Win some, lose some

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has forced the cruelest result upon Kate Winslet, nominating her for best actress for her indelible performance as a onetime concentration camp guard in “The Reader” but skipping over her other acclaimed performance as a suffering suburban housewife in “Revolutionary Road,” a film that happened to be directed by her husband, Sam Mendes.

Winslet apparently had hoped to avoid having her two performances go one-on-one by expressing her wish (via the studios’ campaigns) that “The Reader” be entered in the supporting actress category and “Revolutionary Road” in the lead actress category, a desire that was honored by both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Yet the rules are different for the Oscars, which permit actors only one nomination per category and assign the category as the academy -- not the potential nominee -- sees fit. The 5,800 Oscar voters were clearly overwhelmed by what many consider one of the actress’ best performances.

The 33-year-old Winslet has never won an Oscar, although she’s been nominated six times, including for her performances in “Sense and Sensibility,” “Titanic,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and now “The Reader.” During this Oscar season, Winslet has been candid about her desire to finally win one.

Winslet declined to comment Thursday beyond a released statement that said, “I’m genuinely thrilled not just for myself but for the wonderful Stephen Daldry and David Hare. These nominations are a testament to their unwavering commitment to this film. . . . Surely Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack are smiling down on us today!” (Both producers died before “The Reader” was released.)

In Daldry’s film, based on the Bernhard Schlink bestseller, a German teen falls into an affair with a mysterious and older working-class woman, Hanna Schmitz, only to find out eight years later that his former lover is now a defendant in a war crimes trial. The movie got four other nominations, including best picture, director and adapted screenplay.

In an earlier interview with The Times, Winslet explained her way into this character. “The fine line for me playing Hanna is I knew I couldn’t try to make her likable. I’m playing a woman who contributed to some of the worst crimes committed against humanity, so how can an audience feel something for such a woman? So I knew I couldn’t take on responsibility for asking for the audiences’ forgiveness, but I knew that if an audience could feel any level of sympathy for Hanna, and then feel morally compromised because that’s what they felt, that would be potentially interesting.”

She did admit that the goal she set for herself was a challenge. Said Winslet, “Everything is such a leap of faith, you just go into it saying, ‘I hope I can bring something to this.’ ”

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rachel.abramowitz @latimes.com

Freelance writer Rebecca Ascher-Walsh contributed to this report.