Re-Oscaring & Supporting Actress Winners

As I already covered previous lead winners, those who have won both acting Oscars (Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Maggie Smith) or who have won the lead but may have a shot at supporting in their future (Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Kathy Bates) won't be covered here.  Though, with the consistent amount of industry love she has received over the course of her career, with her show Downton Abbey being one of the "it" series of late, a third Oscar for Smith in the next couple of years wouldn't surprise me.  Dianne Wiest, of course, is the modern benchmark in this category, specifically.  The character actress stealthily won hers eight years apart with a nomination in between.  She continues to work in both film and TV, even getting into the pre-release buzz recently for her role as Nicole Kidman's mother in Rabbit Hole.  A third Oscar doesn't seem possible, but I wouldn't rule another nomination somewhere down the line.  While anything can happen, what are the odds that a previous winner will make it back to the Dolby Theater, perhaps even on its stage after the envelop is opened?

Cate Blanchett winning again seems inevitable to me.  She may even eventually collect two more, though one will most definitely be for lead.  After taking home Oscar for her second nod, she went on to gather three more nominations in one calendar year.  She has this effortless ability to choose commercial prospects, while working with the best directors.  She has a tremendous amount of respect in the industry, all the while staying out of the tabloids while raising her three boys with her husband, who serves as co-artistic director with her for the Sydney Theatre Company.  Upcoming films include her participation in The Hobbit series, two Terrence Malick movies, as well as Woody Allen's latest project.  George Clooney will direct her in another World War II film.  She may join forces with Mia Wasikowska in a female-oriented film.  And Barbra Streisand (!) may direct her in the role of famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

Vanessa Redgrave is legend.  She has been nominated six times, having won supporting once over three decades ago for her title character Julia.  She hasn't been nominated since Howards End in 1992 (and as an old unsubstantiated rumor has it, she actually did win; see below).  Talk surfaced of possibly getting recognized for last year's Coriolanus, but nothing came of it.  She knows the importance of attaching herself to moneymakers to fuel more passionate projects, which makes me think that she'll be part of the Oscar conversation soon enough.  Next year, she'll appear in The Butler with her Julia costar Jane Fonda.  She'll also star in chilling, tragic Foxcatcher, the baity project that may result in Oscar talk for Steve Carell.

Oscar seems to love Judi Dench.  While they bypassed her for Helen Hunt her first nomination, they quickly made up to her one year later with a supporting trophy and then nominated her four more times.  With a reoccuring role in the Bond franchise, Dench has no intention of her macular degeneration stopping her from plowing forward with her craft.  My favorite performance of hers remains her last nominated role in 2006's Notes on a Scandal, which incidentally happens to be her ONLY nomination out of six, which didn't involve Harvey Weinstein.  It seems she is at least due for a nomination, but can she do it without WTC?  Can Fox Searchlight make it happen for her this year?

Rachel Weisz seems to be going down the road of Jennifer Connelly, but I have faith that she will gather her bearings and get back on track.  She is just way too talented and is probably in a bit of a lull, though some loved her in The Deep Blue Sea. I imagine she will at least make it into the leading category at some point.

Angelina Jolie is currently the biggest star on this list.  It doesn't seem like she will ever be "supporting" anything or anyone again, but her ability to pull a nomination in 2008 for Clint Eastwood's Changeling shows that the AMPAS have no regrets about handing her an Oscar over a decade ago when her star was on the rise.  Although, it's strange to me that they overlooked her the year before for A Mighty Heart, a better performance amongst less competition.

Is it because I see Marcia Gay Harden having a faint resemblance to Wiest that I place her so high up on this list?  She did win a Tony just three years ago.

Whether Angelica Huston is in film or TV, she always seems to be getting a mention for something.  She hit her stride in the mid-80s and kept her momentum going full-throttle for nearly a good decade.  Considering her integral role in the Smash series, she's clearly a force to be reckoned with.

There was that nasty urban legend that Jack Palance read the last name on the screen (Marisa Tomei) instead of the winner's name (Vanessa Redgrave in this instance), which Tomei and the AMPAS have managed to put to rest somewhat thanks to her involvement with In the Bedroom and The Wrestler and the nominations which resulted over the last twenty years.  (Was it too many push-ups on Palance's part?)

Aren't Penélope Cruz and Kim Basinger too beautiful to be rewarded an additional Oscar?  Still, Cruz now has three nominations.

Tilda Swinton's win will go down as one of those rare instances where the AMPAS actually made a cool decision by awarding the best artist in what was an undecided race.  I doubt she will ever win again, let along get nominated, if her mesmerizing performances in 2009 (Julia), 2010 (I Am Love), AND 2011 (We Need to Talk About Kevin), went ignored.  Hello.  We get it Academy, you're not interested in her and her win was a fluke.  But, we're glad it happened.  Juliette Binoche is another international star who doesn't seem like she can be bothered by the dog-and-pony show.  She genuinely thought she was going to lose to Lauren Bacall when she ended up taking the stage for a role that might as well have been a lead in The English Patient.

Renée Zellweger's Oscar felt like a consolation prize, "Now, go away, shoo!"  She went from awards circuit fixture to pariah.  After using up her good-will on the likes of Ron Howard and George Clooney, her rom-coms and Oscar-baiting failed to pan out commercially or critically.  After a long dry spell, suddenly, she's turning to directing.  Zellweger's former costar, the talented statuesque Catherine Zeta-Jones had accumulated her own set of hits before winning for Chicago.  She continued to attract A-list talent for a short while, before she started signing on to franchises she wasn't previously part of like Ocean's Twelve and Red 2.  Jennifer Connelly started to attract big talent right before she won for A Beautiful Mind.  It appeared her win would springboard her to leading lady status, but nothing stuck.  Still, she keeps herself pretty busy in features.

Mira Sorvino built her four subsequent years on her win, until Hollywood learned that audiences weren't going to just show up because she was an Oscar winner.  They still didn't know who she was, and it's not like everyone follows Woody Allen films.  To greater effect, Geena Davis used her win to catapult herself into hits like Thelma & Louse and A League of Their Own.  When she started running out of gas, she tried to reinvent herself as an action heroine.  Over the years, she has tried her hand at TV star. Look for her in 2013 in a film that was written and directed by Lake Bell, of all people.

Consider Yourself Rewarded

Melissa Leo fought tooth and nail for her Oscar.  "Consider" ... many probably have had enough of her off-screen.

Eclectic mix of character actors who were one-hit wonders with the awards circuit once upon a time when the stars aligned and never gained much traction with subsequent roles: Mary Steenburgen, Mercedes Ruehl.  There are those that just come and go like lightning flashes.  Brenda Fricker has a pretty low-key profile compared to the year when My Left Foot came out, although do you remember her as the bag lady in Home Alone 2?  Who knows what the future holds for Octavia Spencer, but I certainly didn't know who she was before The Help.  Singer Jennifer Hudson doesn't appear to be having a very good go at keeping her film career as relevant as the promise of Oscar might suggest.  The diminutive Linda Hunt has a very special set of skills that probably won't see her repeating a meeting with Oscar.

Consider Dancing with the Stars

Some legends have taken their Oscar to television and haven't looked back.  Cloris Leachman and Rita Moreno do quite well for themselves.  Why not Shirley Jones?  Screen legend Goldie Hawn is having a good time getting drunk in Paris, so she doesn't need to work on the small screen, or that silver one.  She needs not be bothered by Oscar.  Estelle Parsons managed an additional nomination a year after winning her Oscar, which comprised most of the extent of her industry recognition.  While she enjoyed a long reoccurring run for her bat-shit-crazy performance as Roseanne (and Jackie's) mother, she logs quite a bit of time on stage.

This category is a bastion for child actors who never quite develop the feature film career as an adult to match their head-start in movies.  Tatum O'Neil hasn't even had the good fortune Patty Duke and Anna Paquin have enjoyed in TV during various points in their life.

Consider Your Own Talk Show

Whoopi Goldberg is one of the few winners who had a commercial career both before and after her Oscar.  After her amazing debut in The Color Purple, she had a series of critical flops, which still made a dime at the box-office.  Her Oscar-winning role in Ghost would lead to the Sister Act movies that would keep her going well into the 90s before she spent all of her film capital on crappy material.  Right now, she looks content sharing the set of The View.  Mo'Nique, on the other hand, has her own talk show, thank you very much.

Eve Marie Saint is still kicking, but she hasn't been part of any awards talk since winning an Emmy over two decades ago.  Lee Grant took to directing, even appeared in Mulholland Dr., but I imagine she may have entirely all-together retired.  Dorothy Malone is done, having taken her final bow with a sly cameo in one of my favorites, Basic Instinct.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed this.

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Happy Birthday Suit: Angelina Jolie

Her award-winning Gia as a Geisha?

Raw, unhinged, Angelina Jolie in her youth kind of did whatever she wanted.  You could say her "wild child" image was calculated.  Or maybe playing drug addicts and lesbians were something she needed to get out of her system, as well as intimating an incestuous relationship with her brother; writing husband #1's name in his blood on her wedding-day outfit comprised of a white T-shirt and black rubber pants; and wearing the blood of husband #2 around her neck on Oprah.  Did she really think or care it would have led her to where she is now, humanitarian mother of six?  Who knows how many more children she will introduce to her family with fiancee Brad Pitt, but it wouldn't be surprising if, after all is said and done (is that possible?), she will have plucked a child from and/or conceived one on every continent on earth.  Both on and offscreen, she has consistently possessed a mysterious quality that keeps many guessing.  Now, instead of publicly toying with her beau's blood, she takes her leg out on the town.  Her kicks have mellowed, at least wherever there are cameras.  From bawdy to regal, this body has made a career transformation we've never witnessed before in quite the Jolie manner.

Jolie providing caged lesbian heat as Gia 

The beautiful, sexy daughter of Oscar-winner Jon Voight quickly established her talent and rather swiftly erased whatever doubts that take root from nepotastic origins.  After a variety of straight-to-DVD schlock and slogging through teenager roles in Hackers and Foxfire, her tour-de-force turn as supermodel heroin addict Gia Carangi separated her from the rest of her generation as one to watch and transitioned her to more challenging work and industry respect.  Gia her got nominated for an Emmy (she lost to Ellen Barkin; her supporting nomination for George Wallace that same ceremony resulted in a loss to Mare Winningham) and won the Golden Globe (her second of three consecutive wins) and SAG.  A year later, Winona Ryder, with her own star beginning to fade before the age of 30, in an ironic twist of events, would produce her to a supporting Oscar for Girl, Interrupted.  Within that three-year window, she would enjoy three box-office hits: The Bone Collector, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Yeah, how many other actresses
can make this work?  

But, the early 2000s (even still today, but less so), audiences weren't as willing to pay to see a woman in a crappy movie they'd be more likely to watch a man in.  Despite her confidence and ability to simultaneously explore her masculinity without sacrificing an ounce of her femininity, the turkeys started rolling in, one right after another.  It was like Jolie and her success was a fluke.  For FIVE full calendar years, she put out a string of live-action features which currently do not rise above a 30% RT, including the hit movies that kicked off that dubious chapter of her resume.  The much-maligned Beyond Borders didn't do anything for her commercial profile, but it certainly laid the seeds as an international crusader for the downtrodden.  People wouldn't even pay to watch her and Antonio Banderas have sex in erotic thriller [read: low-rent soft-porn] Original Sin.  She would continue the tradition as a morbid Clarice Sterling knockoff with cut-rate-Tom-Cruise-impersonator Ethan Hawke in the marginally more successful Taking Lives.  She quickly learned she would never be the queen of comedy when Life or Something Like It belly-flopped into the box-office pool.  She has smartly steered away from the genre and platinum blonde wigs ever since [though that strawberry blonde ponytail in Salt was pretty hideous].  Jolie's allure is opposite accessibility, which is a key ingredient for viewers to fall in love with the heroine, while she makes them laugh.  They weren't as eager to see her return as Croft in The Cradle of Life either.  Even working with Oliver Stone did little for her as Colin Farrell's mother in Alexander.  But, around that time, she did at least start to take supporting roles in more reputable projects.  She got the best line in the much-admired flop Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow ("Alert the amphibious squadron").  Robert DeNiro directed her and Matt Damon in the Eric Roth-scripted The Good Shepherd.  Things were turning around both professionally and personally.

Whatever Jolie wants ...

... Jolie gets ...

... And, little Pitt ... Angie Jolie ... wants you ...

After Chloe Sevigny turned down the role of Jane Smith and Nicole Kidman dropped out (Catherine Zeta-Jones was also under consideration), Jolie started filming the $110M Mr. and Mrs. Smith in early 2004.  The script was above average, but the sparks between her and her costar Brad Pitt would fly both in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes.  The tabloids could not get enough about her much rumored relationship with then married Pitt.  She insists she did not romantically involve herself with Pitt until after he separated because her father had cheated on her mother.  The movie went on to become an international hit and they have been procreating and adopting ever since.  As of yet, they have no plans to reunite onscreen.

