New York Film Critics Circle winner Wagner Moura's momentum surges at exactly the right time for his performance in The Secret Agent

Dear Gossips,

Even though Timothée Chalamet was the Critics Choice for best actor the other night, prognosticators don’t seem convinced that he’s the favourite for the Oscar. As Sarah noted in her post about Timmy’s win, the Academy has been reluctant to award younger actors in this category. So, right now, heading into the Golden Globes, it’s actually a competitive race. Which makes it more fun. We want suspense!

Last night was the award ceremony for the New York Film Critics Circle. As always, they announce the winners list in December but hand out the trophies in January. The New York Critics went with Wagner Moura in the best actor category and his momentum has been surging at exactly the right time for his performance in The Secret Agent, also a contender for Best International Film at the Oscars.

I’ve heard from several people that Wagner is quite popular among Oscar voters – he’s had a long career, he’s worked with a lot of people in the Hollywood community, he isn’t flashy, but he’s been steady. And he’s definitely been steadily campaigning. So it’ll be very interesting to see which way the Globes break because they split the acting into drama and comedy categories so while Leo and Timmy contend over in comedy, it’s looking like it’s between Wagner and Michael B Jordan in drama.

Wagner’s counterpart in New York last night in the lead acting category was Rose Byrne for her work in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Rose has picked up so many critics awards over the last few months that even though, right now, it looks like Jessie Buckley might run away with the best actress Oscar, there’s more than enough time for Rose to make a push.

At the Globes, Rose and Jessie are in different categories and Rose is the favourite to win in the best actress comedy category on Sunday and we might get to see her try out an acceptance speech to really nail down that Oscar nomination and, maybe, eat into Jessie’s lead. The Golden Globes aren’t necessarily an accurate bellwether for Oscar wins, but they definitely have an impact on the nominations. Nomination voting begins the day after the Globes and when the races are as tight as they are in these acting categories, every stop along the way counts.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey