Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon	Invictus	CC, GG, SAG	1,0 [acting only]
Woody Harrelson	The Messenger	*NBR, CC, GG, SAG	1,0
Christian McKay	Me and Orson Welles	CC	0,0
Alfred Molina	An Education	CC	0,0
Christopher Plummer	The Last Station	GG, SAG	0,0
Paul Schneider	Bright Star	*NSFC	0,0
Stanley Tucci	The Lovely Bones	CC, GG, SAG	0,0
Christoph Waltz	Inglourious Basterds	*NYFC, *LAFC, *NBR, *CC, *GG, *SAG	0,0

It’s tough for an unknown performer to lead an Oscar race, but fans, critics, and insiders are so enthusiastic about Austrian Christoph Waltz’s wicked Nazi turn in Inglorious Basterds that he has pretty much already won the award before the nominations have even been announced.

Those who will be honored just to be nominated include Woody Harrelson, who delivers news of soldiers’ deaths to the next of kin in The Messenger, and Christopher Plummer’s embodiment of Leo Tolstoy’s final years, which will earn the 80-year-old his first Oscar nod. Stanley Tucci captured hearts with his quiet turn as Julia Child’s husband Paul, but his polar-opposite performance, as the sinister neighbor in The Lovely Bones, is the square focus of his awards push; though Bones was poorly received overall, support for his performance is still afloat. Matt Damon hasn’t been nominated since he picked up Best Screenplay for Good Will Hunting, but he’ll return to the race not for his starring role in Soderbergh’s The Informant!, but for his smaller role as a South African soccer player.

Like the Best Actress race, all five nominees in this category at the SAG awards were also chosen by the Golden Globes, so it seems these five actors are untouchable. Hoping for upset are the men from An Education, blowhard father Alfred Molina and charming boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard, steely soldier Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker, boy-toy (or, more accurately, middle-aged-man-toy) Alec Baldwin of It’s Complicated, and Christian McKay as the title character in Me and Orson Welles.