The Oscar for Best Performance by an Animal goes to—
As usual the best roles for animals for 2011 went to dogs. The only noteworthy feline was Daniel Craig’s temporary bedmate in The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, and it was a short role. (That cat’s outcome had better be a product of the prosthetics department, or David Fincher will find himself reliving the murders in Seven.) There hasn’t been a meaty role for cat actors since The Long Goodbye, Harry and Tonto, and Cat’s Eye—terrible movie, but a starring role. Our species hasn’t gotten the kind of break birds (The Birds), sharks (Jaws), pigs (Babe), penguins (March of the Emperor), and especially dogs have received. Usually we are relegated to playing villains in James Bond movies and their spoofs. But that is a topic for another column.
2011 was a banner year for apes, horses, and especially dogs. Caesar was the star of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but since he was played by the human Andy Serkis he’s not in the running. The war horse in War Horse is beautiful enough to make you suspect an inter-species romance. But dogs were the dominant species in the movies circa 2011. On TV there’s Isis the Earl’s dog in Downton Abbey, whose wellbeing is more important to us than whether Mary marries Matthew. On the big screen notable canines included Snowy in Tintin—animated, the whippet in 50/50—upstaged by Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Uggie the Jack Russell terrier in Water for Elephants.
We have narrowed the field to three finalists for the Best Performance by an Animal Oscar.
Animal Actors in our column Emotional Weather Report, Pet Life edition, today in the Philippine Star.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
