the time my first audition came around it sounded authentic and warm and fully and truly like what’s required of Glinda.”
Grande, who has won two Grammy Awards and reportedly sold more than 90 million records, previously appeared in “Don’t Look Up.” This is her first Academy Award nomination.
Nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture, “Wicked,” from Universal Pictures, is in theaters and available via VOD.
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Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
In Brady Corbet’s post-World War II drama “The Brutalist,” best actor nominee Adrien Brody stars as László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish architect, who emigrates to the United States and finds that his efforts to resume his career are hampered by antisemitism and classism in America.
The first half of the 3.5-hour epic tracks Tóth’s journey from Ellis Island to a plum commission: designing and constructing a massive community center in Pennsylvania. Years after his arrival, he is joined by his wife, Erzsébet (supporting actress nominee Felicity Jones), and their marriage must accommodate both a new country and the distance that has grown between them – strangers in a strange land.
In this scene, Erzsébet is being welcomed by Toth’s patron, industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (best supporting actor nominee Guy Pearce), whose propensity for belittling others comes across even in a supposedly friendly dinner:
Erzsébet’s physical limitations don’t seem to constrict her emotions, with which she challenges László, both in their own relationship and in his service to Van Buren.
“This script, when it came through, I think all of us involved knew that it was special,” Jones told BBC Radio’s “Woman’s Hour.” “It was unusual to read something that had this depth of character in it, and this huge epic sweeping story that’s underpinned by these very intimate, domestic, very precisely drawn moments.
“I was incredibly moved by it fundamentally, and I felt that Erzsébet was this magnificent character. She was someone who is completely unafraid of who she is. When we meet her, you realize she’s been through incredible trauma; she’s been through concentration camps alongside her husband (in different camps, but they’ve been through very similar experiences), and I felt there was a great challenge in conveying this woman’s experience. She’s incredibly accomplished; I do particularly like the line where, ‘Did you not tell them anything about me?’ I think that could have only been written by a woman!”
Though physically weak and malnourished, Erzsébet exhibits a powerful forthrightness, and a willingness to challenge others. “You get to learn actually that she’s exceptionally strong throughout the film,” Jones said.
Shooting on film (“The Brutalist” was produced in VistaVision, to be blown up to 70mm) was an added element of her performance versus shooting on digital, Jones told the audience at a New York Film Festival screening last fall. “It gives more value to what you’re doing because it feels somehow more precious,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like you can just keep going and going for hours and hours. You know, in that moment when it’s ‘Action!’ you do feel like you’ve got to make, you’ve got to perform in that moment. And everyone does — cast, crew, everyone has to give their best, because it’s not limitless, and [celluloid] costs a fortune!”
Jones, who was previously nominated for best supporting actress for playing the wife of physicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” starred in the “Star Wars” prequel “Rogue One,” “On the Basis of Sex” (playing a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and “The Aeronauts.”
Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, The Brutalist,” released by A24, is playing in theaters and is available via VOD.
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Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
“Conclave,” based on the Robert Harris thriller, dramatizes the intrigues inside the Vatican as the College of Cardinals meets to select a new pontiff following the death of the pope. Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (best actor nominee Ralph Fiennes) leads the conclave, and serves both as a calm, guiding presence, and as an investigator of disturbing allegations involving several candidates to lead the Holy See.
In this scene, Sister Agnes (best supporting actress nominee Isabella Rossellini) interrupts the cardinals’ uproar over a secret report about one papal candidate’s activities with information of her own. Polite but also passive-aggressive, Sister Agnes’ attitude undercuts the patriarchal stance of the Church, by providing a moral counterweight to the cardinals’ deliberations:
Rossellini’s character has few lines, but a great presence. In an interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Rossellini said, “In the Catholic Church there is a very strong hierarchy, and women, they have a role of really serving the cardinals. That doesn’t mean that even if you have a subservient role they don’t have authority. And so, it was fantastic to play a role where I don’t have any lines, but everybody’s a little bit afraid of me!”
