Best Supporting Actor 1997: Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets

Greg Kinnear received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Simon Bishop a homosexual artist in As Good As It Gets.

Greg Kinnear in this film plays a homosexual character which usually leads to mannerisms sometimes they work, sometimes they do not. Kinnear does do a few very slight, barely noticeable ones that actually work pretty well, rather than seeming forced or actory. Kinnear does a fine job as Bishop who is constantly yelled at by his neighbor Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson).  Kinnear does a good job reacting toward Nicholson's constant berating. He shows well that Bishop really is hurt by everything said by him carefully showing through his facial expression. He's convincing in creating the artistic type without overplaying the idea too much into caricature as this role very easily could've fallen into as written.

After being brutally beaten by thieves Bishop's life changes and he begins to have financial problems. Kinnear is very good here showing a good contrast as Bishop quickly changes before and after the beating. At first being pretty upbeat and enthusiastic for his life and his art, than afterward a far more depressed man. He has two strong scenes which show a very real pain one where he first looks at his face after his beating and secondly after his dog who he loves does not come when he calls. Kinnear conveys effectively the state of the pained depression within the man in these moments, and creates the right sense of his trauma. Kinnear is able to play this note above the sitcom state of the film, even with moments like imitating Nicholson. Kinnear bothers to find some emotional truth in them and overcomes the limitations within them. He delivers on some sense of an actual reality within his character even through some of the silly moments granted to him even within these moments of a theoretical serious situation.

He also has a good scene where he tells Udall to go easy on him, he does this very well showing the characters restrained anger and depression very well. After this is goes into the background a little bit but still is very good at showing the character's loss of depression well. Kinnear manages to tell his story of his personal trauma with the right sort of understated emotional distress. He doesn't overplay it finding in his reaction the moment of the pain of recall, but also the distance of it. His eventual call to his distant parents is handled well showing a clear history without telling everything. He tries his best in two scenes that I do not feel are particularly well written. One the scene where he draws again, he does a good job showing interest and enthusiasm again even if the scene is poorly written. The other where he tells Udall he is a good guy after all. The scene I find is completely off in terms of writing but Kinnear is tries his best to help the bad scene along. This character had plenty of pitfalls as offered by the writing which in many ways borders towards caricature more often than truth. Having said that Kinnear artfully avoids many of these to given an earnest depiction of the man and going against the "type" to find something a bit more authentic.