Oscar Trivia: Winning the Oscar for playing a famous actor? How common is it.
Monday, December 14, 2020 at 1:00PM
Christopher James in Actors on Actors, Amanda Seyfried, Best Supporting Actress, Mank, Oscar Trivia

by Christopher James

The name on everybody’s lips is gonna be… "MANK!"

Just kidding, people don’t really seem to be talking about the titular (and often-referenced) character, played by Gary Oldman. Love or hate the movie, everyone seems to agree that Amanda Seyfried is best in show as Marion Davies. A Supporting Actress nomination for Seyfried feels secure. The real question is: Can Seyfried win the Oscar?

While the role is prominent, the one downside from an Oscar perspective is that it is not a typical “showy” performance...

Seyfried does a fabulous job of embodying Davies and showing new shades of the actor. Will the fact that she’s playing a famous movie star of the past help or hurt her chances for the win? We took a look at the wins and nominations for actors playing real life movie stars, as well as the wins and nominations for actors playing characters whose profession is “actor.” In short, Best Supporting Actress is the most likely category where someone can win an Oscar for playing an actor. This bodes well for Seyfried’s chances.

Cate won her first Oscar playing four time Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator"

In all fairness, defining roles in which actors are playing “actors” is tricky. I did not count performances where people were playing radio/TV hosting personalities (think Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood). Instead, I focused on movies that feature the character primarily defined as an “actor,” including stage acting. This stretches to include Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love), Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge) and Annette Bening (Being Julia), while technically I would not count Natalie Portman in Black Swan as she is seen as a dancing as a performer, not acting. Finally, Kim Basinger is not playing Veronica Lake in L.A. Confidential, but since her whole character exists to emulate Veronica Lake, I counted her in the overall stats. Yes, there is a degree of subjectivity. 

Actors Who Have WON the Oscar for Playing Famous Actors

  1. Luise Rainer as Anna Held - The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

  2. James Cagney as George M. Cohan - Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

  3. Barbara Streisand as Fanny Brice - Funny Girl (1968)

  4. Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi - Ed Wood (1994)

  5. Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn - The Aviator (2004)

  6. Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland - Judy (2019)

 

Actors Who Have Been NOMINATED for an Oscar for Playing Famous Actors

  1. Larry Parks as Al Jolson - The Jolson Story (1946)

  2. Susan Hayward as Jane Froman - With a Song in My Heart (1953)

  3. Eleanor Parker as Marjorie Lawrence - Interrupted Melody (1955)

  4. Susan Hayward as Lillian Roth - I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955)

  5. Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer - Frances (1982)

  6. Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin - Chaplin (1992)

  7. Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck - Shadow of a Vampire (2000)

  8. Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe - My Week with Marilyn (2011)

  9. Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier - My Week with Marilyn (2011)

 

Playing An Actor (Real)

Playing An Actor (Real or Fictional)

Best Actor

33%

25%

Best Actress

38%

15%

Best Supporting Actor

33%

13%

Best Supporting Actress

100%

35%

TOTAL

40%

21%

 

There has only been one nominee in Supporting Actress who played a real-life actor. That was Cate Blanchett, who won her first Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. Obviously going 1/1 is not a statistic you can make a prediction based on. Still, when you zoom out 40% (six out of fifteen) of actors playing real life actors win an Oscar for their performance. Isolating it to just female performers, that number goes up to 44% (four out of nine). The number also goes up to 50% (two out of four) if you just look at Supporting performances. 

Jean Dujardin beat more established competition (Clooney, Pitt) in 2011 for his performance as a silent-era movie star in "The Arist"

Jean Dujardin beat more established competition (George Clooney, Brad Pitt) in 2011 for his performance as a silent-era movie star in The Artist.

When we broaden our scope to look at any performer who has won an Oscar for playing a character who is an actor, that number goes down from 40% to 21%. Actors like Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Emma Stone (La La Land) recently won Oscars for playing fictitious actors. However, Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story), Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Michael Keaton (Birdman) are all recent examples who lost for doing the same thing.

Importantly, with more data points, Best Supporting Actress becomes the category most likely to reward actors playing actors. Other performers that won Best Supporting Actress include Kim Basinger (L.A. Confidential), Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway AND Hannah and Her Sisters) and Jessica Lange (Tootsie). This bodes really well for Amanda Seyfried. Yes, Cate Blanchett and Jessica Lange were both respected actors on the rise. However, Kim Basinger feels like she was in a similar place in her career that Amanda Seyfried is in now. Both were actresses who had been working for over a decade in movies that were big hits. Yet, they were never the focal point of any Oscar buzz for their previous films.

 

Glenn Close hopes eight times is the charm with her performance as Mawmaw in Hillbilly Elegy.

 

While there definitely is a precedent for a Seyfried win, a lot of that depends on her competition. According to Nathaniel’s current predictions, previous winners Ellen Burstyn and Olivia Colman are her closest competition. While both are great, their previous wins put them at a disadvantage. The one contender that has gotten the most press, good and bad, has been Glenn Close for Hillbilly Elegy. While her narrative is tough to beat -- she has lost seven times and she is the best part of her film -- the sour reception could keep her from a win. There are a slew of of other women fighting for spot #5 (Young Yuh-Jung, Helena Zengel, Maria Bakalova, Jodie Foster and Saoirse Ronan, to name a few), but are unlikely to win. With lighter competition and an Oscar-friendly role, this really feels like Seyfriend’s Oscar to lose.

Actors Who Have WON the Oscar for Playing An Actor (Real or Fictional)

  1. Katharine Hepburn as Eva Lovelace - Morning Glory (1933)

  2. Luise Rainer as Anna Held - The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

  3. James Cagney as George M. Cohan - Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

  4. Ronald Colman as Anthony John - A Double Life (1947)

  5. Barbara Streisand as Fanny Brice - Funny Girl (1968)

  6. Richard Dreyfuss as Elliot Garfield - The Goodbye Girl (1977)

  7. Maggie Smith as Diana Barrie - California Suite (1978)

  8. Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols - Tootsie (1982)

  9. Dianne Wiest as Holly - Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

  10. Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi - Ed Wood (1994)

  11. Dianne Wiest as Helen Sinclair - Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

  12. Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken (aka Veronica Lake) - L.A. Confidential (1997)

  13. Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps - Shakespeare in Love (1998)

  14. Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn - The Aviator (2004)

  15. Jean Dujardin as George Valentin - The Artist (2011)

  16. Emma Stone as Mia  - La La Land (2016)

  17. Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland - Judy (2019)

 

Actors Who Have Been NOMINATED for an Oscar for Playing An Actor (Real or Fictional)

  1. Bessie Love as Harriet “Hank” Mahoney - The Broadway Melody (1928/29)

  2. Greta Garbo as Rita Cavellini - Romance (1929/30)

  3. Ruth Chatterton as Sarah Storm - Sarah and Sons (1929/30)

  4. Fredric March as Tony Caverdish - The Royal Family of Broadway (1930/31)

  5. Alfred Lunt as The Actor - The Guardsman (1931/32)

  6. Lynne Fontaine as The Actress - The Guardsman (1931/32)

  7. Grace Moore as Mary Barnett - One Night of Love (1934)

  8. Bette Davis as Joyce Heath - Dangerous (1935)

  9. Andrea Leeds as Kay Hamilton - Stage Door (1937)

  10. Fredric March as Norman Maine - A Star is Born (1937)

  11. Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett - A Star is Born (1937)

  12. Militza Korjus as Carla Donner - The Great Waltz (1938)

  13. Larry Parks as Al Jolson - The Jolson Story (1946)

  14. Dan Dailey as “Skid” Johnson - When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948)

  15. Ann Baxter as Eve Harrington - All About Eve (1950)

  16. Bette Davis as Margot Channing - All About Eve (1950)

  17. Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond - Sunset Boulevard (1950)

  18. Susan Hayward as Jane Froman - With a Song in My Heart (1953)

  19. Betty Davis as Margaret “Maggie” Elliott - The Star (1952)

  20. Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont - Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

  21. Claire Trevor as May Holst - The High and the Mighty (1954)

  22. Bing Crosby as Frank Elgin - The Country Girl (1954)

  23. James Mason as Norman Maine - A Star is Born (1954)

  24. Judy Garland as Esther Blodgett - A Star is Born (1954)

  25. Eleanor Parker as Marjorie Lawrence - Interrupted Melody (1955)

  26. Susan Hayward as Lillian Roth - I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955)

  27. Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice - The Entertainer (1960)

  28. Geraldine Page as Alexandra de Lago - Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

  29. Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

  30. Susanna York as Alice - They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

  31. Barbara Harris as Allison - Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things about Me? (1971)

  32. Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil - The Exorcist (1973)

  33. Valentina Cortese as Severine - Day for Night (1974)

  34. Burgess Meredith as Harry - The Day of the Locust (1975)

  35. Marsha Mason as Jennie MacLaine - Chapter Two (1979)

  36. Meryl Streep as Sara Woodruff/Anna - The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)

  37. Marsha Mason as Georgia Hines - Only When I Laugh (1981)

  38. James Coco as Jimmy Perrino - Only When I Laugh (1981)

  39. Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann - My Favorite Year (1982) 

  40. Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels - Tootsie (1982)

  41. Julie Andrews as Victor/Victoria - Victor/Victoria (1982)

  42. Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer - Frances (1982)

  43. Robert Preston as Toddy - Victor/Victoria (1982)

  44. Teri Garr as Sandy Lester - Tootsie (1982)

  45. Albert Finney as Sir - The Dresser (1983)

  46. Jane Fonda as Alex Sternbergen - The Morning After (1986)

  47. Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale - Postcards from the Edge (1990)

  48. Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin - Chaplin (1992)

  49. Mary McDonnell as May-Alice - Passion Fish (1992)

  50. Jennifer Tilly as Olive Neal - Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

  51. Julie Christie as Phyllis Mann - Afterglow (1997)

  52. Julianne Moore as Amber Waves - Boogie Nights (1997)

  53. Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck - Shadow of a Vampire (2000)

  54. Nicole Kidman as Satine - Moulin Rouge (2001)

  55. Annette Bening as Julia Lambert - Being Julia (2004)

  56. Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus - Tropic Thunder (2008)

  57. Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe - My Week with Marilyn (2011)

  58. Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier - My Week with Marilyn (2011)

  59. Berenice Bejo as Peppy Miller - The Artist (2011)

  60. Michael Keaton as Riggan Thompson - Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

  61. Edward Norton as Mike Shiner - Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

  62. Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

  63. Scarlett Johansson as Nicole - Marriage Story (2019)

 

STATISTICS

Do you think Amanda Seyfried will win Best Supporting Actress? Let us know in the comments below!

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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