5 reasons why Fernanda Torres could pull off an upset win for Best Actress for ‘I’m Still Here’
Without a doubt, this year's Best Actress race is a nail-biter. With frontrunners Demi Moore (The Substance) and Mikey Madison (Anora) having split the major precursor awards, prognosticators are divided between who will take home the top prize. Which leaves room for dark horse contender Fernanda Torres (I'm Still Here) to potentially pull off an upset.
Here are five reasons why the Brazilian actress could surprise everyone and take home the Oscar for Best Actress this Sunday.
More from GoldDerby
SEE Video Interview: Fernanda Torres
1. She seized her momentum at a key time with the Golden Globe win
Torres solidified her status as a serious Oscar contender back in January when she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Actress. The winner of (either) Best Actress awards at the Globes has gone on to win the Oscar for Best Actress four times in the last six years. While there's no substantive overlap between Globe voters and Oscar voters, this trend indicates that this key early win during awards season can often kickstart a wave of support for a fringe contender, because Oscar voters are arguably more compelled to check out the film and the performance after seeing the winner accept an award on stage in front of an international audience, as Torres did so elegantly. Fast-forward to the Oscar nominations announcement, and lo and behold, not only did Torres parlay her Globe win into a coveted Best Actress nod, but she single-handedly powered the film into an expected Best International Feature nod as well as a very unexpected Best Picture nomination, one of the biggest surprises of the day. That signals a late surge of support for I'm Still Here, which arguably peaked during Oscar voting.
2. BAFTA and SAG snubs don't necessarily hurt her chances
Yes, she was overlooked by both BAFTA and SAG voters, but it's likely that not enough of those voters had seen the film by that point. Her Oscar nomination surely solved that problem. Plus, the BAFTA-SAG split signifies that voters are undecided between Moore (the SAG winner) and Madison (the BAFTA winner). Over the last six years, when the Best Actress winners at SAG and BAFTA don't match up, and both of those winners are nominated at the Oscars, it's usually the BAFTA winner that prevails at the Oscars. Recent examples of this are 2018 (SAG winner Glenn Close for The Wife vs. BAFTA and ultimate Oscar winner Olivia Colman for The Favourite), 2020 (SAG winner Viola Davis for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom vs. BAFTA and ultimate Oscar winner Frances McDormand for Nomadland), and 2023 (SAG winner Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon vs. BAFTA and ultimate Oscar winner Emma Stone for Poor Things), with a notable exception being 2022 (SAG winner Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once winning the Oscar over BAFTA winner Cate Blanchett for Tár). While this stat doesn't directly boost Torres' chances, it also doesn't really help Moore either — effectively muddying the waters, and clearing a path for Torres.
3. Madison and Moore have not yet competed against her
Perhaps even more telling is that throughout this awards season, Torres has not competed directly against the other Best Actress nominees at any of the main televised awards this year: BAFTA, SAG or the Critics Choice Awards. The Oscars are the first time she’ll be up against Erivo, Gascón, Madison, and Moore, as she was up against Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), Angelina Jolie (Maria), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door), and Kate Winslet (Lee) at the Globes, all of whom were seen as genuine Oscar contenders early on, but ultimately didn't make the cut at the Oscars. Her Globe win coupled with her not ever going toe to toe with her current Oscar competition arguably bolsters her claim as the wildcard in this race.
4. Paix?o (Brazilian Portuguese for "passion") might prevail
International Oscar voters now make up an increasingly vocal and powerful bloc at 25 percent of the voting body, and it stands to reason that they will throw their support behind Torres. One of Moore's most potent strengths in this race is the narrative that she is beloved in the industry and awards recognition for her feels overdue (see also: recent Oscar winners Brendan Fraser in The Whale and both Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All at Once). Torres' supporters may be banking on the fairy-tale narrative swirling around Torres following in the footsteps of her mother, acclaimed Brazilian legend Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated in 1998 for Central Station (losing that year to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love), another beloved Brazilian film also directed by Walter Salles. Anecdotally, several of the anonymous ballots that are making the rounds this time of the year all call out Torres: one anonymous voter recently told Gold Derby that they voted for her because her "masterful" performance moved them deeply. Variety's Clayton Davis reports that the film's support "has been the hardest to track this season, mainly due to more than one-third of the voters I spoke to sharing that they had only watched the film in the last few days before turning in their ballots," and how one anonymous Oscar voter confided to Variety that "I never heard of this movie until it was nominated for best picture, and, oh my God. … That movie was incredible, and she is a goddess. I voted for it in all three categories.”
5. The Oscars as social justice warriors
Does social relevance matter anymore? Two years ago, did Everything Everywhere All at Once become an Oscar behemoth, winning a staggering seven Oscars (including Best Picture) because, even tangentially, it was a story about immigrants in a political climate that marginalizes and demonizes immigrants? Did last year's Best Picture-nominated The Zone of Interest take home two Oscars (for Best International Feature and Best Sound) partly as a response to the then-ongoing devastation in the Middle East? Who knows. But it certainly didn't hurt. In these heightened political times, that means the scales may well tip in favor of the Brazilian biopic that contemplates a family torn apart amidst the fallout from a brutal military dictatorship.
Guarde minhas palavras, Fernanda está vindo para o Oscar! (Translation: mark my words, Fernanda is coming for that Oscar!) The 97th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday. The ceremony, hosted by Conan O'Brien, will air on ABC and be live-streamed on Hulu.
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
