New 'Jackie' trailer released with Oscar contender Natalie Portman

With her starring role in 'Jackie,' Natalie Portman is a strong contender for this year's Best Actress Oscar. Will the Oscar nominees be more diverse than the past two years?

A new trailer has been released for the upcoming film “Jackie,” a psychodrama starring Natalie Portman as former First Lady Jackie Kennedy that may lead to another Oscar nomination for Ms. Portman. 

The trailer shows Ms. Kennedy in the time following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, including taking part in an interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup) and planning the funeral of Mr. Kennedy.

The film co-stars Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, and Caspar Phillipson.

“Jackie” has already screened at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, and the movie has been very positively reviewed. Some industry watchers are calling Portman a likely contender for the Best Actress Oscar prize. (Portman has previously won it, securing the statuette for her work in the 2010 movie “Black Swan”.)

This year’s Oscars will be under scrutiny, after two years in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated only white actors for all of its acting prizes (there are customarily 20 nominees in total). 

After public outcry, the Academy announced earlier this year that it would be inviting its most diverse group ever to join. The institution said at the time that 46 percent of the people being asked to join are female and 41 percent are people of color. 

If everyone accepted the invitation, the Academy would then be 27 percent female and 11 percent of its membership would be people of color. 

In Portman’s category, some critics are already predicting that some actresses of color could make the cut this year. Many are pointing to the performances of Ruth Negga in “Loving” and Taraji P. Henson in “Hidden Figures” as strong contenders to make the cut when Oscar nominations are announced in January. 

It was recently announced that actress Viola Davis, who stars in this year’s “Fences” and is widely seen as an awards contender, will campaign for the best supporting actress race rather than the best actress category.