Award season’s best fanboy is a role typically occupied by Timothee Chalamet – at least it was last year and for part of this year. And it’s not even an official “role” since we only made it up for Timmy. Still. There was a vacancy, since Timmy is not nominated for Oscar. And it has since been filled. The new best award season fanboy is now Richard E Grant, Best Supporting Actor nominee for his performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me. He’s given us a delightful week. Few weeks, actually, starting with his stanning of Barbra Streisand. And then he went to the Oscar Nominees luncheon on Monday and behaved like, well, like most of us would have behaved – selfie after selfie with anyone who’d take a selfie with him and posting it on Twitter to share with everyone else. What’s especially hilarious about this is that Richard is sh-t at taking selfies. He doesn’t know the angles. He can hardly get the focus down. Here he is with Bradley Cooper. Dude. Your arm is longer than that, you don’t need to be that close:

This is when those focus problems really start to be noticeable:


And this one is almost a complete waste. A millennial would have asked for a do-over:

But that just adds to how endearing he is, right? Vanity Fair is calling him this award season’s MVP. And he is living up to what Duana always says about award season, what she wants to see from the people there: show me you’re having a good time, don’t be afraid to have fun. IT SHOULD BE FUN! Of course it’s fun for someone like Richard who’s been working for decades, who’s never experienced something like this before, who can’t believe he’s hanging out with Lady Gaga and Spike Lee and Bradley Cooper and gets to wear funky shirts and be interviewed and profiled in Vulture and The Guardian and Rolling Stone. He’s making the job of whoever is running his Oscar campaign so easy – because he clearly wants the work, the work of campaigning, the work of getting out there and GOING FOR that Oscar. 

Richard was on Kimmel last night and the interview, naturally, was adorable. I’ve embedded it at the bottom of this post. He’s making sure he’s reaching as many Oscar voters as possible before voting begins on Tuesday. And if he wins? Imagine how delightful that acceptance speech is going to be. I am sure of it. 

Can he win though? They’re hoping for it. They wouldn’t be hustling him this hard if they didn’t think there was a chance. And there might be chance because the frontrunner, Mahershala Ali, even though he’s cleaned up to this point, well, you know how complicated the Green Book thing has been. Which is why he’s kept a much lower profile on the campaign circuit. You know what I’m vibing on Richard E Grant though? I wonder if we might get another Mark Rylance situation. 

Mark Rylance won the Supporting Actor Oscar a few years ago for Bridge of Spies. That year though, leading up the Oscars, everyone was paying attention to Sylvester Stallone for his performance in Creed. Sly won the Globe, he won at Critics’ Choice. He was the favourite going into the Oscars. But the Academy chose Mark Rylance. Mahershala is more heavily favoured than Sly was that year since he took the SAG and Sly didn’t win the SAG during his run for Creed but the way Richard’s been playing it lately, I wonder if we might see another surprise. If not, Richard’s not going to be bothered, guaranteed. He’s probably the only one who is truly living the spirit of “it’s an honour just to be nominated”.