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Steve Carell In 'Foxcatcher' Is The Year's First Oscar Contender

Steve Carell Might Be A Future Oscar Nominee For This Role
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Managing Entertainment Editor, The Huffington Post

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It's only May 19, but with the world premiere of "Foxcatcher" having occurred at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival on Monday, Oscar season has started its all-encompassing engines.

"Foxcatcher," which was pushed out of 2013 to allow director Bennett Miller time to finish (and to get the film away from "12 Years A Slave" and "Gravity"), is already being hailed as "an enormous film" and "a superb tragicomedy of the beta-male"; some critics have even compared Miller's film to Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master."

At the center of "Foxcatcher" is Steve Carell. The nominal comic actor plays John E. du Pont in the film, a millionaire who suffered from mental illness and murdered Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), a gold-medal winning wrestler, in 1996. (Channing Tatum plays Dave's brother, fellow wrestler Mark Schultz, and the film is filtered through his perspective.) It has long been assumed that Carell would be an Oscar contender for the part -- he's almost unrecognizable, thanks to a prosthetic nose and bizarre speaking voice -- and, sure enough, that's the early consensus.

"Steve Carell is an Oscar Lock for ‘Foxcatcher'" is the headline on a Variety piece about the film. "His 'Foxcatcher' role feels like a career game-changer simply because it's so fascinating and brilliantly executed," wrote Vulture's Kyle Buchanan in a piece that also cites Tatum as a possible Oscar nominee in 2015.

Then there's this rave, from Jessica Kiang at Indiewire's The Playlist:

Carell is the revelation that everyone has suggested in the role, and then some: vocally, physically and psychologically he is not just unrecognizable, he simply is a different man, and a man whose tragic flaw (cursed to wield great wealth and influence with no shred of greatness to justify it) is the entire story of this film. It’s seldom we’ve ever witnessed such a total erasure of self in a role, and it deserves to win him everything, everywhere.

"Foxcatcher" is set for release on Nov. 14, so expect to hear a lot about Carell's performance between now and then. It should be noted that Miller's only other feature films as a director are "Capote" and "Moneyball"; both scored best actor nominations.

