The 98th Academy Awards were one of the most competitive in recent years, with none of the main categories fully decided ahead of Sunday night’s ceremony. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners emerged as the big winners of the night with six and four wins, respectively, while several big contenders walked away disappointed. Among the losers of the big night, one stands out.
Timothée Chalamet’s Failed Campaign
Timothée Chalamet’s stunt-filled campaign for Marty Supreme started last fall, shortly ahead of the film’s theatrical release, with a “leaked” Zoom call where the actor pitched increasingly absurd promotional campaign ideas to an audience of increasingly baffled A24 marketing employees. While his ridiculous ideas from the skit never materialized, the skit was an early indicator of what the actual campaign was going to be like.
Soon enough, it seemed like the orange ping-pong balls and the 30-year-old actor were everywhere. Across the globe, across media platforms, across programming geared towards any and every audience willing to listen, Chalamet was preaching about his latest project in a manner not so dissimilar to how Marty Mauser himself saw and marketed himself in the film – rightfully confident but increasingly insufferable.
The first big eye rolls at his campaign started shortly after the film’s theatrical release in December, when Chalamet all but proclaimed on Good Morning America that he would be an Oscar winner by next summer. When the awards season kicked off with the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes in January, it looked like Chalamet, who has now been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category three times, might finally be getting his taste of the coveted golden statue. Third time’s the charm, after all.
His fortunes took a turn as the season kept on and Michael B. Jordan took the win at the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards) on March 1st, the last big test ahead of the Oscars. With two weeks to go until the ceremony and four days left to vote, Jordan shifted into a frontrunner. By the time the Oscars rolled around, Jordan’s win for his role in Sinners was hardly surprising but the inevitable outcome doesn’t negate the fact that Chalamet was not only the frontrunner for the majority of the race, but also the one competitor in his category with the biggest, the loudest campaign.
To rub salt to the wound, Chalamet was the laughingstock of the ceremony, his recent comments about ballet and opera being the subject of mockery from host Conan O’Brien as well as some of the winners and nominees. Perhaps it is precisely this that shows why Chalamet ultimately couldn’t finish this season on top. There is no doubt that he has the skill to be in the conversation for and one day maybe even win the Oscar, but for now, his cocky approach may just be the opposite of what the Academy wants to see in a winner.
Marty Supreme Gets Completely Shut Out
The night didn’t just end in disappointment for Chalamet. The entire crew of Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme went home empty handed. The film was nominated for nine awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Josh Safdie in addition to Chalamet’s own Best Actor nomination, but failed to score in any of its categories on the big night. The film now joins the likes of Killers of the Flower Moon (10 nominations, 0 wins) and The Banshees of Inisherin (9 nominations, 0 wins) as one of the worst Oscar losses of all time.