Oscars 2020: Watch the Best Supporting Actor nominees
Check out clips and interviews below with the five nominees for this year's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Winners of this year's Oscars will be announced on Sunday, February 9, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood.
Tom Hanks, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"
Fred Rogers, an ordained minister and puppeteer, became an iconic fixture of the American television landscape as host of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on public television, which ran for more than three decades. "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" tells of a journalist (played by Matthew Rhys) assigned to interview the children's TV star, and how his own life is changed by his encounters with Rogers, forcing him to reflect on matters of family responsibility, forgiveness and acceptance.
Hanks, a two-time Oscar-winner (for "Philadelphia" and "Forrest Gump"), told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King that, while he has played several real-life figures throughout his career, it was challenging to play Fred Rogers because he was "a very, very public persona. And everybody has an idea of what Fred is, what Fred was like, the mysteries behind Fred. [The moment I said yes], I began to have the night sweats …
"The terror that goes along with it is that ... you want to land in a place that people recognize as true human behavior, whether you're playing somebody who's real or somebody who's not," he said. "And if it's not authentic, you're actively lying in an art form that is supposed to be holding the mirror up to nature."
- Tom Hanks says playing Mister Rogers was "terrifying": "Everybody has an idea of what Fred is" ("CBS This Morning")
"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is available to stream via Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu, and will be released on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD February 18
Anthony Hopkins, "The Two Popes"
As Pope Benedict XVI says to Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, of Argentina (the man he seeks to replace him in the papacy), "You know, there's a saying that God corrects one pope by presenting the world with another pope. I'd like to see my correction." Benedict's decision in 2013 to retire, rather than remain in his position until his death, stunned the world, and shook the Catholic Church. What's more, it opened the door for a conservative pope to invite a more liberal (and, in the eyes of some church elders, more incendiary) leader, at a time when the Church was suffering scandals that would lead many to question, if not their faith in God, then their faith in God's disciples.
In addition to being a quiet meditation on the hand-off of power in one of the world's most longstanding institutions, Fernando Meirelles' two-hander, featuring Best Supporting Actor nominee Anthony Hopkins as Benedict and Best Actor Oscar-nominee Jonathan Pryce as Bergoglio, is a thoughtful depiction of a friendship between two unlikely companions, whose backgrounds, political ideologies and aspirations couldn't be more dissimilar, but who nevertheless found common ground, built on music, pizza, football, and faith.
In this scene Benedict debates with Bergoglio about his resignation:
Hopkins, 82, told "Sunday Morning" correspondent Tracy Smith that he approached the role with a deeper appreciation of faith accrued after overcoming alcoholism. "I used to be, let's say, a non-believer. Nothing wrong with that; I didn't believe in anything. Except I was in a lot of mental and emotional pain, drinking too much and all that stuff." But 44 years ago, a chat about God with someone from AA exercised something more than just willpower for him to achieve sobriety. Was it divine intervention? "It's a very, well, it's a loaded word. Yeah, I think it was," Hopkins said.
- Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce on playing "The Two Popes" ("Sunday Morning")
"The Two Popes" is available to stream at Netflix
Al Pacino, "The Irishman"
As Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, a charismatic union leader who became an obstacle for ambitious mobsters eager to siphon from the union's pension funds, Al Pacino brings a bountiful supply of charisma, invective and pride to his colorful performance. The film chronicles his friendship with mob hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), and Sheeran's tragic betrayal of Hoffa.
In this scene with fellow nominee Joe Pesci (as Philadelphia crime boss Russell Bufalino), Hoffa stands his ground against the mob's insistence that he forgo running for union president again – a position that will have fateful consequences:
Asked by "Sunday Morning" correspondent Lee Cowan what he hopes audiences would take away from Scorsese's tale of reckoning, Pacino (an Oscar-winner for "Scent of a Woman") replied, "People feel something. Something comes off it that is almost sort of ephemeral. It's hard to say what it is, but you feel it. It's affecting in that sense. And you don't even know why."
- Martin Scorsese, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on "The Irishman" ("Sunday Morning")
"The Irishman" is available to stream at Netflix
Joe Pesci, "The Irishman"
The character of Philadelphia mobster Russell Bufalino is far from the hot-headed Tommy DeVito in "Goodfellas," for which Joe Pesci won an Academy Award. His Bufalino is a calming influence, a graceful elder to whom deference is given (and envelopes of cash delivered), and a wizened, instructive mentor to Robert De Niro's hitman Frank Sheeran, which makes his undisputed commands to kill – in mob code, of course – all the more chilling.
Pesci has been missing from screens for too long, and in "The Irishman" his restraint and almost grandfatherly way of dispensing favors, or revenge, is the point upon which all the other characters' relationships pivot.
- Review: Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman"
- "The Irishman" is available to stream at Netflix
Brad Pitt, "Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood"
In Quentin Tarantino's vivid recreation of the changing movie and TV industry in the 1960s (and a revisionist history of the Manson Family murders), Brad Pitt stars as Cliff Booth, the stunt double and all-around right-hand man of fading TV and movie star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio). Booth's years in the industry may have made him jaded, but they have not dulled his friendship with the man in whose shadow he walks.
Pitt told Esquire magazine, "[W]e all grew up with the lore of the lead actor and his stuntman. That relationship and craft. I mean, there are epic stories of these duos: Burt Reynolds had Hal Needham. Steve McQueen had Bud Ekins. Kurt Russell had his guy. Harrison Ford had his. These guys were partners for decades. And it's something that is not the same in our generation, as the pieces became more movable."
This marks Pitt's fourth acting Oscar nomination (after "Twelve Monkeys," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Moneyball"). He has already won the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe for his performance.
- "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood" is available On Demand and on Blu-ray and DVD, and to stream via Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube
More Oscars 2020:
- Watch the Best Actor nominees
- Watch the Best Actress nominees
- Watch the Best Supporting Actress nominees
- Watch the Best Picture nominees
For more info:
- oscars.org (Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences)
- oscars.com (Official site of Oscar telecast)
- Complete CBSNews.com coverage: The Academy Awards
- Complete CBSNews.com coverage: Movies