Question: Which of your favourite movie stars have been nominated for, or have won, an Oscar? How many of them haven’t? It’s hard to remember to be honest, so I’ve done all the counting for you! But right now I’m interested in the ones that haven’t, because if my theory holds any water, many of them will be added to the list of celebrated Academy stars in the near or distant future!
For every critic of the Oscars and how much they mean to the movie industry, I will happily concede that the Academy Awards (in part) are designed to congratulate the very system that spawned them. If Hollywood likes a particular star, they have every interest in that actor or actress winning awards so that they can pat themselves on the back that they were right to get behind a particular performer in the first place. You could argue that if the top directors and producers get a sudden liking for the “next big thing” then it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy that the superstar in question is nominated or wins an Oscar partly for his or her talent, but largely due to he or she appearing in the film with the best script, best co-stars, and biggest budget.
It’s VERY hard to get Oscar recognition if you’re a great actor in a movie that nobody has seen and there hasn’t been a marketing campaign to push to all the Oscar voters. It stands to reason! So my theory is this: in the next couple of years, or maybe decades, I think there is a pecking order of performers who will receive Oscar nominations and win the little golden guys because they are in the Hollywood system with people behind them who have every interest in them doing well. But that’s not the end of the theory!
The Oscars love to celebrate the new star who has appeared from nowhere as much as they love the old favourite who has been in the wilderness for five decades, only to return in glory or be finally noticed for a whole career’s worth of work. They also love those serious British types in supporting roles, those mysterious foreign stars who are very flamboyant on screen and sound great, even if you have to follow the subtitles to keep up with the story, or more importantly, those champions of the box office, the leading lady and leading man material who are already household names.
You know when you’re in the cinema watching a trailer for a future movie and you hear a deep and serious voiceover announcing a string of stars with the prefix “Academy Award winner ....” or “Academy Award nominee ....”? You’re meant to register this glorious ensemble cast as signifying an artistic and worthy production that may (or may not) be good enough to command critical or box office acclaim at a later date, but at the very least features a number of performers who have previously been recognised at the Oscars for something that was quite good! In other words, the cache of an actor or actress having been nominated or awarded an Academy Award is meant to sell the next film on the back of their earlier successes.
But do you know just how many of these stars are out there in the Hollywood universe? By my count 183 Actors / Supporting Actors and 207 Actresses / Supporting Actresses who are still working in Film and / or Television at the present time. If the Hollywood / English-speaking film industry is churning out somewhere in the region of 400 movies per year and there are 390 “Academy Award Nominee .....” / “Academy Award Winner ....” stars to fill them, then how special does a movie become when most of them have one or more Oscar-prefixed performers in them?
As you look back through Oscar history, you get a sense that certain stars were destined to receive nominations. With these trends in mind, I have come up with fifteen categories of performers. They are ranked according to what I think are their chances of being selected in any of the Academy Award acting categories in the years ahead. Of course, it all depends on what movies they star in, but Hollywood seems predicated to reward some stars over others. The categories are as follows:
1. The Leading Men - who would make "Best Actor" material?
2. The Leading Ladies - who would make "Best Actress" material?
3. Foreign Stars with Subtitles - which non-English speaking stars could be nominated?
4. The Multicultural Awards experience! - which non-white actors and actresses will make the Academy feel better about itself?
5. Pretty Boys Can Act, Can't They? - which Hollywood actors, better-known for their looks, could get an Oscar nomination?
6. Pretty Girls Can Act, Can't They? - which Hollywood actresses, better-known for their looks, could get an Oscar nomination?
7. Funny Man Goes Straight - which comedians could transform themselves into "serious" Oscar-calibre actors, following the likes of Robin Williams?
8. Indy Stars in the Mainstream! - which actors and actresses frequently gain notice for their talents in small / independent films, but could make it into the Supporting roles in bigger "Oscar" movies?
9. The British Invasion! - Oscar loves the Brits, so which of the current un-nominated crop could pick up a nomination for Best Supporting Actor?
10. From TV Star to Big Screen Wannabe - which performers are best-known for their television roles, but could be recognised by Oscar for their movie roles?
11. Old Timers Ready for Reward? - which long-time stars could finally gain some Oscar recognition?
12. Keep It In the Family: "Who's Your Daddy"? - which stars could gain Oscar acceptance because the Academy loves their family tree?
13. Serious Actors Please Get in Line for an Oscar! - which actors continually appear in "artistic" or "serious-minded" cinema, indicating their careers are geared more to plaudits than dollars?
14. Serious Actresses Please Get in Line for an Oscar! - which actresses continually appear in "artistic" or "serious-minded" cinema, indicating their careers are geared more to plaudits than dollars?
15. Did You Miss Your Chance? Are There Any Oscars left for ME?? - which stars may have seen their hopes of a nomination vanish in an earlier decade, or been ignored at the time for a decent role?
Click on the next article in this series to read more!
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