In profile: Best supporting actor

Best supporting actor looks to be a close-fought competition with veterans and comeback kids jostling for attention.

Alan Arkin is the current favourite for his role as an acerbic, drug-addicted grandfather in this year's breakout indie hit Little Miss Sunshine, but expect strong competition from Eddie Murphy and Mark Wahlberg.

Alan Arkin Jackie Earle Haley Djimon Hounsou

Eddie Murphy Mark Wahlberg

ALAN ARKIN - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Arkin has received two previous nominations, his last in 1969

Little Miss Sunshine star Alan Arkin is one of just six actors to have won a best actor Oscar nomination for his debut film role, in 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming.

He went on to win a second nomination two years later for his role as a deaf mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

But, despite leading roles in iconic 60s films including Catch 22 and Wait Until Dark - opposite Audrey Hepburn - Arkin has never recaptured the glory days of his youth.

"I've always been a character actor. I've never been a leading man," he once said. "It gave me an opportunity not to have to take my clothes off all the time."

Latterly his film work includes roles in Glengarry Glen Ross, Edward Scissorhands and Grosse Pointe Blank.

The 76-year-old remains typically nonchalant about his recognition by the Academy.

"Your chances of getting a couple of good parts in the next year could be better, but aside from that, I don't really care," he told Time magazine last month.

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JACKIE EARLE HALEY - LITTLE CHILDREN

Haley gave up acting and became a limousine driver, among other jobs

Despite a successful career as a child star in films like The Bad News Bears and Breaking Away, until last year Haley had not made a film since 1993.

The 45-year-old began performing in TV adverts at the age of five, but his career faltered in the early 1980s.

"The roles that were coming to me as a young adult were not that great, but I was taking them anyway to pay the rent. And the more bad roles in bad movies I took, the less anybody wanted me," he has said.

Haley eventually abandoned acting altogether, subsequently taking work as a limousine driver and pizza delivery man.

He owes his screen comeback to director Steven Zaillian, who cast him in the 2006 remake All the King's Men.

But it is his portrayal of a paedophile in Little Children which has earned him his first Oscar nomination. "It makes me want to give every Academy member a big hug," he told the Hollywood Reporter.

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DJIMON HOUNSOU - BLOOD DIAMOND

Hounsou left his home in Benin for the streets of Paris at the age of 13

Hounsou was a teenager sleeping on the streets of Paris when he was discovered by fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who turned him into a model.

Born in Benin, west Africa, he abandoned his home for Europe at the age of 13.

"I wanted to be an entertainer," he said. "I stopped going to school as a way of saying I was going to choose who I was going to become."

His flirtation with Hollywood began in the early 90s, but it was his role in Steven Spielberg's Amistad in 1997, playing an African slave who leads a mutiny, that brought him to the studios' attention.

The 42-year-old has since starred in blockbusters including Gladiator, Lara Croft and The Island.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for In America in 2004 alongside Samantha Morton. His second comes for his role as Blood Diamond's Solomon Vandy - a man determined to save his son from a life of violence.

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EDDIE MURPHY - DREAMGIRLS

Murphy plays fading R'n'B star James "Thunder" Early

A natural performer, Murphy enjoyed early success as a stand-up comedian on the popular Saturday Night Live show, dazzling audiences with his quick-fire wit and comic creations.

He made his film debut opposite Nick Nolte, at the age of 21, in the thriller 48 Hrs. A string of hits followed including Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, which launched him into the superstar stratosphere.

Throughout the 80s, Murphy's success, his salary and his ego continued to grow. Even lacklustre sequels could not diminish his star power.

But gradually the misses started to catch up with the hits. For every The Nutty Professor, there was The Adventures of Pluto Nash - the latter one of the most expensive turkeys ever.

Only his voice skills as the irrepressible Donkey in Shrek kept him in the limelight, but his role in Dreamgirls - as R'n'B artist James "Thunder" Earle - has proved his comeback ticket.

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MARK WAHLBERG - THE DEPARTED

Wahlberg had a number of run-ins with the police as rapper Marky Mark

Prior to his move into acting, Wahlberg was best known as rapper Marky Mark, frontman of the Funky Bunch, releasing two albums in the early 90s.

It was not his first experience of the music business - he was an early member of 1980s pop sensations The New Kids On the Block, with his older brother Donnie.

Dropping out of the group in favour of a life of petty crime, Wahlberg eventually wound up in jail.

It was music producer David Geffen, co-founder of Dreamworks SKG, who recognised Wahlberg's bad-boy potential and created Marky Mark.

A penchant for dropping his trousers on stage led naturally to modelling underwear for Calvin Klein - with Britain's Kate Moss - before a spate of bad press saw him drop the rap star moniker and turn to films.

Despite low expectations, the critics had to concede that Wahlberg had a certain screen appeal in films like Boogie Nights.

But it has taken Martin Scorsese's The Departed - and a return to his roots as a foul-mouthed Boston cop - to force the Academy to sit up and take notice.

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