Domingo, seen in Rustin, was also in The Color Purple this year. (Image via Netflix)
Colman Domingo has been nominated for Best Actor for his committed portrayal of Black queer trailblazer Bayard Rustin in Rustin, a terrific performance in a solid film that helps remind us — and those who would rather forget us — of our history.
Domingo's name was called early Tuesday morning, but Andrew Scott's (All of Us Strangers) — a dark horse, to be sure — was nowhere to be found.
Bullet point: Domingo is the first out gay actor to be nominated for playing a gay character in 25 years — and it only happened once before, with Sir Ian McKellen's 1999 nomination for Gods & Monsters.
More surprisingly, in the Best Supporting Actor category, Sterling K. Brown slipped in for American Fiction. That's a really good film that I liked a lot, but I have to say I think Brown's gay character is ridiculous. I really think Brown benefits from his Emmy-winning brand more than the actual performance, though the Academy did show it was really interested in nominating performers playing (and in some cases being!) gay this year, with not only Jodie Foster scoring a Best Supporting Actress nod for Nyad (not so surprising), but Annette Bening coming from nowhere to achieve another Best Actress nod for the same film.
It would seem Bening, a longtime Oscar bridesmaid, replaced Margot Robbie for Barbie. That Barbie was not nominated and Ken (Ryan Gosling) was is Hollywood accidentally proving the point of the movie — which was nominated for Best Picture, but which was not nominated for Best Director for Greta Gerwig. (The only woman in that category is the very deserving Justine Triet for the absorbing Anatomy of a Fall. Celine Song, for Past Lives, had been another possibility.)
Oppenheimer ruled the day, with a massive 13 nominations.
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