Velma Kelly - Leading or Supporting Role??

The role of Velma Kelly is, in the stage production, considered a 'Leading Actress' role (e.g. Bebe Neuwirth won the Tony for Leading Actress in a Musical in 1997)

However, for the film version, Velma Kelly is considered a 'Supporting' role (i.e. Catherine Zeta-Jones won the Oscar for Supporting Actress in 2002)

Catherine received equal billing with Renee Zellweger (who received an Oscar nomination for Leading Actress as Roxie) and Richard Gere, and yet her role is considered Supporting?? I mean, come on, surely she has just as much to do with the story as Roxie?

Thoughts?

Regardless of size, it is a meaty role that would often get big enough 'names' to always make it leading.

Even in the stage play Roxie is definately larger then Velma and the show for the most part revolve around her. Velma does though have alot of the best lines and scenes and part of songs. But your milage may vary I guess on how your interpret lead vs supporting.

In regards to Supporting Actress for the Oscars, I believe that doesn't have much to do with role size. Each year every movie has a "For Your Consideration"poster which basically tells the Academy what awards they would like to be considered for. I believe Catherine was considered Supporting because that way both her and Renee could conceivably win awards. If both were considered for Leading that could easy split votes and neither would win.

In that case more about collecting Oscars then correctly labeling role size.

Yes, but that's the whole point. The story is told through Roxie's eyes but her co-star has to work twice as hard to get any attention. It's a clever concept that Kander and Ebb worked out: tell the story of "All ABout Eve" through Eve Harrington's eyes and make Margo Channing work her ass off for any stage time.

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Agree, really good way of looking at things allmylife. Actually it makes perfect sense. thanks!

I agree that Velma Kelly does a lot more in the stage production than the movie, and I think that the amount that CZT got paid was more due to her name and not necessarily the size of the role. I love that we get to see more of the character in the Broadway production, but I think that supporting role was very appropriate, and there was more of a chance that both of them would win.

The difference between the Oscars and the Tonys is that actors are submitted to a nominating committee and approved for only one category with the Tony Awards. It's not left up to the voters, it's all worked out in advance.

With the Oscars, the Actors Branch is given a blank ballot with five lines for each acting category. They can write down a name in the category they choose, lead or supporting. If an actor is popular enough to get enough votes in both categories, the nomination is awarded in the category with the most votes.

(That rule was established in 1945, after Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for Best Actor AND Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Going My Way." He got enough votes in both categories to put him in the top five for each. So there were clear differences of opinion about the size of the role. They revised the rules after that, so it wouldn't happen again.)

It's the Hollywood publicists that try to "push" voters into considering an actor for a specific Oscar category. More often than not, it works. But it has also backfired several times, causing enough of a discrepancy and confusion in the minds of the voters to leave an actor without enough votes in either category. There have also been times when an actor was strongly publicized in one category, but ended up with a nomination in another. Susan Sarandon in "Atlantic City" comes to mind. The publicity push was to have her in the supporting category, but she was nominated as leading actress, which surprised a lot of people.

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Updated On: 3/23/11 at 11:58 AM

True Besty -- and look at Hailey Steinfeld this year. She was nominated as a supporting actress for True Grit despite being the central character who was in virtually every scene of the film.

Updated On: 3/23/11 at 01:22 PM