{"id":183749,"date":"2025-12-14T19:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T19:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/183749\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T19:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T19:59:06","slug":"does-screen-time-really-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/183749\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Screen Time Really Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPaul Mescal<\/a> appears in less of Hamnet than Jessie Buckley, but that hasn\u2019t stopped some from screaming \u201cfraud!\u201d at his Golden Globe nomination for supporting actor.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough the fictionalized telling of the death of William and Agnes Shakespeare\u2019s eponymous son finds both parents wading through their grief, the mother carries more of the emotional weight. Yet Matthew Stewart, whose Screen Time Central website lists the exact amount of time of every actor\u2019s Oscar-nominated turn, posted on X recently that the Mescal bid \u201cis one of THE most absolutely ludicrous supporting campaigns I\u2019ve ever witnessed.\u201d Cue the replies eagerly concurring, firmly disagreeing or pointing out the real cases of system-cheating now unfolding. (Stewart\u2019s data is cited throughout this story.)<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery year, studios, publicists and talent huddle to determine categories for the acting contenders on the bubble between lead and supporting. And a lot of film fans step in to disagree, believing that the stakes are nothing less than the integrity of film itself. They argue \u201ccategory fraud\u201d \u2014 forming online blocs and endlessly debating how the system has been unfairly gamed, the category designations dishonored. Oscar thirst, they cry, has outweighed common sense.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut of course this kind of strategizing is what the Oscars<\/a> are all about \u2014 they\u2019re best enjoyed at their frothiest, embracing every trick and sneak in the book. And have been for a long time. So I\u2019m here to say let\u2019s stop worrying about category fraud and let the machinations fly.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not even Christmas and the controversies are already multiplying. Wicked: For Good is pretty inarguably Ariana Grande<\/a>\u2018s movie, at least as much as it is Cynthia Erivo\u2019s, but the former is still competing in supporting categories. Another mini-furor has arisen over the Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value, which finds Stellan Skarsgard similarly avoiding the best actor race despite the size of his patriarch\u00a0role.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fraud debaters offer many preferred litmus tests. Some say screen time, but that gets complicated in large ensembles. Some point to being No. 1 on the call sheet \u2014 it\u2019s why Michelle Williams campaigned that way for The Fabelmans despite only appearing in about a third of that movie (she lost for lead actress, but many believe she could\u2019ve won her first Oscar in the supporting field). And others look at whether the character has a main POV in the storytelling (this is Stewart\u2019s argument on Mescal).<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes I agree, sometimes I don\u2019t \u2014 when I first saw Hamnet, I considered Mescal supporting without a second thought. There\u2019s no science to this. But I\u2019ve covered enough awards<\/a> seasons to believe these arguments are a waste of time. The Oscars rarely recognize the quote-unquote \u201cbest\u201d because it\u2019s a massive machine driven by money, relationships, trends and, yes, strategy. Categorization is usually the least of it \u2014 and yet it sucks up so much of the oxygen.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast month, Stewart posted the screen time breakdown for current frontrunner One Battle After Another, revealing lead actress Globe nominee Chase Infiniti is in less than 20 percent of the movie (supporting nominee Sean Penn has more time). \u201cThis shows how silly it was for Infiniti to go lead,\u201d said one comment (echoing many others).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut does it? Infiniti\u2019s placement gives her more clearly supporting co-stars Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall a better shot. It elevates her own profile as the breakout of an otherwise veteran-dense cast. And it allows Warner Bros., juggling an unusual volume of players this year, to make more room for the likes of Sinners\u2018 Wunmi Mosaku and Weapons\u2018 Amy Madigan. Strategy,\u00a0baby.<\/p>\n

\n\tConsider last year\u2019s supporting actress winner, who battled \u201cfraud\u201d allegations for months. Zoe Salda\u00f1a appeared in more of Emilia P\u00e9rez than any other actor, including Karla Sof\u00eda Gasc\u00f3n, who had the title role. Yet Salda\u00f1a went supporting and Gasc\u00f3n lead. Netflix\u2019s decision to center its trans star and tease a potentially historic nom (which happened) defined the film\u2019s overall campaign \u2014 lifting all of its boats. Sure, this strategy went down in spectacular flames when said trans star turned out to have a long history of posting hateful messages (and lost). But, hey, at least Salda\u00f1a, isolated from the mess, won.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany also lamented the likes of Salda\u00f1a and Wicked\u2018s Grande snagging a slot from true supporting standouts like D\u00ecdi\u2019s Joan Chen, who had less screen time in their films than those actors. But it\u2019s not like Conclave\u2018s Isabella Rossellini or The Brutalist\u2018s Felicity Jones, who were nominated, appeared in more than a small fraction of their movies, either. And strategy aside, there\u2019s something to be said for quality over quantity. Who would deny Anthony Hopkins\u2019 best actor win for The Silence of the Lambs, even though he appeared in less than a quarter of that movie?<\/p>\n

\n\tCampaigners don\u2019t have the final say, anyway. If voters disagree with a studio\u2019s pitch, they go their own way. Kate Winslet campaigned in the supporting category for The Reader in 2009 to keep her best actress bid for Revolutionary Road alive that year \u2014 but the Academy called B.S., nominating her in lead for Reader instead and neglecting Road. She won the Oscar.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s one last element to keep in mind \u2014 studios often have broader slates to worry about than one movie\u2019s roster. Netflix, always working with a wide range of contenders, puts a great deal of thought into that every year. (I shiver to think of the category-gaming rage that might emerge out of movies from a combined Netflix-WB.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhich reminds me \u2014 this stuff can feel awfully minor amid the larger, scarier industry forces hovering this season. Who among us is above getting their faves in? On a related note: Please keep voting for Sentimental Value\u2019s Skarsgard, now a Golden Globe nominee for best supporting actor. Yeah, he\u2019s in most of the movie. Yeah, he\u2019s arguably a lead. But this guy deserves an Oscar, and supporting is his best chance. Time to bring on the fraud.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in a December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Mescal appears in less of Hamnet than Jessie Buckley, but that hasn\u2019t stopped some from screaming \u201cfraud!\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[12342,10779,430,156,1019,111,139,69,2584,36526,467],"class_list":{"0":"post-183749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ariana-grande","9":"tag-awards","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-oscars","17":"tag-oscars-2026","18":"tag-paul-mescal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}