Delroy Lindo Deserves a Dang Oscar

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Katey Rich and Christopher Rosen of The Ankler to preview the awards season and give you tips on what to check out (spoiler: Hamnet’s gonna be a big one this year) and discuss the exquisite art of Oscar prognostication. (If you enjoy this episode, make sure to check out The Ankler’s Prestige Junkie newsletter and show.) For the record, you can see my nomination guesses here at the Ankler Pundits site.

One of the things we delve into is the weird position Oscar pundits find themselves in, as they are torn between portraying the world as it is and trying to subtly change things to reshape the world in their image, as the predictions themselves have been known to shape the outcome of races. And that’s why I am staking a claim here: Delroy Lindo deserves a god-dang Oscar nomination for his work in Sinners.

Look, don’t get me wrong: Lindo has deserved Oscar gold for some time. He absolutely deserved it for his work in Da Five Bloods, for instance. But I celebrate the man’s entire body of work. I would give him a lifetime achievement award simply for his pronunciation of “sesame cake” in Congo. The man’s a damn legend and it’s about time the Academy gave him his due.

But he especially deserves it for the work he does in Sinners, a movie that seems lined up to snag a whole boatload of Oscar nominations, including best picture. Yes, yes: Michael B. Jordan’s dual performance as Smoke and Stack is the showcase of the film. But Lindo’s turn as Delta Slim embodies the soul of the movie; he is the embodiment of the life of a musician, of a black musician, in the American South at a time when simply being black could mark you for death. And he’s just funny as hell in the role, delivering these slightly off-kilter line reads that no one else could have pulled off.

Give the man his Oscar gold already! At the very least, give him the nomination. The people demand it! Leave your favorite Lindo performance in the comments, if you would. I’d like to prove that this man deserves his plaudits.