AFT Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

This is the third category of the 2nd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.

Runners-up:
JOHN MALKOVICH, CHANGELING
RALPH FIENNES, IN BRUGES
ROBERT DOWNEY JR, TROPIC THUNDER
TOM NOONAN, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
EDDIE MARSAN, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

The winner:
Mark Strong (Body of Lies) was an awesome, frightening, incredible force to be reckoned with and managed to make Leonardo DiCaprio’s character shake in his boots quite a few times. Though I don’t award additional performances, I must say that his hilarious turn in “RocknRolla” also merits enormous recognition.

Other nominees:
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) threw himself fully into his last role and created a truly terrifying and fascinating villain. Bill Irwin (Rachel Getting Married) gave an incredibly real performance as the broken father of two unstable daughters. Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt) didn’t quite let you hate him as a less experienced actor might have in the role of a potentially abusive priest. Ayush Mahesh Khedekar (Slumdog Millionaire) bested a number of actors twice his age as the youngest Jamal, helping enormously to capture the exotic spirit of the film.