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Keaton plays an actor, struggling with a fading career in a world of hyper-commercialization of the industry, surely a theme many in the Academy (not just actors) will identify with. And Keaton is the lynchpin of the Best Picture favorite, and gives the most emotionally complex performance of the two. If it’s between those two on quality, I would predict Keaton.

But not so fast. They love portrayals of real-life characters, and they love afflicted and gimmicky performances (think My Left Foot). Redmayne has both, and is also much more likable (some would say adorable) than Keaton has been throughout the campaign. Moreover, it is strange that SAG would award Birdman for Best Ensemble and not Keaton for Best Actor (or that may just show that Birdman is not as strong as one thinks).

And what of Bradley Cooper? Although the movie has received a mixed reception, his performance is uniformly lauded. He transformed his body by gaining several pounds (which they love), and this is his third nomination in a row. The last time this happened, Russell Crowe did it in 1999-2001 and netted one win. The movie is obviously popular with the Academy, and because Cooper wasn’t nominated for SAG or the Globe, it’s hard to gauge just how popular he is when directly competing against Redmayne and Keaton. But there is little precedent for an actor winning the Oscar after not receiving at least nominations from the precursors, so Cooper has strong headwinds against him.

What can we learn from past, close, Best Actor races? In the 2002 race, Adrien Brody stunned the Oscar world by stealing Best Actor out from under beloved past-winners Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson for his moving performance in The Pianist. Vote-splitting between the two was the ex-post rationalization for that outcome. That scenario is plausible here and would favor Cooper, but in 2002 the two leaders were past winners. Then, in the 2008 race, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke battled it out until the end but Penn earned his second Oscar for playing Harvey Milk. General distaste of Rourke’s checkered-past was the explanation there. Rourke won the SAG after the two split the Globes, despite Penn already having an Oscar at that point. This probably favors the more well-liked Redmayne.

In the end, when predicting winners, you would do well to remember this: there have been few real surprises in any category in the Oscars for years now. When The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo won Best Editing in 2011, that was a big surprise. Literally, that’s it. There have been close races like Meryl Streep vs. Viola Davis, but one of the expected always emerges victorious. And while sometimes pundits get nervous and wonder, “Is it going to be Lupita N’Yongo or Jennifer Lawrence,” after the envelope is opened it becomes clear (with hindsight) that the race was never really that in doubt. This leads me both to discard Cooper and to settle on Redmayne. He’s won the most precursors, he’s the consensus pick, he plays a real-life character you root for, and he himself is someone you root for. Keaton could win, but I expect that if/when Redmayne does, everyone will look back and think: “That was obvious.”

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