Christopher Plummer favoured to win supporting actor Oscar

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer is the front-runner for the best supporting actor Oscar this year.

In Beginners, he plays a terminally ill and recently widowed man who decides to come out of the closet, a revelation that shakes his son, played by Ewan McGregor.

Plummer, 82, has been working steadily since the 1950s and won numerous awards for his illustrious career, including two Emmys and two Tonys.

Click here to see the full list of nominees and winners.

He was previously nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in the 2010 film The Last Station, and is considered the favorite to win this year as he has swept all the major awards shows, winning the Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice prizes, among others.

But it is his role as Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 film classic The Sound of Music opposite Julie Andrews for which he is best known.

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The other nominees for best supporting actor at the 84th Annual Academy Awards are fellow 82-year-old veteran Max von Sydow, Nick Nolte, Kenneth Branagh, and Jonah Hill.

Polar opposite from the best supporting actress category, the supporting actor race, with the exception of relative newcomer Hill, honors the veterans of film, stage, and television.

Swedish-born von Sydow isnominated for his role in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as an elderly Manhattan man who doesn’t speak because of a trauma he witnessed as a youth during World War II. He helps a young boy (Thomas Horn) uncover a mystery about his father (Tom Hanks), who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Von Sydow has been acting steadily for more than 60 years, and is best known for his role as Father Merrin in the 1973 horror film classic The Excorcist, as well as for his collaborations with acclaimed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.

He was previously nominated for an Oscar in the lead actor category for his work in the 1987 film Pelle the Conqueror.

Nick Nolte is nominated for his third Academy Award for his role as a recovering alcoholic turned born-again-Christian who helps his son (Tom Hardy) train for a mixed martial arts tournament that eventually pits him up against his other son (Joel Edgarton) in Warrior.

Famously gruff and gravel-voiced, Nolte, 70, was nominated for Oscars twice before, for his leading roles in 1997’s Affliction, and 1991’s The Prince of Tides. He is well known for his roles in the 1982 buddy cop film 48 Hours.

British actor and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh scored his fifth Oscar nod for his role as another famed British actor and filmmaker, Sir Lawrence Olivier, in the biographical film about screen siren Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn.

The film depicts a brief period of Monroe’s turbulent life and marriage to playwright Arthur Miller during the production of the 1957 Olivier-directed film “The Prince and the Showgirl.

In the film, Branagh, 51, depicts Olivier as egotistical and insensitive to the delicate needs of the blonde bombshell, but his portrayal is tinged with comedy and self-realization.

Branagh was previously nominated for his lead acting role in Henry V, for which he was also nominated for best director, best short film for Swan Song, and for best adapted screenplay for his work on the 1996 Shakespeare production Hamlet.

And rounding out the category is actor Jonah Hill, by far the youngest among his peers at 28. He is nominated for his role in “Moneyball” as a good-with-numbers but green assistant to major league baseball manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt).

Well-known for his roles in the Judd Apatow-produced films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, and Knocked Up, Hill has carved out a niche for himself as one of the best comic actors of his generation.

Hill is the only actor in the supporting category who has not been previously nominated for an Oscar.

The Academy Awards will be handed out Sunday in a live telecast from the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.

Click here for a full list of nominees.