Best Actor

George Clooney	Michael Clayton	*NBR, GG, SAG	2, 1
Daniel Day-Lewis	There Will Be Blood	*NYFC, *LAFC, *NSFC, *GG, *SAG	4, 1
Johnny Depp	Sweeney Todd	*GG	3, 0
Tommy Lee Jones	In the Valley of Elah		3, 1
Viggo Mortensen	Eastern Promises	GG, SAG	1, 0

It won’t be Tommy Lee Jones, in the least-liked film in the bunch. Jones and also George Clooney are both former winners who don’t have the iron-strong candidacy to overcome the “He’s already got one” factor. (More on that later.) Meanwhile, Johnny Depp and Viggo Mortensen are two of our best actors, but sadly, it ain’t their year. Sweeney didn’t connect with viewers the way it was expected, and Depp’s exclusion from the SAG nominees indicates weak support. Mortensen is hurt by the relatively little screen time he has in Eastern Promises; he was great but it may not be enough. He’s going to get clobbered by the in-every-scene-of-a-three-hour-movie screen time of Daniel Day-Lewis. And what screen time it is. Day-Lewis, a winner for My Left Foot and nominee for In the Name of the Father and Gangs of New York, may have done the best work of his career, one that’s everything you could ask for in a Best Actor performance: A meticulously gradual psychological transformation, yet punctuated with heart-pounding moments; a character of astounding coldness with surprising moments of humanity, even tenderness; a characterization that is a complete disappearance of an actor into a character, yet it reminds you why you friggin’ love this guy. I don’t like repeat wins, but golly, he deserves it. Prediction and Personal Pick: Daniel Day-Lewis (But note that I didn’t catch up to Sweeney Todd, and I refuse to see In the Valley of Whatever, Paul Haggis.)