Oscars trend: Sctors win Academy Awards playing ‘real life’ people
In recent years the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Actress have blurred the line between acting and impressions of “real life” people — like Rami Malek winning for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury. And it’s happening all over again this year.
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And the Oscar for Best Impression Of A Dead Guy goes to … whoever is nominated this year. As we prepare for the 2020 Academy Awards on Monday (our time), it can be seen that several categories — in particular Best Actor — have become an impression contest.
Once, the joke was that you had to play someone ugly or with a disability to win an Oscar.
Although, as Robert Downey Jr’s character deadpanned in Tropic Thunder: “Never go full retard.”
Perhaps that now needs to be changed to: “Always go full impression.”
In the past 20 years, the Best Actor Oscar has gone to someone pretending to be a “real” person 12 times — and a highly recognisable person eight times.
In other words, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences likes to reward people who do a really good impression of a real person, rather than create a character.
Contrast that with the previous 20 years, where there were just three “real” winners and only one recognisable one — Gandhi in 1983.
Recently, however, we have had Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) win in 2019, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) in 2018, Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) in 2015, Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) in 2013, Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) in 2007 and Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) in 2005.
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And that’s not counting wins by Leonardo DiCaprio in 2017, Matthew McConaughey in 2014, Sean Penn in 2009 and Adrien Brody in 2003 as real people — albeit ones you wouldn’t recognise in the street.
This year there’s also a packed list of nominees up for best impression of a bloke.
They include Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis, Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict and Tom Hanks as children’s entertainer Mr Rogers.
Not to be left out, Renée Zellweger is hot favourite for Best Actress this year for her impression of Judy Garland.
The Best Actress award has also gone to “real” women multiple times this century, although the pattern is a bit different.
Last year Olivia Colman nabbed it for her portrayal of Queen Anne, but that was the first time since Meryl Streep threw on a set of false teeth in 2011 to win with her impression of Margaret Thatcher.
Streep crowned a golden period for Best Impression awards with Sandra Bullock (Blind Side, 2010), Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line, 2006), Charlize Theron (Monster, 2004) and Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich, 2001) all winning.
However, you would have to say none of those real characters were instantly recognisable.
As with the Best Actor, you then have to jump all the way back to 1989 for Jodie Foster in The Accused (again, based on a real woman that nobody would recognise) for a non-fictional winner.
For the blokes, you could say that the awards reached peak impressionism in 2016, when the Best Actor field saw Matt Damon as the only fictional character.
Bryan Cranston was up for his role as persecuted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, Michael Fassbender was Steve Jobs, Eddie Redmayne was transgender artist Lili Elbe and DiCaprio was frontier hunter Hugh Glass.
That must have been a tough decision for the Academy, although DiCaprio’s character was only loosely based on a real person.
So, is it a case of more biopics being made, thus increasing the chances of a win, or are more biopics being made because that is seen as an obvious way for an actor to win awards?
Do the voters find it too hard to split regular acting performances and so fall back on something familiar?
It doesn’t always mean a guaranteed Oscar, with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Johnny Cash, Richard Nixon, Nelson Mandela, Dick Cheney and Mark Zuckerberg all nominated but missing out — sometimes to a better impression of another person.
The Academy certainly isn’t telling if it likes impressionists better than actors. But perhaps if Judy Garland wins Best Actress and Pope Francis wins Best Actor tomorrow, we’ll be seeing even more impressions of real people at the movies.