Michelle Williams

Nomination: Best Actress for Blue Valentine

For Michelle Williams, Method acting meant put on 15 lbs. and cohabitating with costar Ryan Gosling for her part as a disillusioned wife in a disintegrating marriage in Blue Valentine. Why all the trouble? "For me, relationships are the real action movies. Bombs are exploding every day and the kitchen is Ground Zero," she told the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph. Yet the actress's turn is quite understated. And though Williams has gotten her fair share of attention for the film's raw sex scenes with Ryan Gosling (which almost earned it an NC-17 rating), it's her heartbreaking disenchantment -- made all the more profound by her recent interview about Heath Ledger on Nightline -- that ultimately bubbles through.