She told the Los Angeles Times that she used the limitations of her character to her advantage: “We had three or four days of rehearsal, but I was nervous,” she said. “I thought maybe Sister Agnes would be nervous, too, so I used that. I didn’t have to repress it. She’s not part of the brawl with the men. She doesn’t get into the opinion of who should be the next pope. When she does speak, she speaks what she knows and goes back to her vow of being silent and invisible and obedient. …
“I don’t think she would have spoken up on any other aspect of the church,” Rossellini said. “But where the pope was going to be elected, she was going to be faithful to her vow. She just wants it all done correctly.”
The daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and director Robert Rossellini, she made her first film appearance in “A Matter of Time,” opposite her mother, and then starred in the Taviani Brothers’ “The Meadow.” Her subsequent films included “White Nights,” David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet,” “Tough Guys Don’t Dance,” “Siesta,” “Cousins,” “Wild at Heart,” “Death Becomes Her,” “Fearless,” “Wyatt Earp,” “Immortal Beloved,” “Big Night,” and “The Saddest Music in the World.” She received an Emmy nomination for a guest appearance on “Chicago Hope.”
This is Rossellini’s first Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
“Conclave” is playing in theaters and is available via VOD.
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Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
In the crime drama “Emilia Perez,” Rita, a defense attorney (best supporting actress nominee Zoe Saldaña), is introduced despairing about her client, about corruption, and about her own values (she basically lies to help the defendant skate off a murder charge). And since this is a musical, Rita’s emotions and inner conflict are presented via song and dance:
Directed by Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” leads this year’s Oscar race with 13 nominations, including best picture, director and screenplay. Its melodrama — a Mexican drug lord transitions to become a woman, and then seeks to reconnect with their wife and children — is served up with flashy choreography and 16 songs by Camille and composer Clément Ducol.
Saldaña’s Rita is hired by the drug lord to help fake his death and secure his transition from Manitas to Emilia. But four years later, Emilia reenters Rita’s life, and seeks her help in reuniting with her family in Mexico. Rita is thrown back into a miasma of corruption and hypocrisy, which she sings about in “El Mal” (nominated for best original song), along with best actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón and the artist Camille:
Saldaña’s performance — acting, singing and dancing, in three languages — has already earned her the Golden Globe, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild awards.
She told the Hollywood Reporter the most challenging aspect of the role was “not getting in my own way! And sort of just being in Rita’s skin and understanding her journey. You know it takes discipline to not sort of, like, judge a character as you’re approaching it and you’re putting it together. You kind of go, ‘Well, I wouldn’t do what she did,’ and it’s like, ‘Well there’s no, it’s not a she, it’s an I, it’s a me, and where am I? I’m desperate right now, I need a way out. I’m over worked, I’m burned out’ — I’m talking as Rita, and I needed to be sort of like in that head space. And once you’re in there, then all of a sudden, this whole story takes on a brand-new life.”
It’s her dance moves (from her early training in ballet), as seen in her early film appearances “Center Stage” and “Drumline,” that resonate in her “Emilia Pérez” character. But Saldaña is best-known for starring in blockbuster franchises, from “Star Trek” (as Uhura), to “Avatar” (as Neytiri), and “Guardians of the Galaxy” (as Gamora). She’s also starred in “Columbiana,” “Nina,” “Amsterdam,” and the series “Lioness.”
“When you are a part of projects that are so big and they become so successful, yes, you reap the benefits of it and you are grateful,” she told The New York Times. “But there is a part of me as an artist that just stopped growing and accepting challenges.”
When Audiard (whose previous films include “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone”) asked to talk with Saldaña about “Emilia Pérez,” Saldaña was hesitant, as the character was originally written to be in her 20s, and would require extensive singing. But after an hour-and-a-half Zoom call, during which Saldaña even sang, Audiard rewrote the part for her — and postponed shooting to accommodate Saldaña’s schedule. And once she arrived in Paris for filming, she found the director drawing on the actress’ own perspective for Rita. “It felt like an experiment where we were finding things as we went, and that’s how the first ‘Avatar’ was shot,” she told The Times. “Ever since then, I’ve been searching for that high again of being with a seasoned, prolific director and having the director look at you going, ‘I don’t know, what do you think?'”
The jury at last year’s Cannes Film Festival thought enough of “Emilia Pérez” that they awarded the festival’s best actress prize to the film’s four leads (Saldaña, Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz). This is Saldaña’s first Oscar nomination.
“Emilia Pérez” is streaming on Netflix.
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