Straight drama is still quite sketchy from a commercial angle for her.  The next two years, Jolie would enjoy some of the best reviews of her career working with Clint Eastwood, which garnered her an Oscar nod for Changeling, as well as narrowly missing out on AMPAS recognition for her powerful portrayal of Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart.  The summer release accumulated a pretty solid reception.  However, unfortunately, audiences just aren't willing enough to take a journey through the war zone, unless the heroism is more sweeping, the morality very clear, and/or there are special effects.  It also helps if the leads are all men.  She has also enjoyed some success with voice-over (Kung Fu Panda franchise) and motion-capture (Beowulf) work.

Driving, shooting, and playing psychiatrist to her passenger,
Jolie is a woman, W-O-M-A-N

It wouldn't be until Wanted that she reaffirmed an assumption that wasn't always clear to me: that she could open a film on her own.  Because, if you think about, she has always had a lot of help from name recognition outside of herself, whether it be her more notable costars (Denzel Washington, Nicolas Cage, Pitt) or role (Lara Croft).  Amazingly enough, the movie isn't even her story and one could even argue she has a supporting role; yet, without her, Wanted clearly wouldn't have been much desired and was sold mostly on her name alone.  While the subsequent Salt wasn't a runaway hit, in a role that was originally supposed to be for Tom Cruise, she performed quite well as far as profits were concerned.  It's really in the action genre audiences will pay money to see her.  She hasn't dipped back in her milieu since, but you know after she tanks one or more times in the future, Hollywood will cover her in another dash of Salt or figure out a way to weave her into Wanted 2 so she'll hold onto her star status.

I could be wrong, but I think
Brangelina kind of likes
Sean Young's party-crashing crazy

For her next production, she's jumping on the fairy tale bandwagon with Malificent with many of Tim Burton's team from Alice in Wonderland.  Prospects are very up-the-air right now.  Commercially, this may work for her.  Artistically, we may have another eyesore on our hands.   Right now, she looks good with no recent bombs under her belt.  She even weathered The Tourist and the accompanying Ricky Gervais Golden Globe skewering (wasn't he off this year?) by turning it into an international hit with Johnny Depp.  She has had a few voice-over hits, three to be exact, including the last one, Kung Fo Panda 2, the top grossing feature length of all time directed by a woman.  Today, Saint Angie turns 37.

[Image via W Magazine]

Check Out Other Happy Birthday Suit(lesses):

Jennifer Aniston     Ellen Barkin     Drew Barrymore     Annette Bening     Jessica Biel     Juliette Binoche     Cate Blanchett     Helena Bonham Carter     Cher     Glenn Close     Claires Danes     Geena Davis     Kirsten Dunst     Jennifer Garner     Jennifer Grey     Kate Hudson     Holly Hunter     Angelina Jolie     Ashley Judd     Keira Knightley     Jessica Lange     Andie MacDowell     Eva Mendes     Rosie O'Donnell     Lena Olin     Michelle Pfeiffer     Natalie Portman     Emma Thompson     Uma Thurman     Rachel Weisz     Debra Winger     Renée Zellweger

Jennifer Aniston #1     Nicole Kidman #1     Rachel McAdams     Julia Roberts     Winona Ryder     

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Casting News: Brenton Thwaites in Maleficent

Australian panty-creamer Brenton Thwaites will play the heartthrob prince in Angelina Jolie's Maleficent.  Thwaite stars in the latest Blue Lagoon rendition which will air on Lifetime television next month.  He's playing opposite professional nuisance Denise Richards, who has the role of mother of his love interest.  (I guess Brooke Shields had bigger fish to fry.)  Previous credits include Australian soap opera Home and Away and teen drama SLiDE.  It also stars Miranda Richardson, Mike Leigh girls Imelda Staunton and Lesley Manville, future troublemakers Elle Fanning and Juno Temple, and Indiana Eisley (who will play the younger version of Jolie).  The reception for Julia Robert's evil queen was so lukewarm and Snow White and the Huntsman is barely keeping its head above the 50% RT mark.  The movie won't be coming out for two years, but I really want to see how it will play out.  I'm not holding my breath quality-wise, but am more curious about Jolie's box-office pull.  Is she already doomed?  Will reviews not even figure into the movie's commercial viability?  Or, does she really have it, after all?  Obviously, I want this film to be a success, whether it's crap or otherwise ...

[Source: Deadline]

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