Inside our Oscar nomination predictions, plus who could be a surprise

Will the 2023 Oscar nominations surprise fans, pundits, and Hollywood when they're announced Tuesday morning? EW award correspondent Dave Karger thinks we may get one or two.

Case in point: Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie. "She's British [but] she plays this Texas woman to perfection. It's a tiny film with no advertising or marketing budget that premiered at South by Southwest, got released in October to not much fanfare, there's been no [FYC] ads," Karger explains of the movie on the latest episode of The Awardist podcast. "But in the last couple of weeks there's been this grassroots, social media, largely, and events campaign run by all of these A-listers from Kate Winslet and Amy Adams and Edward Norton and Sarah Paulson and Jane Fonda, all of these people who have been Instagramming and tweeting about this performance and saying, 'If you're a member of the actors branch of the Academy, you need to see this performance.' It's unlike anything I've ever seen before."

Whether it will pay off will come down to a numbers game. "If you get 200 no. 1 votes from the actors branch, you basically automatically become a nominee — that's kind of how it works with the math. I could maybe see that happening just from what I've been seeing on social media," Karger says. "So in addition to the sure things — Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh, and I would kind of add Viola Davis to that list — if there's three women fighting for the last three slots... I could see more people putting Michelle Williams on their ballots, but I could see Andrea Riseborough getting more no. 1 votes than Michelle Williams, and that could make the difference.... I'm dying to see what happens."

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And Karger says don't count out a big name in the lead actor race.

"I just am wondering if there's going to be this Top Gun surge that could help Tom Cruise," he says of his no. 5 pick in the category where Aftersun star Paul Mescal could lose out in turn.

Be sure to check out Dave Karger's predictions in the top six categories here, and EW sr. writer Joey Nolfi's list here.

Elsewhere on the podcast, Karger chats with Bill Nighy about his lead performance in the movie Living (see the video above), as well as Good Luck to You, Leo Grande star Emma Thompson (below).

Check EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in movies.

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• How to watch the 2023 Oscar nominations
• Dave Karger's 2023 Oscars predictions: Top Gun: Maverick is soaring upward
• Joey Nolfi's 2023 Oscar predictions: See top contenders for Academy Awards nominations