Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Halle Berry - both the Oscar for Monster's Ball and the Emmy for the Dorothy Dandridge television movie.

Luise Rainer - two Best Actress Academy Awards in two consecutive years, one at least for a relatively inconsequential part in The Great Ziegfeld.

Whoopi Goldberg -for a low key supporting role in Ghost.

Roberto Bennigni - Oscar's greatest mystery.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Julia Roberts for wearing a pushup bra and playing Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. Ellen Burstyn should have won for Requiem For A Dream instead.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies. There was all this buzz about him when the film came out, everyone said he was the one to beat at the Oscars, and when I saw the film I thought, "What?" He has maybe 20 minutes of screen time and he does absolutely nothing.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Not actors per se but Three 6 Mafia winning an Oscar is one of the weirdest things ever. But Mo'Nique fits the answer to the question. Looking as how their careers went after winning, Adrien Brody and Cuba Gooding Jr are also a surprise.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

I'm cool with Three 6 Mafia winning, though, because that song was so integral to the film. It was almost a character itself.

Bennigni still blows my mind. He got two that night. Unbelievable.

Every once in a while, I'm surprised that Kathy Bates won an Oscar for Misery. Not because I don't think she doesn't deserve it. She's phenomenal. I just can't believe that movie and that role and who she is (I mean, compared to "America's Sweetheart" Julia Roberts up for Pretty Woman that year) got that sort of Academy recognition, that's awesome. :thumbsup:

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Monique is an extremely talented actress and her win in that category is actually one of the best of the century,her subsequent lack of work is entirely to do with her burning bridges and being her own worst enemy. It's really a credit to how good a performance it is that someone who didn't campaign for an Oscar and made a ton of enemies still won

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Mira Sorvino

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Jennifer Hudson

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Given that comedic performances are rarely nominated, let alone win, I remain delighted by Roberto Bennigni's Best Actor Oscar.

I'm surprised Jessica Lange won an Oscar for Tootsie, given how uninteresting and bland her character in the movie is. Even more surprising since Terri Garr was nominated in the same category for her wonderful performance in Tootise.

I was shocked when Christoph Waltz won for Django Unchained, since he'd just won a couple years before playing a character with a lot of the same mannerisms in another movie written and directed by Tarantino. It should have been Samuel L Jackson or even Leonardo Dicaprio.

While he didn't win, it blows my mind to think Randy Quaid had the chops as an actor to be nominated for an Oscar for The Last Detail.

Not an actor or actress, but I'm surprised Blazing Saddles was nominated for Best Editing, not because I think it undeserving, but it hardly seems like the kind of movie that would be recognized in one of the major categories.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

There are so many actors that outshined everyone nominated for Best Actor this year (minus Willem Dafoe). Ben Foster for "Leave No Trace", Javier Bardem for "Everybody Knows", Ethan Hawke for "First Reformed". They outshined all 4 guys not named WD. If it wasn't for the physical transformation I don't think Bale would have even been nominated.

As for the subject of the thread. Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny winning over Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives was a crime against humanity.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Spacey is not a surprise since he usually did good work

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

This guy won three acting Oscars and was nominated for a fourth, all in the years 1937-42.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...0b4cd004fc.jpg

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Well, Tomei wasn't supposed to win, but apparently Jack Palance, who was presenting the award that night, read the wrong name off the card. The Academy didn't know what to do at the time, so they just let her keep the award. However, it helped them create what was known as "The Tomei Emergency Procedure" in case a mistake like that happened again. They were able to use that procedure and intervene quickly when La La Land was mistakenly given the Best Picture Award several years later.

Now, I'm not sure if that story is 100% completely accurate, but it's what I've read and I believe it.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman"

All he did in the movie was stare dead-eyed forward, chew scenery, and say "Hoo-ah" and "HA!" constantly.




I think Al Pacino didn't even deserve a nomination, much less a win, for that role. And I think his win was to make up for snubbing him in more deserving roles in the previous 2 decades but it ended up robbing more deserving nominated performances that year, such as Robert Downey Jr. in "Chaplin", Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven", or Denzel Washington in "Malcolm X"

And that was the SAME YEAR that Marisa Tomei won for "My Cousin Vinny", a performance that usually is singled out as one of the worst wins ever, but I think she deserved to win 1000x more than Pacino deserved to win that year.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Instead of winning best actor, Brando should have been nominated / won best supporting actor for the Godfather.

Re: Actor or actress that you are surprised won a major acting award?
 

Same with Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. I think that the characters of Hannibal Lector and Don Corleone are just so powerful the movie feels like it's about them, even though they are supporting characters.