Awards season and the power of the star

From the final, towering season of betrayal and tragedy in Jesse Armstrong’s hit show Succession to the epic, unfurling cinematic wonder of a new Martin Scorsese film, 2023 was a year of highs in movies and television. It was also a tumultuous one: the labour dispute that became the SAG-AFTRA strike brought productions to a standstill and actors disappeared from festivals and publicity junkets overnight. There also appeared to be some major sea changes in audience interest and box office success, with the chokehold of the superhero finally seeming to loosen and more singular works of creative vision—such as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer—attracting the crowds. And as interest in more idiosyncratic or personal stories increases, star power is all the more important. With the Emmys and Golden Globes in the rear view—and the BAFTAs announcing their nominations later today—the awards season of 2024 is poised to show us just how pivotal our current crop of screen talent is.

The television broadcasts of ceremonies have, so far, been middling-to-poor (as is the wont of awards shows, generally: lots of chaff, not enough wheat). Comedian Jo Koy bombed while hosting the Globes, making dumb jokes about Margot Robbie’s breasts in Barbie and seemingly missing the point of the entire film, while Robbie herself—a multi-hyphenate old-school movie star of a generation—glittered in a pink gown and politely ignored it.

Yet despite that—and despite the Globes’ governing body, the HFPA, being in deep chaos for currying favours, seemingly engaging in unfair practices and having a serious lack of diversity—the broadcast pulled in roughly 9.4 million viewers in the States, a 50 per cent increase on last year’s dismal ratings. What that tells me is that people were tuning in to see the stars they love accepting deserved awards and wearing fabulous clothes (not to mention Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet kissing). Or perhaps they were there to make memes and tweets about the weirder interactions, whatever—but also, surely, on some level, to appreciate the films and TV they loved this year be feted on a large stage.

When it comes to performances, the frontrunner for the Best Actor seems now to be Cillian Murphy, for his anguished role as the physicist who made the A-bomb. When he won at the Golden Globes, his charmingly down-to-earth speech involved him realising that his wife’s lipstick was all over his face. Lily Gladstone, the talented star of Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, has a rare and likeable sincerity—her earnest acceptance of Best Actress was extremely touching.

It has been the actors in general who have lit up this awards season. Compare and contrast the strained “humour” of Globes host Koy with the natural hilarity of one of Hollywood’s finest, Paul Giamatti, bumbling on stage. Or with the audience’s delight at Kieran Culkin accidentally letting out a tiny belch into the microphone—a crowdpleaser largely because of Culkin’s perceived similarities to his character in Succession, Roman Roy. At the Emmys, Succession won big, along with the second season of The Bear, the Chicago-based restaurant drama that broke heartthrob lead Jeremy Allen White (of the tighty-whities) into the mainstream. Both he and his co-star Ayo Edebiri took home awards for their granular, identifiable work—Edebiri, in particular, balances her precision as a performer with a sense of humour that’s hard not to find lovable.

Naturally, there had to be some jokes about the threat of AI at the Globes (it was one of the major catalysts for the SAG-AFTRA and writers’ strikes last year). Daniel Kaluuya, Hailee Steinfeld, and Shameik Moore took to the stage to present Best Screenplay and cracked some one-liners about just how dire things might be if their jokes were written by machines instead of humans. They made their point: the most fun and interesting things to watch during awards season are the stars themselves; this rare chance to see both their glamour and their humanity, exuding the charisma that makes them so good at what they do. The world is greatly enlivened by the visible and glamorous face of its celebrity, the viral clout of fame, the hard graft of an industry’s extras and supporting actors.

If the powers that be—the studios and the awards bodies both—don’t continue to acknowledge and respect that, after a year that delivered some of the most memorable star performances in recent history… well, more fool them.