Best Supporting Actress, Mighty Aphrodite
This Hollywood star grew up around the entertainment business. Her father, veteran Italian-American actor Paul Sorvino, appeared in movies alongside George C. Scott, Diane Keaton, and Warren Beatty when Mira Sorvino was a child growing up in New Jersey. After graduating Harvard, and moving to New York to pursue acting, it took Sorvino just two years to earn roles in major films like Robert Redford’s Quiz Show. One year later, when Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Sorvino’s portrayal of the ditzy, happy-go-lucky prostitute had the entertainment world buzzing about Hollywood’s newest star. At that year’s Oscars, Sorvino won the coveted statuette, beating out Kate Winslet ( Sense and Sensibility) and Joan Allen ( Nixon) for Best Supporting Actress. Sorvino followed her Oscar win with a few buzzy films, including Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls and the television movie Norma Jean & Marilyn, in which her depiction of a boozed up, drugged out Marilyn Monroe earned her an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination. But a string of lesser films, such as Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion with Lisa Kudrow and the sci-fi thriller Mimic, plus a slew of low-budget films, has pushed Sorvino’s career today to a lower rank than where she started.
Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo
Best Actor, The Pianist
His was a character that can, and should never be, forgotten. When Adrien Brody played Polish Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, audiences were mesmerized—and horrified by the film’s depiction of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The film premiered at Cannes in 2002 and won the Palme d’Or, becoming one of the most buzzed about Oscar contenders of that year, though it lacked a “feeling of personal urgency,” Variety reported. On the night of Oscars, when Brody’s name was called, making him the youngest best actor-winner, he grabbed his heart, and animatedly kissed presenter Halle Berry in his excitement. In his acceptance speech, he said, “There comes a time in life when everything seems to make sense, and this is not one of those times.” Aside from roles in The Darjeeling Limited and King Kong, Brody has followed his win with a string of forgettable films, including The Singing Detective, The Brothers Bloom, and Predators. But with his recent success in the beer commercial for Stella Artois, which premiered during the Super Bowl, winning rave reviews, perhaps this star is once again on the rise.
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Best Actor, Life Is Beautiful
Roberto Benigni is the second actor, after Laurence Olivier, to have directed himself in an Oscar-winning role. After a successful career in Italy, his film Life Is Beautiful—which he wrote, directed, and starred in—made Benigni a celebrity in America. How could anyone forget Benigni’s pure joy when Sophia Loren read his name as the Best Actor winner at the Academy Awards in 1998? He jumped atop the backs of red velvet seats, hovering above the heads of Billy Bob Thornton and Steven Spielberg, waving his hands triumphantly. It’s one of those moments every Hollywood creator or actor has, at some point, dreamed of experiencing. The moment paralleled the emotions of Benigni’s character in the film, which tells the story of a Jewish Italian man, Guido, who risks and later loses his life to keep his 4-year-old son, Giosuè, alive in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Since his Oscar win, Benigni has gone on to win a Razzie for worst actor in another self-directed film, Pinocchio. And although he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 for his explanations and recitations of Dante’s Divina Commedia, Benigni has yet to make another film as moving as Life Is Beautiful.
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Best Supporting Actress, The Fisher King
In the years leading up to Mercedes Ruehl’s Oscar win for her role as Anne, Jeff Bridges’ outspoken girlfriend in the dramedy The Fisher King, she consistently shined in small roles in films and television. In 1988, Ruehl had two back-to-back hits, playing Tom Hanks’ mother in the comedy Big and opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob. Her Connie Russo performance, a loud-mouthed, no-nonsense Brooklynite and jealous wife character, is what most likely paved Ruehl’s way to the Oscar-winning a few years later. While Ruehl has continued to work steadily in a variety of movies and shows like Entourage and Law and Order, following her best supporting actress credit, she’s yet to land any more roles that would earn her another Oscar.
Bob Galbraith / AP Photo
Best Supporting Actor, Jerry Maguire
In his first major appearance on the big screen, Cuba Gooding Jr. shot his way to a successful Hollywood career. Starring opposite Laurence Fishburne in John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood, Gooding gave a powerful performance as Tre, a young man growing up in South Central Los Angeles. He followed that up with a string of successful dramatic films, including A Few Good Men, all of which proved his strong talents as an actor. In 1996, Gooding co-starred opposite Tom Cruise in another film, Jerry Maguire, this time breaking away from his serious roles and playing the film’s comedic character, Rod Tidwell, an aging yet energetic football player trying to revive his career. Oscar buzz swirled around Gooding and his portrayal of a man at the end of his career who hopes to have one more shot at glory. And on Oscar night, when Gooding’s name was called out, his emotional acceptance speech included an onstage back flip. But following his win, Gooding struggled to find the kinds of roles that would keep him at the top. Aside from co-starring parts in a few good movies, Gooding’s consistent choice of forgettable comedies like Snow Dogs and Boat Trip, and the Lee Daniels drama Shadowboxer, seems to have stifled the buzz around this well-liked actor.
Matthew Lee / AP Photo
Best Supporting Actor, Ordinary People
Of late, Timothy Hutton’s most publicized work has been in a Groupon commercial about Tibet that had Super Bowl viewers aghast. That and, of course, his role as Nathan “Nate” Ford in the TNT drama Leverage, which propelled him to literary sex god status. However, prior to the premiere of Leverage in 2008—indeed, about 27 years prior—Hutton was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The film was Ordinary People, the directorial debut of Robert Redford, and the role Hutton played was Conrad Jarrett, a high-school student from an affluent family living in the northern Midwest. To be fair, winning an Oscar at any age is an accomplishment, so for a man of 20 to earn that honor, it is a wonderful thing indeed. The problem with such an achievement at such a young age is where one goes from there. For Hutton, it meant a string of unsuccessful films, and although young female audiences of the late 1980s may have considered him a star, the box office didn’t agree.
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Best Supporting Actress, Paper Moon
To say this actress should’ve continued to find consistent success following her Oscar win in 1974 as Best Supporting Actress would be slightly unfair—after all, Tatum O’Neal was only 10 when she won for the movie Paper Moon. The daughter of actor Ryan O’Neal, she followed her winning role with the hit Bad News Bears, starring Walter Matthau, and a few other notable films in the ’70s, but she struggled to maintain a long-term successful film career as an adult. Although O’Neal made guest appearances on a few prominent television series, including Sex and the City and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as well as competing in the second season of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, it could be that O’Neal’s personal problems, such as a drug arrest in 2008 and family issues have kept her from reaching the same level of success she attained when starring opposite her father.
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Best Supporting Actress, L.A. Confidential
Before she was an Oscar contender, Kim Basinger was a sex symbol. She began her acting career guest-starring on TV shows like
Charlie’s Angels and
Best Supporting Actress, Tootsie, Best Actress, Blue Sky
This actress, at one time, seemed to be held in the same regard as another multi-Oscar-winning actress. Given Jessica Lange’s early success and moving portrayals, it is easy to see why so many people compared her to Meryl Streep. Lange’s first role in Hollywood, as the leading lady who won the love of King Kong, immediately set her above the rest. Lange followed that up with roles in other great films like All That Jazz, Frances, for which she earned an Oscar nomination, and Tootsie , for which she won her first Oscar as Best Supporting Actress in 1982. Throughout the ’80s, Lange seemed unstoppable, earning three other Oscar nominations before her second win, as Best Actress, for Blue Sky. Then, as if the odds were suddenly against her, the Oscar nods stopped. A few of Lange’s roles were still award-worthy, such as her performance in A Thousand Acres, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, but most of her recognized work in the past 10 years has been in television. She earned an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for the 2003 HBO movie Normal and won the Emmy for her seemingly effortless portrayal of Jackie Onassis’ eccentric aunt, Big Edie, in Grey Gardens. However, there has been speculation that Lange has had plastic surgery gone awry, which may have kept her from getting the same kinds of roles in major Hollywood films that audiences would’ve expected for her.
Dan Groshong / AFP / Getty Images
Best Actor,
The Last King of Scotland
While it hasn’t been long since Forest Whitaker won his Oscar for his portrayal of Ugandan President Idi Amin in the film adaptation The Last King of Scotland, audiences are still wondering where he went. Since the early 1980s, Whitaker has had a long run in film and television, appearing in every kind of project, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Platoon to The Crying Game, and he’s known as an actor’s actor. In fact, since 1982, he’s appeared in nearly 90 films and television shows, and has produced and directed a number of movies. Make no mistake: He’s not hurting for work. But with flops like Repo Men and straight-to-DVD films like Hurricane Season, there’s been speculation that something greater than Whitaker is amiss. Whitaker can be seen regularly in the CBS series, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, and he’ll next appear on the big screen—if all goes well— in the action film Catch .44, starring Bruce Willis, who tends to have good box office luck. So we’ll see where Whitaker’s star goes from there.
Danny Moloshok / AP Photo
