Will the Academy be ready to embrace Dwayne Johnson, now a legitimate Oscar contender, for his role in The Smashing Machine?

Dear Gossips,

Welcome back from the Labour Day break in North America. We needed it because the next two weeks are a sprint, with film festivals happening in Venice, Telluride, and Toronto and then the MTV VMAs and then NY Fashion Week, and then the Emmys on September 14.

But also, from now until early December, there’s really not much of a slowdown since this is when award season starts to get serious as the race begins to take shape. And coming out of Venice and Telluride, in the Best Actor category, an outsider has emerged among those who are more familiar on the awards circuit

Over in Telluride, with the premiere of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, as expected, people are talking about a nomination for Jeremy Allen White. A couple of weeks ago in this space I posted about Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player, his follow-up to Conclave starring Colin Farrell. Now that the film has screened, Colin’s performance is indeed generating buzz for a possible nomination and it’ll be interesting to see whether or not that momentum holds up in a crowded year. After all, at this point in the conversation, a dozen actors are in the mix, literally. In addition to Jeremy and Colin, there’s also Michael B Jordan in Sinners, Stellan Skarsgard in Sentimental Value (both films debuted earlier in the year and remain in play), plus George Clooney, Oscar Isaac, Jesse Plemons, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Fraser, Russell Crowe. That’s a lot of previous Oscar winners, and of course Daniel Day-Lewis making his comeback and you know how the Academy feels about him. Oh and everyone’s leaving room for Timothée Chalamet too.

Seeing most of these names being talked about for Oscar is not a surprise. But then there’s Dwayne The Rock Johnson. There’s been months of anticipation for his performance in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine and the film received a 15-minute standing ovation last night in Venice, bringing The Rock to tears…

@bleacherreport
Dwayne Johnson and the cast of “The Smashing Machine” were applauded at the Venice Film Festival 👏 (via RaminSetoodeh/X) #movies #therock #wwe #dwaynejohnson
♬ original sound - bleacherreport

…and establishing him as a legitimate contender for the Best Actor Oscar. It’s real now. And you know he’s ambitious enough to go for it, shake as many hands and kiss as many babies as he can to secure it. Will be interesting though to see if the Academy is ready to embrace him in this role. We know that they’ve been rigid with actors, specifically the “type” of actors they consider to be Oscar “worthy”. Jennifer Lopez has come up against this issue but, of course, the Academy, like the rest of the world, is harder on women and more determined to limit them to how much range they’re allowed to occupy. The Rock’s story might be that much more appealing to the Academy: wrestler turned action star turned dramatic actor. Or will they be less willing to crown him an Oscar king in addition to a box office king? Can’t wait to see how this plays out.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey