The precursors don't always matter
Wednesday, December 25, 2019 at 3:19PM 
In these merry times of winter holidays and gift-giving, there's no better present than the gift of hope. For Oscar obsessives, this can come in many forms. One of them can be the reminder that the precursors aren't everything when it comes to the race for Hollywood's most coveted little golden man.
Even if your favorite performance of the year hasn't been getting any sort of awards love, that doesn't mean its Oscar chances are dead and buried. Remember the case of Marcia Gay Harden, a surprise nominee that became a surprise victor when she conquered the Academy Award for Pollock. What a thrill.
She's the patron saint of Oscar surprises. In honor of her, here's a list of those lucky actors who scored an Oscar nomination despite having no nod whatsoever from the Globes, the SAGs, the Critics Choice Awards, or the BAFTAs...
Marina de Tavira, ROMA
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (2018)
Laura Dern, WILD
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (2014)
Jonah Hill, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (2013)
Jacki Weaver, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (2012)
Max von Sydow, EXTREMELY LOUD INCREDIBLY CLOSE
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (2011)
Maggie Gyllenhaal, CRAZY HEART
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (2009)
Michael Shannon, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (2008)
Laura Linney, THE SAVAGES
Best Actress Nominee (2007)
Tommy Lee Jones, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Best Actor Nominee (2007)
William Hurt, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (2005)
Clint Eastwood, MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Best Actor Nominee (2004)
Shohreh Aghdashloo, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (2003)
Djimon Hounsou, IN AMERICA
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (2003)
Ed Harris, POLLOCK
Best Actor Nominee (2000)
Marcia Gay Harden, POLLOCK
Best Supporting Actress Winner (2000)
Toni Collette, THE SIXTH SENSE
Best Supporting Actress Nominee (1999)
Edward Norton, AMERICAN HISTORY X
Best Actor Nominee (1998)
Julie Christie, AFTERGLOW
Best Actress Nominee (1997)
Robert Forster, JACKIE BROWN
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (1997)
Armin Mueller-Stahl, SHINE
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (1996)
James Cromwell, BABE
Best Supporting Actor Nominee (1995, the first year when all these precursors where handed)
Maybe one of your favorite performances of the year can join this list come January. There's always hope.
Reader Comments (46)
So welcome in the club to someone from Parasite cast
Catalina Sandino Moreno
Javier: She got a SAG nomination.
Javier -- Catalina Sandino Moreno was nominated for the SAG and the Critics Choice Award too, so she was ineligible for this list.
Catalina Sandino Moreno was nominated at SAG.
MarisaTomei!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My options for surprise nominees
S/Actor Tracy Letts
S/Actress Penelope Cruz
Actor Adam Sandler
Actress Alfre Woodard
I remember when Harden won in 2000,I was at home in the early hours in the UK and Kate Hudson was the favourite,I was rooting for McDormand the only time I thought she was worthy of the win and I nearly woke the b/f with my gasp of shock when Nicolas read the envelope,Amy Madigan's reaction made it even more satisfying.
Song Kang-ho (PARASITE) is coming
I would separate them in in two groups: people with zero traction (Tavira, Dern) and people with critics love (Aghdashloo, Christie, Hurt).
Considering the voting does not overlap this year, we might get a few surprises on Xmas morning (or maybe that's just wiishful thinking).
I want to live in this list. So many great works remembered!! I've to say that the duo Shohreh-Clint makes me smile a lot!
Who I want this year in this list? Oh Lord...
Anna Paquin for The Irishman 😱🙏🙃
Julie Christie stole Pam Grier's spot.
Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years
So with this in mind, maybe there is a surprise nomination for Marianne Jean-Baptiste for In Fabric, Félix Maritaud for Sauvage, Isabelle Huppert for Greta, Bill Camp for Dark Waters, Noémie Merlant & Adèle Haenel for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tom Mercier for Synonyms, Jodie Turner-Smith for Queen & Slim and why yes, for Zach Efron's believably creepy turn in Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile?
I am sure the answer is a resounding "Not a chance" but if even one of them gets nominated, I'll celebrate the mavericks within the circus.
Some of these were wonderful surprises, and others made me groan. What reaction will I have next time this happens?
Claudio, i love that first paragraph.
I just saw Parasite and i understand the love for Song Kang Ho and Jo Yeo-Jeong but to be fair the whole ensemble is flawless.
I second PP comment and i really hope that ANYONE of them could it be nominated.
Matthias Schoenaerts please.
@Kayo, Charlotte Rampling was nominated for a Critics Choice Award (then known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award). I think a Parasite cast member has the best change of breaking into this club.
Kayo -- Rampling was nominated for the Critics Choice Award.
This list kind of shows that the early and loud siren song of NYFCC helped, at least for a while. Harden, Christie, Aghdashloo. and Hurt all WON in New York.
Tomei and Gay Harden’s surprise wins will always be beacons of hope that I’d love to happen again.
This list ranges from great to regrettable, but I have to say that one of my favorites that seems basically forgotten is Laura Linney in "The Savages".
I know that she has a Critic's Choice nomination and thus doesn't quite fit this list, but Zhao Shuzhen's nomination is starting to seem like a real longshot so she's the underdog I'm most rooting for.
But yes, of those who fit the bill completely without noms in any of the mentioned awards shows, Song Kang-ho seems most likely.
I was ready for Laura Linney to be my pick. Then I saw Robert Forster. God, I love that performance.
I believe Tom Hardy oso got in on the tailcoat o The Revenants, w/o any precursor nods fr the other three??
I won't count Critics Choice cos they nom a tonnes o actors, name checking w Gold Derby n the earliest critics like NYFCC n NBR (I kno they r not critics). If we count only the other big three. Yalitza Apricio shld b on the list too.
