Right now, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is attached to every commercial and every poster for Kraven the Hunter. His name is inextricably linked to the latest attempt by Sony to launch adaptations of Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man. Before this J.C. Chandor directorial effort, though, Taylor-Johnson had already long carved out a genre name for himself through his roles in titles like Kick-Ass, Bullet Train, Tenet, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Godzilla. Post-2009 genre cinema simply hasn’t been able to escape this man’s gravitational pull.
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However, his ubiquity in films heavy on explosions and green screen doesn’t mean Aaron Taylor-Johnson has never been able to flex his dramatic acting muscles in recent years. In 2016, he played the sadistic gangster Ray Marcus in the novel portions of Tom Ford’s Amy Adams/Jake Gyllenhaal movie Nocturnal Animals. This feature didn’t just allow Aaron Taylor-Johnson to inhabit a more grounded character, it also led this Kraven the Hunter leading man to securing an incredibly weird piece of Golden Globes trivia.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Strange Golden Globes Achievement
At the 74th Golden Globe Awards, Aaron Taylor-Johnson took home the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Nocturnal Animals. He beat out the likes of Mahershala Ali in Moonlight, Dev Patel in Lion, and Jeff Bridges in Hell or High Water. That commendable achievement would eventually be paired with a weird discrepancy: Taylor-Johnson is the only 21st-century winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture to not also score a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
Winning this Golden Globe award does not automatically guarantee an Oscar win. Ali lost at the Golden Globes but eventually won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Moonlight. However, securing a Golden Globe victory does suggest enough award-season momentum to secure a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. That wasn’t true for Taylor-Johnson, who was a no-show at that year’s Oscar ceremony. You’d have to go all the way back to The Sunshine Boys 41 years earlier to find another Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor winner that didn’t also get an Oscar nomination in the same category.
Why didn’t the actor get an Oscar nomination for Nocturnal Animals? Those reasons can only exist in the realm of speculation, though some key potential reasons do immediately leap to mind. For one thing, Taylor-Johnson isn’t necessarily an award-season darling. Never before getting much in the way of major awards traction, Taylor-Johnson may simply have not been on enough people’s radar to leap into the Oscar race. A lack of other Best Supporting Actor nominations/wins at key Oscar precursor ceremonies further suggests enthusiasm for this Nocturnal Animals performance could’ve been just limited to the Golden Globes voters.
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Did Michael Shannon Capsize Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Hopes?
That Sunshine Boys movie might offer a better glimpse into why a Taylor-Johnson Oscar nomination never came to fruition. Richard Benjamin won the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for that movie, but when the Oscars rolled around, George Burns was representing Sunshine Boys in the Best Supporting Actor category. There just wasn’t room for two Best Supporting Actor nominations from Sunshine Boys that year. Similarly, Nocturnal Animals did get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination that year, but for Michael Shannon.
Unlike Taylor-Johnson, Shannon is a fixture of Oscar-friendly movies, including having a critical role in then-future Best Picture winner The Shape of Water and scoring a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Revolutionary Road. Having a strong pre-existing relationship with Oscar voters, it was a lot easier to get people on the Oscar nomination bandwagon for Nocturnal Animals. Plus, the previous year Shannon was viewed as majorly snubbed when his 99 Homes performance didn’t get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. That couldn’t have hurt the aura surrounding his Nocturnal Animals work.
Above all else, though, he was just the default Best Supporting Actor nominee for Nocturnal Animals at major Oscar precursor ceremonies like various critics group award shows. Aaron Taylor-Johnson even getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor for this film, let alone winning a Golden Globe, was an anomaly. More than anything against the actor personally, an extra boost of hype surrounding Shannon’s Nocturnal Animals performance capsized his Oscar chances.
Whatever the reason, Aaron Taylor-Johnson indisputably holds an absolutely bizarre Golden Globes record. He’s the only 21st-century winner of the ceremonies Best Supporting Actor category to not also get an Oscar nod in the same terrain. With no major potential adult dramas or award-season darlings on the horizon, it’s doubtful he’ll get a proper Oscar nomination in any category anytime soon and he’ll just have to soothe himself with all the money that rolls in from his regular blockbuster movie acting gigs.
