BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

I feel that there are four wonderful performances by actors of color that could have very easily and deservedly been given Best Supporting Actor nominations: Om Puri in THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY, Miyavi in UNBROKEN, Riz Ahmed in NIGHTCRAWLER and Tyler Perry in GONE GIRL. Yeah, you read that right…Tyler fucking Perry was deserving of an Oscar nomination and I will gladly explain myself.
Om Puri is a celebrated veteran Indian actor who has been making films mostly in his native India and the United Kingdom, with the occasional small part in US films, for nearly 4 decades. With his role as the patriarch of an immigrant family who opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin rated French restaurant which sets off a battle between Puri’s character and the owner of the French restaurant played by Helen Mirren. Puri has received accolades for his performance and an Oscar nomination would have been the 63 year-old’s “breakout” moment.
Androgynous Japanese pop singer Miyavi was an odd choice for the role of the sadistic prison guard in UNBROKEN but Angelina Jolie saw something in the 33 year old pop star and it really paid off because Miyavi showed an ability to play the layers of the character and didn’t make him into the one-note villain he could have easily become.
Riz Ahmed was wonderful as the put upon and clueless Rick in NIGHTCRAWLER. Rick was a lousy assistant and even lousier judge of character but Ahmed injected a likable humanity into Rick that made him more than just the slacker object of Jake Gyllenhaal’s demented Lou’s abuse but a guy that you immediately liked and worried about as he got pulled deeper and deeper into Lou’s dark world.
And finally Tyler Perry…I know it may seem odd to say but Perry was a much needed bright spot in the incredibly gray landscape of GONE GIRL. The movie was filled to the brim with damaged, awful people doing and saying terrible things to one another. So when Perry shows up as hotshot celebrity defense attorney, Tanner Bolt he injects some much needed levity to the proceedings. It also helps that Perry plays Bolt as the coolest man on the planet who seems unfazed by almost everything that is thrown at him during his defense of Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunner. Perry was cooler than the other side of the pillow (word to Stuart Scott) and made me realize that he can have a a career as an actor without dressing up like a woman.