2013 Muriels: Best Supporting Actress

This category's historically been a hodgepodge of a dogfight, with a lot of close races and offbeat down-ballot choices. Last year was the first year we had would could be called a consensus winner. This year's the first we've seen a candidate break 200 points. So, yeah. Consensus!

Third place:



Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine [85 points / 15 votes]

Second place:



Scarlett Johansson, Her [134 points / 22 votes]

And your winner...



Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave [208 points / 30 votes]

"Lupita Nyong'o is going to be with us for a very long time in the movies. There have been few careers launched as definitively as hers, with her film debut (and as mind-boggling as that is to contemplate, after seeing the movie) in 12 Years a Slave in the small but indelible role of the doomed slave, Patsey. She channels, in as uncompromising a fashion as the rest of the movie, the enormity of racism and misogyny, her small body seemingly breaking under the burden in every frame she appears on screen, her soul tragically and hauntingly gone, taken by the forces that would deny her humanity twofold for both her sex and the color of her skin. The fact that, at the array of awards ceremonies that she's attended as a nominee, she is such a vision of beauty and glamour only serves, extratextually, to further condemn the evil visited upon Patsey. Perhaps it's sentimental, but there is nonetheless an ever-presented specter haunting audiences who saw her in the film and then on the red carpet: “What monster could do those horrible things to someone so beautiful?” The true horror is that the monsters that did those things didn't discriminate based on beauty or lack thereof, and those monsters were us. But the thing that makes Lupita Nyong'o such a glory to behold as a star is that her presence is not a rebuke. She is here, and she is amazing, and she will be here being amazing for a very long time. For this we give thanks." -- Danny Bowes

See the full results.