Moving on…
Third place:
Oscar Isaac (actor - Ex Machina and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) [98 points / 16 votes]
Second place:
Alicia Vikander (actor - Ex Machina, The Danish Girl, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Burnt) [127 points / 19 votes]
And the Muriel goes to…
Jennifer Jason Leigh (actor - The Hateful Eight and Anomalisa) [135 points / 22 votes]
“Jennifer Jason Leigh first came to my attention, as I’d imagine she did for a lot of us, via Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I was probably a little on the young side to have been taking that in back in 1982, but even then, before I could adequately articulate it, it reinforced something I innately knew: I am a Betty guy, not a Veronica guy. She fell squarely in that down-to-earth, girl-next-door category that made her immediately appealing to me, and the two personality poles of that archetype, sweetness and toughness in equal measure, made her infinitely watchable. She has put together an impressive body of work over the years, but I don't think I have ever seen her have a year like 2015 in which she carried those two qualities to such perfect extremes.
“Toughness first. As Daisy Domergue in Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, she is as crafty as they come. She is given no quarter and asks none. She is battered but never plays wounded. She is as vile and reprehensible as, maybe more so than the other assembled outlaws and miscreants, and yet that devilish gleam in her eye lures me over to her side. The entirety of that stagecoach ride, I couldn't take my eyes off her face. Malicious, gleeful gears are turning the entire time, figuring angles, calculating odds, or just looking to inject chaos, and all with the heedless humor of someone who’s got nothing left to lose. I admire her cunning and I want to know her secrets, which is a far cry from what I can say for any of the other characters in that film. The fact that she can generate such sympathy as an unrepentant criminal in a film that I otherwise actively disliked is a testament to her consummate ability to find that part of a character that you can connect with, even if that connection is based on looking yourself squarely in the eye and admitting to the existence of the lesser angels of your nature.
“The sweetness of her performance as Lisa Hesselman in Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa is then like a balm. Even limited to a voice-only performance, she manages to impart an uncommon gentleness and vulnerability. The thing that struck me most upon first viewing is how often during the film I was unaware of her as an actress. Any notion of celebrity personality that often overwhelms other animated films with notable cast members is completely absent here. Even though her presence was one of the things I was looking forward to the most, she almost completely disappeared from view, in the best, most appropriate way. What was left was exactly what was necessary - a timid but hopeful woman that could be any woman. Her anonymity made her desires and dreams that much more poignant and made my heart hurt for her that much more. To want to be loved - even more, to know you are worthy of love - and to find it so evasive and puzzling is at the core at Lisa's dilemma, and Leigh's ability to communicate that need with just her voice is astounding. The only thing this year that eclipsed her display of fierce will as she sat on the floor of Tarantino's cabin, her face a blood-soaked mask, was the quiet grace of her singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ as a puppet sitting on a hotel bed in a stranger's room. Her versatility made these antipodal characters both eminently true and effective and resulted in what is possibly the strongest year in a career with a number of great performances. I look forward to many more.” ~ Cole Roulain
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