A couple of weeks ago, we invited you to submit ideas for our ‘The Lists’ feature, and, true to form, the suggestions came thick, fast and occasionally puzzling. (The Ten Best Bond Actors, for example, would require a couple of rather inventive entries. But hey, we like challenges.) As I was sifting through the suggestions ahead of this week’s edition, I noticed that a couple of you brought up the ever-popular issue of under-rewarded performers.
No surprise there. It’s a subject that has endless mileage because our relationship with on-screen actors is so personal and idiosyncratic — everyone has their own list of thesps who we feel that tiny bit closer to than anyone else, who we’ll watch and defend even in their lowest career troughs, and whose lack of formal recognition from the likes of the Academy is something we take very, very personally. With actors, our devotion may not always be rational (as any of my friends who I’ve dragged with me to see the latest Jennifer Aniston disappointment can attest) but it is unwavering.
So it is that Oscar blogs are littered with impassioned posts about the overdue and the unfairly snubbed, with Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp seemingly the current patron saints of the ‘how have they not won’ brigade. But today I want to celebrate the victims of an even more fundamental oversight: The Un-nominated.
From Buster Keaton to Dirk Bogarde, from Marilyn Monroe to Katrin Cartlidge, the list of gifted and/or iconic actors whose careers ended without so much as a single Oscar nomination is distinguished, baffling and surprisingly long. The Academy tends to ensure that most great actors get at least one bite at the cherry, even if it’s not always for their best work. (The fact that Tim Roth’s Oscar resume begins and ends with “Rob Roy” is but one embarrassing example.)
But every now and then, for whatever reason, a worthy name continues to slip through the cracks, despite consistently doing the right work in the right films with the right people. (Just ask Mia Farrow.) For the list below, I’ve gathered 10 men and women for whom it’s not too late. All are fine, actively working actors who should have at least one — usually more — Oscar nomination by now, but thus far, the Academy has turned a blind eye. Wake up, guys.
10. Steve Buscemi
Indiewood’s go-to guy for neurotic, bug-eyed eccentrics ever since his immortal protest against being Mr Pink in “Reservoir Dogs,” and the comic high point in many an overblown Hollywood product, Buscemi’s Oscar drought is proof how slack Oscar can be in rewarding character actors. Passed over for his hilarious work in Best Picture nominee “Fargo,” he seemed to be on course for his first nod in 2001, when he picked up a slew of awards for his turn as sweet, socially inept record collector Seymour in “Ghost World.” Sadly, the Academy had other ideas.
So once with the press, a second on my own, and a third time last week with my 16-year-old daughter, and still the film enthralled me from beginning to end. In fact, I probably liked it more this time than I did the previous two, realizing as the film’s mighty power rolled over me that I was watching something truly spectacular, the likes of which we have not seen for quite some time, and are not likely to see again.
Perhaps the summer’s most anticipated film lands in theaters today to the record-breaking advance ticket sales of dedicated fans and those newly curious alike. But what awaits in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” isn’t merely a study in the psychology of a nearly 70-year-old character tailored to the familiar; instead audiences will be met with an accessible tale of deep and painful truths, a unique vision of hope in the face of seemingly aimless villainy, a new staple alongside the greatest of tragedies — in any medium.
