Watch scenes from the performances nominated for the Oscar for best supporting actor, as well as interviews with the nominees below.The 98th Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, March 15. Benicio Del Toro, "One Battle After Another"Benicio Del Toro, who an Academy Award for best supporting actor for "Traffic" (2000), and was nominated for "21 Grams" (2003), earned his third Oscar nomination for "One Battle After Another." In Paul Thomas Anderson's darkly comic thriller, Del Toro plays Sergio St.
Carlos, a martial arts sensei and overseer of an underground railroad for undocumented immigrants.His association with revolutionaries requires him to bring his strategic and focused attention to whatever situation washes up at his door, including Bob (best actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), a lapsed revolutionary figure who is on the run after military forces have attacked his cabin.In this scene, Sergio tries to give the kind of help the desperate Bob doesn't know he needs: In a conversation recorded for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Del Toro said that when Anderson approached him about the role, he first sent a picture of a poster depicting a tiger dressed in a judo kimono.
"I said, 'Okay, send me the script when you can.' And he sent me this picture.And I was like, Huh? And then I read the script and I kind of, like, understood.
There's like a strength in there.I thought it was cool.
There's a strength, and the kimono gives him some kind of, like, sense of honor."There were many changes to the script done on the fly, to suit the characters, or to take advantage of found locations.Del Toro, who had a short window in joining "One Battle" following filming of "The Phoenician Scheme," said it was originally intended that Bob and Sergio would kill police officers, but it soon devolved into a discussion of where.
Thinking ahead, Del Toro said doing so would mean having to clean up the mess."The drafts did change," Del Toro said.
"In the draft that we were about to shoot...