Well the things the surprise nominees above have in common is that they starr in a film that the academy was watching anyway for other categories and /or r academy favorites already... they r lazy :P
2005 is when I started watching the Oscars religiously so some of the early ones really surprise me that they didn't hit EVERY precursor out there.
Marisa Tomei. My Cousin Vinny!!!
By far a majority of these nominees are fantastic. It gives the Academy credit for having better taste than the rubber stamping awards shows that precede it.
Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook is, to me, the single worst acting nomination of all time. I've been saying it since 2012, and only Octavia Spencer in The Shape of Water has come close to topping it.
I am hoping for Clemency to pull off some noms without the precursors - for Woodard and Hodges. I'd love to see Alfre claim her first Oscar than see Renee get a second one.
Most of these nominations rank among my favorite ones from the decades they're from.
"What a thrill." May be one of my favorite acceptances ever uttered. Such calm, such grace.
@Charlea, worse than Hermione Baddeley for Room at the Top? Or Bryan Cranston for Trumbo? (Gyllenhaal's, Hill's, von Sydow's, and Weaver's nominations are all sub-par, IMO.)
@Eli, "What a thrill" is a phrase I use regularly (in her exact cadence, too).
What's wild about this list is that you could curate a rather fine Oscar line-up in each of the acting categories from just these "precursed" examples (and a few not-quites in the comments).
Actress
Julie Christie, Afterglow
Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock (really a co-lead)
Laura Linney, The Savages
Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Actor
James Cromwell, Babe (really a co-lead)
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Ed Harris, Pollock
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Edward Norton, American History X
Supporting Actress
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense
Laura Dern, Wild
Marina de Tavira, Roma
Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny
Supporting Actor
Robert Forster, Jackie Brown
Djimon Hounsou, In America
William Hurt, A History of Violence
Armin Mueller-Stahl, Shine
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
So maybe Timothee Chalamet in The King can be the upset of the year :)
I really hope to see Alfre Woodard to surprise us and be nominated. That long close-up is still haunting me.
Charlea and Mareko's comments make me wish for a "least deserving acting nominees ever" thread, for nominations that are just plain baffling. My 2 cents: Jack Kruschen's Supporting Actor nomination for The Apartment and Hugh Griffith's win for Ben-Hur. Both just seemed like nothing performances.
Stephen M -- what makes the Ben Hur win so particularly egregious is that Stephen Boyd was RIGHT THERE in the same film.
Nat: Or Fred MacMurray as the jackass boss in The Apartment instead of Kruschen?
Oh yes, for sure! Boyd actually won the Golden Globe that year. Too bad he wasn't Oscar nominated.
If we went back to 1984.. Jennifer Tilley in Bullets Over Broadway!!!
The way I see it here is the full list of potential options that haven't had love from GG, SAG or Critics Choice (but have from other critics groups):
Best Actress
Helen Mirren - Good Liar
Julianne Moore - Gloria Bell
Elisabeth Moss - Her Smell
Mary Kay Place - Diane
Florence Pugh - Midsommar
Alfre Woodard - Clemency
Constance Wu - Hustlers
(This is on top of the 10 that have had precurser attention - Awkwafina, de Armas, Erivo, Feldstein, Johansson, Nyoung'o, Ronan, Theron, Thompson, Zellweger - proving just how stacked the actress field is this year)
Best Actor
George Mackay - 1917
Franz Rogowski - Transit
Mark Ruffalo - Dark Waters
Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz - Pain & Glory
Isla Fisher - Beach Bum
Thomasin McKenzie - Jojo Rabbit
Octavia Spencer - Luce
Yeo-jeong Jo - Parasite
Best Supporting Actor
Kong-ho Song - Parasite
Shia Labeouf - Honey Boy
John Lithgow - Bombshell
Wesley Snipes - Dolemite is my Name
Taika Waititi - Jojo Rabbit
If any of these sneak in on Oscar morning I won't be too surprised. But Hodge, Letts & Schoenaerts are completely out of the picture now, unless BAFTA brings them back into the conversation.
I WILL NOT ABIDE THIS SLANDER OF MAX VON SYDOW, a random second nomination out of nowhere for one of the greatest of all screen actors is one of the greatest decisions they’ve EVER MADE, that he’s never won either a competitive or an honourary Oscar is OFFENSIVE and LUDICROUS
Still think this would be Alan Alda this year - he remains in my top 10 for Supporting Actor, despite showing up absolutely nowhere.
This year:
Jamie Bell, "Rocketman"
Timothée Chalamet, "The King"
John Lithgow, "Bombshell"
Edward Norton, "Motherless Brooklyn"
Alfre Woodard, "Clemency"
Frances Connor, "Joker"
Julianne Moore, "Gloria Bell"
And, who knows, DeNiro, "The Irishman".
Good lucky!
I had to check your work on Toni Colette. That surprised me!
Mareko - I haven't seen Room at the Top. But Weaver's nomination is the worst I have ever seen. It has nothing to do with if I like Weaver as an actress. It is the performance itself, of which there is hardly one. It is not about it being a good or bad performance; there is not nearly enough material to judge it as a performance separate from an 'extra'. I think Sam Rockwell in Vice is an awful nomination too, but I think there is the attraction of it being a "famous person" role that some might have found justifiable enough to check off their ballot. What I cannot fathom is any voter thinking, "You now, Jacki Weaver's acting in Silver Linings Playbook really was one of the FIVE best supporting actress performances of the entire year". Nominations like this are like Ellen Burstyn's infamous Emmy nomination for 15 seconds that are an embarrassment because it exposes the voting body as blatantly ignorant and reminds me that awards shows are ultimately meaningless...AND I DON'T WANT TO BE REMINDED OF THAT!