The Julia Roberts ‘Sorry Baby’ Shout Out Gave Eva Victor A Bigger Awards Season Boost Than Any Actual Golden Globe Winner
The Golden Globes would love for you to believe that they are precursors to the Oscars. That’s the best way to understand everything they do as a nebulous awards body consisting of people you’ve never heard of: Maintaining hard-to-manage splits between the categories of “drama” and “musical or comedy” that allow them to give double the awards (and therefore seem twice as prescient without much effort); nominating as many already-famous people as possible so they attend the show and make it look more Oscar-y; adding extra nominee slots in all of their categories, to cast a wider net for both predictions and the aforementioned stars.
As such, it’s difficult to say with a straight face that One Battle After Another, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme are really better-positioned in the Oscar race after last night’s Globes. These movies were already going to be nominated (or not nominated, if any of them manages a shock oversight) at the Oscars in their various categories, regardless of what the Globes said. Maybe you can make a case for Wagner Moura, who won Best Actor in a Drama for The Secret Agent, getting some extra speech-rehearsal attention that will guide voters toward his smaller-scale movie. But honestly, the biggest boost anyone got at the Globes this year might have been Eva Victor, who very much did not win Best Actress in a Drama for Sorry, Baby.
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That award went to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet, as expected. But shortly thereafter, Victor’s fellow non-winner Julia Roberts (nominated for After the Hunt, in which she’s very good, but come on, it was to coax her onto the broadcast) got on stage to present the Best Pictures – Musical or Comedy award, and took some time out to acknowledge her fellow nominee. “I lost, a minute ago… me and Eva Victor, who is my hero. Sorry, Baby – if you have not seen it, see it.” It seems entirely possible that a direct rec from Julia Roberts on national television will prove a better push for Victor and Sorry, Baby than One Battle After Another, which has been an Oscar front-runner for months at this point, collecting some more trophies.
The movie could use it. This A24 release came out in theaters last summer in limited release, and did… OK, given the circumstances of a few hundred screens and a summer marketplace where even A24 had multiple other high-profile releases. (Maybe Roberts felt some kinship because it made an amount of money similar to After the Hunt, albeit on far fewer screens, or because After the Hunt is also a campus-set drama about sexual assault, though with a thornier and less clear-cut take on it.) Victor (who identifies as nonbinary but uses both she/her and they/them pronouns) isn’t just the star of Sorry, Baby; she wrote and directed the film about Agnes, a young college professor living in the aftermath of a sexual assault.
In classic Globes fashion, Sorry, Baby is arguably at least as much of a comedy as anything nominated in that category this year. In fact, it’s specifically difficult to parse why winner Rose Byrne’s work in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was placed in the comedy category, while Victor’s was deemed dramatic (beyond, again, the divide-and-conquer needs of the voting body). They’re both about women in serious situations threatening to come apart at the seams, and while both movies have harrowing moments alongside some dark laughs, it’s Victor who gives a more traditionally comic-reading performance for at least some of her screentime. Just look at the movies’ handling of animal-related scenes: If I Had Legs has a sequence with a hamster that’s like something out of a horror comedy; Sorry, Baby has Victor hiding a cat in her coat at a grocery store while insisting to a cashier that it’s not there.
Those moments are funny rather than hacky because Agnes has a deadpan affect conducive to making jokes even out of her own sincerity. That’s also key to both sides of her comedic/dramatic performance. Victor plays her both in the movie’s present, several years after the assault, and in the time leading up to it in flashbacks, so we see minor modulations in how that affect is wielded before and after the incident. Some of it is immediate: When an insensitive doctor conducts her post-rape examination and tells Agnes that it’s best not to bathe or shower, as she did, before this kind of exam, she response (“I will definitely keep that in mind for the next time”) is somehow both pointed and, by nature of not raising her voice, slightly conciliatory.
As the story continues on both timelines, Victor shows how her character’s personality doesn’t necessarily change, but parts of herself are now being used self-defensively, as a coping mechanism. She’s the same person, reconfigured and unmoored even as she perseveres. Perhaps the best distillation of this comes in a scene where Agnes is called for jury duty, and attempts to explain why she doesn’t feel fit to serve without going too far into detail about her experiences as the victim of a crime.
Her voice and style remains recognizable, and she’s very funny: “Oh, I did not know we were going to be reading those aloud, so…” she protests as the judge brings up something she wrote on her jury questionnaire. But we can also see her trying to articulate just enough, without living the nightmare of explaining her entire situation out loud. Eventually, she’s put in the position of explaining why she didn’t go to the police over her assault: “I want him to stop being someone who does that. And if he went to jail, he’d just be someone who does that who’s now in jail.” It has the rhythm of a stand-up line, but with the sad ring of someone who has figured out a course of action that nonetheless leaves herself hanging in an uncomfortable limbo.
Some of this complexity is in Victor’s writing and direction, granted, but it’s writing and direction that does a remarkable job of spotlighting a performer with relatively limited movie-acting experience. (Scrolling her IMDB, I discovered that I’ve seen every live-action film she’s appeared in. Before Sorry, Baby, there are three. She’s only credited in two, and one of them, where she has a very small role, is horrifically bad.) Victor likely doesn’t have a great shot at a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Buckley and Byrne’s places seem assured, the beloved Emma Stone has a good chance for Bugonia, and the two remaining spots leaves Victor in a crowded field (Kate Hudson, Renata Reinsve, the exceptional but seemingly ground-losing Amanda Seyfried), in most direct competition with similarly fresh-faced Chase Infini from One Battle.
In that group, there wouldn’t be any shame in missing the final five. Whether or not Roberts is able to prove herself a difference-maker, though, her words are direct and easy to heed: If you haven’t seen Sorry, Baby, see it. The difficulty of categorizing it as drama or comedy is a feature, not a Golden Globes bug.
Can’t get enough of the 2026 Golden Globes? Follow along with Decider’s coverage, including:
- The big award winners of the night: Hamnet (Best Drama), One Battle After Another (Best Musical or Comedy), The Pitt (Best TV Drama), The Studio (Best TV Comedy), Adolescence (Best Limited Series)
- Nikki Glaser’s Golden Globes roast takes aim at Hollywood A-listers and “See B.S. News” boss Bari Weiss. (She also made fun of Nicole Kidman’s AMC ad, and spoofed K-Pop Demon Hunters.)
- Who are the Golden Globes announcers? (And why are Heated Rivalry fans extra annoyed by them?
- Why wasn’t Bobby Cannavale there to support his wife Rose Byrne during her Golden Globe win? And, while we’re at it, where was Cynthia Erivo?!?
- Rhea Seehorn FINALLY won a Golden Globe … and Better Call Saul fans know it’s about damn time!
- The Studio‘s Seth Rogen wins Best Actor in a Comedy, still doesn’t thank Sal Saperstein
- Teyana Taylor’s already won the Golden Globes with her powerful speech: “Our dreams deserve space”
- Golden Globes 2026: Start Time, Channel, Where To Watch The Golden Globes Live For Free
- Golden Globes Nominations 2026: Complete list of movie, show, and podcast (yes, podcast!) nominees
- Where To Stream The 2026 Golden Globe Nominees: Sinners, Jay Kelly, All Her Fault, and more
- Golden Globes 2026 Nominations: Snubs & Surprises: We were surprised there were so many Jacob Elordi noms, but just as shocked that Wicked For Good got snubbed for Best Musical
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.
Watch Sorry, Baby on HBO Max
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