Best Supporting Actress Oscar Musical Performance in 2025

In recent years, there has been a correlation with musical performances being recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Academy Awards, with eight nominated since 2002 and half winning. This year we have potentially three actresses from two movie musicals competing for the five spots: Ariana Grande for Universal Pictures’ “Wicked,” and Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez to Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez.” Let’s look back at the many scenarios where song and dance artists were cited for Best Supporting Actress and what that could mean for this year’s nominees.

There have been countless female supporting roles recognized for film musicals at the Oscars, predominantly during the genre’s beginnings, which include Jean Hagen for “Singin’ In The Rain” (1952), Peggy Wood for “The Sound of Music” (1965), and Kay Medford for “Funny Girl” (1968). But the first victory came Rita Moreno for “West Side Story” (1961), which also made history as the first Hispanic to win. The next triumph would not come until more than four decades later, when Catherine Zeta-Jones won for “Chicago” (2002), which was nominated against his co-star Queen Latifah.

Since then, musical winners came more frequently, as was the case Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” (2006), Anne Hathaway in “Les Miserables” (2012), and Ariana DeBose in “West Side Story” (2021), the final victory circled back to Moreno for the same character as Anita in Steven Spielberg replay. We also had quotes from Penelope Cruz for “Nine” (2009), Meryl Streep for “Into the Woods” (2014), and Danielle Brooks for “The Color Purple” (2023).

Usually, to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for a musical performance, one must have at least one outstanding number to showcase their emotional vocal range or impressive choreography. In the case of the previous wins, it was “America” ​​for DeBose and Moreno, “I Dreamed A Dream” for Hathaway, “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” for Hudson and “All That Jazz” and ” I can’t do it alone” for Zeta-Jones.

Since “Wicked” is currently a long-running Broadway hit, Grande as Glinda has the song “Popular” for the first of a two-part film adaptation, while Saldaña and Gomez have the catchy Spanish song-and-dance numbers “El Mal” and “Bienvenida,” where they both go all out with their bodies.

As of this writing, Saldaña has a commanding lead in Best Supporting Actress based on the combined predictions at the Gold Derby at 71/20 odds, along with 18 experts, all 10 editors and half of the top 24 users predicting a win.

Grande, meanwhile, has steadily risen to fourth at odds of 13/2, overtaking Saoirse Ronan (“Blitz”) at 10/1 and behind Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”) and Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”) both tied at 11 /2, while Gomez lurks in the shadows in eighth place at 15/1, tied with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (“Nickel Boys”) and behind Isabella Rossellini (“Conclave”) at 14/1. Never before in Oscar history have musical performances made up the majority of an Oscar category, so if “Wicked” and “Emilia Pérez” both do well throughout the season, we could see a dominance of Best Supporting Actress, and perhaps another victory that would strengthen this connection.

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