Oscars: Best Supporting Actress musical performances bode well for 2025’s top contenders

As of recent years, there has been a correlation with musical performances being recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Oscars, with eight nominated since 2002, and half emerging victorious. This year, we have potentially three actresses from two movie musicals competing for the five slots: Ariana Grande for Universal Pictures’ “Wicked,” and Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez for Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez.” Let’s take a look back at the many scenarios where song-and-dance performers were cited for Best Supporting Actress and what that could mean for this year’s contenders.

There have been a myriad of supporting actresses recognized for film musicals at the Oscars predominantly during the inception of the genre, which include Jean Hagen for “Singin’ In The Rain” (1952), Peggy Wood for “The Sound of Music” (1965), and Kay Medford for “Funny Girl” (1968). But the first victory came for Rita Moreno for “West Side Story” (1961), who also made history as the first Latin American to win. The next triumph would not come until more than four decades later when Catherine Zeta-Jones prevailed for “Chicago” (2002), who was nominated against her co-star Queen Latifah.

Since then, musical winners came more frequently as was the case for Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” (2006), Anne Hathaway in “Les Miserables” (2012), and Ariana DeBose in “West Side Story” (2021), the last win circling back to Moreno for the same character of Anita in the Steven Spielberg remake. We additionally had the citations of Penelope Cruz for “Nine” (2009), Meryl Streep for “Into the Woods” (2014), and Danielle Brooks for “The Color Purple” (2023).

Usually to nab a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for a musical performance, one must have at least a standout number to showcase their emotional vocal range or impressive choreography. In the case of the previous victories, it was “America” for DeBose and Moreno, “I Dreamed A Dream” for Hathaway, “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” for Hudson, and “All That Jazz” and “I Can’t Do It Alone” for Zeta-Jones.

With “Wicked” being a current long-standing Broadway hit, Grande as Glinda has the song “Popular” for the first of a two-part movie adaptation, while Saldaña and Gomez have the catchy Spanish song-and-dance numbers “El Mal” and “Bienvenida,” where they both go all out with their bodies.

As of this writing, Saldaña has a commanding lead in Best Supporting Actress based on the combined predictions at Gold Derby with 71/20 odds, along with 18 experts, all 10 editors, and half of the top 24 users forecasting a win.

Grande, meanwhile, has steadily risen to fourth place with odds of 13/2, surpassing Saoirse Ronan (“Blitz”) at 10/1, and behind Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”) and Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”) both tied at 11/2, while Gomez lurks in the shadows at eighth with 15/1, tied with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (“Nickel Boys”) and behind Isabella Rossellini (“Conclave”) with 14/1. Never before in Oscars history have musical performances made up the majority of an Oscar category, so if “Wicked” and “Emilia Pérez” both do well throughout the season, we could see a domination in Best Supporting Actress, and perhaps another win that would strengthen this connection.

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