Neon will campaign Andrew Garfield for best supporting actor for Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s drama about OpenAI, while co-star Yura Borisov competes in the lead category.
Variety first reported the strategy as the film premiered at the New York Film Festival. Garfield plays OpenAI chief Sam Altman. Borisov plays co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who fires Altman in the film’s account of the 2023 boardroom crisis. Oscar winner Mark Rylance, as AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, joins Garfield in the supporting actor race, and Monica Barbaro goes for supporting actress as former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati.
The campaign covers every major category: best picture, director, and original screenplay for Simon Rich, with full pushes for the craft departments.
Garfield arrives with history. A two-time best actor nominee for Hacksaw Ridge and Tick, Tick… Boom!, he lost the supporting actor race 16 years ago for playing the ousted Facebook co-founder in The Social Network. Rylance won the category for Bridge of Spies, and Barbaro earned her first nomination two years ago as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown.
The film’s route to Neon was bumpy. Amazon MGM Studios dropped the project earlier this year, and Neon stepped in with a commitment to an Oscar run. Garfield told Variety he was both surprised and unsurprised by Amazon’s exit, and he credited the studio with supporting the production. He added that he would still like to meet Altman.
Early reactions have been strongly positive, and some critics have called the film the real sequel to The Social Network. Guadagnino needs the goodwill after poor reviews for last year’s After the Hunt. He has never earned a best director nomination.
Competition will be stiff. The best actor field already features Pedro Pascal’s cellist in Behemoth!, another festival arrival, and Borisov will need to break through a crowded lane. Garfield faces a different test: the supporting category has defeated him once before.