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Before You Go

Actors Who've Transformed Their Look For A Role
Sharon Stone in "Lovelace"(01 of13)
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Sharon Stone, 55, looks virtually unrecognizable as the mother of porn star Linda Lovelace. Even Harvey Weinstein, whose Radius-TWC distributed the film, didn't recognize Stone when he saw "Lovelace" for the first time."It’s funny, because when I played 'Basic Instinct,' everybody thought I was playing something closer to myself," Stone told The Associated Press. "But in fact I totally transformed myself to play that character. I didn't know how to go around looking like that. ... I’m not anything at all like that ['Basic Instinct'] part, and I'm not like this part." (credit:AP/Getty)
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men"(02 of13)
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Javier Bardem sported a pretty unflattering haircut for his role as an vicious sociopath in the film "No Country for Old Men." He wasn't a fan of the chop at first, reports About.com, but credits the style for later helping him connect to the part, which ultimately earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. "So, I went to the trailer and they cut it and I saw it and I said, 'What the hell is that?'" he said. "But that helped a lot actually, because in a way he gave this reality to the character, this dimension of being very methodical. Everything is in place. It's kind of mathematical, like perfectly structured which is the way I thought the character should be: perfectly clean." (credit:AP/Getty )
George Clooney in "Syriana"(03 of13)
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Pasta became George Clooney's best friend as he worked to gain weight for his role as a CIA agent Robert Baer in "Syriana." Clooney gained over 30 pounds, according to MSN.com, though he told The Tech that the process is "not nearly as fun as it sounds.""So my job was just to eat as fast as I could, as much as I could ... But mostly you just ate until you wanted to throw up, and made sure you didn't throw up. So that was my job for a month, was eating," he said. Clooney went on to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his part in the film. (credit:AP/Getty )
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose"(04 of13)
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To play iconic French singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," Marion Cotillard had to shave her eyebrows and hairline and even change her voice, a piece of her character she told USA Today she struggled to part with. "... I have to confess. When I shot the movie, off the set, my voice was more the voice of the character than mine. It took a little while for it to go up again," she said. The makeup process took five hours each day and an additional hour each night to remove the latex and glue used for her transformation. The dedication paid off in the best way, though, with Cotillard snagging the Best Actress Oscar at the 2008 Academy Awards. (credit:AP/Getty )
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler"(05 of13)
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Mickey Rourke added a considerable amount of muscle to his frame to play troubled wrestler Randy "the Ram" Robinson in "The Wrestler," a role that got him a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Rourke told MTV News he went through an intense training process to beef up several months before filming started."I got a really good Israeli trainer who made me pump iron and do the cardio for four months," he said. "Then we did two hours of weight training and cardio and two hours of wrestling practice."Rourke said the playing the role was nothing like his days as a professional boxer and that after just a few days he "knew this would be the hardest movie I ever made." Rourke lost Best Actor to Sean Penn at the 2009 Oscars. (credit:AP/Getty )
Brad Pitt in "12 Monkeys"(06 of13)
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Brad Pitt abandoned his signature sexy looks to take play a crazed animal activist in "12 Monkeys." He cut his hair, masked his blue eyes behind contact lenses and put on a convincingly manic performance that earned him an Oscar nomination and a Best Supporting Actor honor at the 1996 Golden Globes ceremony. The film's director Terry Gilliam told Henri Béhar of Film Scouts that casting Pitt in the role was a successful risk for both him and his co-star Bruce Willis. "We worked very hard at changing his look. He's no longer the sexiest man in America and it's wonderful," said Gilliam. "I think both Brad and Bruce have taken big leaps and they're dangerous leaps. They could have fallen flat on their face but I think it ended up amazing." (credit:AP/Getty )
Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry"(07 of13)
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Hilary Swank's transformation for the film "Boys Don't Cry" began with a haircut at Astor Place Barbershop in New York City where she chopped off her blond locks immediately after being cast in the role, according to the LA Times. She dyed her hair brown and began a workout routine to help her slim down and better expose her facial structure. She also began taking lessons to lower the tone of her voice and began to try to pass as a boy in public. "People used the pronoun 'he' all the time, but I'm sure not everyone thought I was a boy. There were people who were confused by my gender. And in those instances, if I blurred that line and didn't fit into the stereotypical image of boy or girl, people didn't want to have anything to do with me," she said. Swank took home the Oscar for Best Actress. (credit:AP/Getty )
Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull"(08 of13)
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For his role in "Raging Bull" as former middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, Robert De Niro had to to go from fit to flab -- he played the younger, healthier La Motta as well as the overweight shadow of himself the boxer ultimately became. De Niro worked out and closely watched his diet going into initial filming of the movie. According to ESPN Page 2, he took the film's four month break from shooting to gain 60 pounds, weight gain that De Niro shared didn't leave him feeling the most comfortable. "You get rashes on your legs. Your legs scrape together," he said. The extra pounds led him to a Best Actor Oscar in 1980. (credit:AP/Getty )
Melissa Leo in "The Fighter"(09 of13)
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Melissa Leo's role as Alice Ward, the mother of boxers Dicky Eklund and Micky Ward, won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.Johnny Villanueva and Donald Mowat led a makeup and hair team that teased, powdered and styled Leo to '80s perfection. For makeup, the team used colors that didn't quite compliment each other as well as a stain to yellow her teeth due to Ward's years of smoking. Leo felt her spot-on look coupled with spending time with Alice to research the character helped her nail the role. "I realized I could do it and believed it when I walked out of the trailer there and the whole freaking town of Lowell believed it," she said. (credit:AP/Getty )
Christian Bale in "The Fighter"(10 of13)
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After losing an extreme amount of weight to play boxing trainer Dicky Eklund in "The Fighter," Christian Bale said he most likely wouldn't make any major changes to his body again. "I'm getting a little bit older now," said Bale backstage at the 83rd annual Academy Awards after winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. "I'm starting to recognize that if I do too much, there's no coming back from it. I don't have quite the mentality I did a few years back when I thought I was invincible. I've got a child now. I know too many of them. There's only so much a body can take."He told the Latino Review that he slimmed down for the role by "running like crazy. I could just run for hours on end and I felt really healthy." (credit:AP/Getty )
Nicole Kidman in "The Hours"(11 of13)
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Australian beauty Nicole Kidman experienced a serious make-under for her role as Virginia Woolf in "The Hours." The transformation took three hours each day and included the use of a prosthetic nose, something Kidman told O Magazine her kids didn't like much. "They didn't like my new look!" said Kidman. "When I took my kids to see a movie the other night, Connor saw a poster for The Hours and said, 'I don't like that nose.' He was like, 'Uh-uh!'"Though the exceptional work of the makeup artists wasn't celebrated with a best makeup Oscar Nomination, Kidman snagged the ultimate prize, an Oscar win for Best Actress. (credit:AP/Getty )
Charlize Theron in "Monster"(12 of13)
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Though she has been recognized as one of PEOPLE's All Time Most Beautiful Women, Charlize Theron took on an entirely different look to play prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos in "Monster" -- a role that earned her the Best Actress Oscar. From a new set of teeth sculpted specifically for her, to the addition of liquid latex on her face to give it a worn, leathery appearance and an army of freckles airbrushed on her face, makeup artist Tony G transformed Theron almost beyond recognition. This even included plucking out and bleaching her eyebrows, Theron told Aboutfilm.com, "because Aileen had barely had any eyebrows.""My job as an actor, and the part of my job that I love is the transforming-and-becoming aspect of it, and so it doesn't become about me anymore," said Theron. "I think that you have to step away from yourself, if you're going to do it. Otherwise don't do it; otherwise why do it?" (credit:AP/Getty )
Naomi Watts in "The Impossible"(13 of13)
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For her role as a mother separated from her husband and kids by the 2004 tsunami that ravaged Thailand, Naomi Watts sported bruises and cuts all over her face and body -- and earned a Best Actress nod for this year's Oscars. The look didn't initially sit well with her two sons whom she brought along for the filming of the movie. But they slowly warmed up to the temporary injuries. "They came first time on a day where I had minimal wounds - nothing too much. ... And then by the third day they came, they were putting the chocolate powder all over me and painting some wounds on themselves and me. So they understood it," she said. (credit:AP/Getty )
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