Hailee Steinfeld Wins Best Supporting Actress in Gurus o'Gold Poll
Suddenly at the last minute, True Grit's teen titan Hailee Steinfeld tops the influential pundits' poll, showing how volatile the supporting actress category is this year.
And how did this reversal of fortune happen? Blogger and Gurus o'Gold poll impresario David Poland explains, "It was always, in spite of a great run of wins by Melissa [Leo], a category with wiggle room. Hailee is a lead in a supporting category, the movie is a big hit." I'll say: True Grit's worldwide gross is now $176 million, which is $131 million more than Joel Coen told me he expected it to make.
"And she holds her own with some heavyweights," says Poland -- who cautions that Steinfeld certainly shouldn't break out the champagne yet (and not just because she's too young to drink). "Melissa's performance still gets a lot of talk. Really, it could go any of the three ways." He means Hailee Steinfeld, Melissa Leo, or Helena Bonham Carter. "And that was 95% as true before 'The Ads' [Leo's controversial glamour ads]. That controversy just woke a hungry media from its slumber over a seemingly preordained season."
And the least preordained categories of all may be the actress categories.
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Covering The Race
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Scott Feinberg
Lead Awards Blogger & Analyst
Scott, whose THR coverage appears both in print and online, is one of the film industry's most experienced and trusted awards analysts, and possesses one of the strongest track records at forecasting the Oscars. His best showings came in 2006 (when he called 21 of 24 winners) and 2004 (when he called 20 of 24 winners); he was also the only pundit to project long-shot best picture nominations for The Reader (2008), The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011). An alumnus of Brandeis University, he previously ran "The Feinberg Files" blog for the Los Angeles Times. He is now a voting member of both the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, and is writing a book about film history for young people for which he has interviewed more than 350 high-profile Hollywood figures.
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Gregg Kilday
Film Editor
Gregg contributes awards news, features online, and "The Race" column in print.
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Tim Appelo
Film Reporter
Tim contributes awards news and features, both in print and online.
