Double-Accoladed Actors part…2
Two weeks ago I promised a second part to the blog I wrote on Actors who have been nominated for an Oscar for playing the same character twice in two different films. Please feel free to continue the dialogue on this interesting segment of the acting community!
- Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred in Rocky (1976), portraying the leading role of Rocky Balboa. The film earned him Oscar nominations for his Acting performance as well as his Original Screenplay, though Stallone lost both awards to Network (1976): Peter Finch for his Acting performance and Paddy Chayefsky for Original Screenplay. In “Rocky,” Stallone also served as the boxing choreographer, and was generous enough to give bit parts in the film to his father and his brother, who share the name Frank, and his dog, Butkus. In addition to being one of the six actors nominated twice for playing the same character, Stallone is also the third person to be nominated for acting and writing in the same year, following Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940) and Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941). Stallone currently is the record-holder for the most years in between nominations for playing the same character in a gap of 39 years, recreating the “Balboa” role in Creed (2015), in which he was nominated in the supporting category. He was defeated yet again by Mark Rylance for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015).
- Paul Newman originated the role of “Fast Eddie” Felson in The Hustler (1961). Before Newman was cast in this film, ironically, he had never held a pool cue. It was because of this that he took out the dining room from his home and installed a pool table—so he could spend literally every hour practicing and do all of his own shots in the film. At one point, he even challenged co-star, Jackie Gleason, who in reality was a much better pool player, to a $50 bet on a pool game. Although Gleason won, and Newman paid him the next day with a total of 5000 pennies, Gleason and Newman did become close friends and Newman was able to improve on his own skills while making the movie. Newman later went on to recreate the role 25 years later in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986). Newman said that he felt that Scorsese was the right person to direct the sequel because he liked the way Scrosese directed Raging Bull (1980) six years earlier. “Raging Bull,” is a biopic on boxer, Jake LaMotta, who was impersonated in the film by Robert DeNiro who won an Oscar for the performance, though the real LaMotta, ironically, appeared as a bartender in “The Hustler.”
- Cate Blanchett first played the role of Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998). At the time, Cate Blanchett wasn’t internationally known as a movie star, though that was remedied as a result of this one. Ironically, in 1998, Dame Judi Dench was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for her 8-minute portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998). Although Blanchett lost the Leading Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow for her portrayal of Viola De Lesseps in “Shakespeare in Love,” Dench won. (Coincidentally, this movie also starred Joseph Fiennes and Geoffrey Rush who also appeared in “Shakespeare in Love,” and both films were nominated for Best Picture as well. “Shakespeare” won.) Blanchett reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth I 19 years later in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). This nomination made Blanchett the only woman to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same character in two different movies. Although she lost the award to Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose (2007), she won for the first time as Best Supporting Actress for her impersonation of Katharine Hepburn in Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004) and the second time in the Leading Category for her portrayal of Jasmine in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine (2013). To this day, Blanchett is also the only Oscar-winning actress ever to win an Oscar for impersonating another Oscar winner.
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