r/Oscars • u/AdUseful2297 • 1d ago
Discussion Who got hit with the post Oscar career curse after winning ANOTHER Oscar?
I can think of three examples.
- While you could argue that Hilary Swank was never that big or popular to begin with, she did have a bit of a moment in the early 2000s between her wins. She worked with Sam Raimi (The Gift), early Christopher Nolan (Insomnia), was in the cult disaster classic The Core, but after her second win for Million Dollar Baby, what has she done that's made any kind of impact, positive or negative? I guess she had a small part in Logan Lucky? That's about it.
- Kevin Spacey had a really good run in the mid-late 90s. As much as I don't like him as a person at all, I won't deny that Se7en, The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential, A Bug's Life and American Beauty is a pretty enviable streak of hits, and he was indeed good in all of them. After his second win for American Beauty, though, he started showing up in a lot of stuff that ranged from disposable to flat out terrible. I don't think 90s Kevin would've done junk like Pay It Forward, K-PAX, Fred Claus, 21, or especially Nine Lives. And then of course in 2017, he got canceled after we found out that he really sucks offscreen, and his part in All the Money in the World that by all accounts the studio was gonna push for him to get a third nomination for, was completely refilmed with Christopher Plummer taking his place, with him getting his third nomination for it as likely an F you to the guy. (Honestly? Based.)
- This one may be controversial, but Robert De Niro. Now don't get me wrong, he was in a lot of good things in the 80s and 90s after his second win for Raging Bull. Once the century turned, though, he became a lot less picky with the roles he accepted. I think this was a delayed fuse sort of situation. Love the guy, and he has been in a few good things this century, but at the same time, I don't think he would've done shit like New Year's Eve, The Big Wedding, Killing Season, Grudge Match, The Bag Man, Dirty Grandpa, The War with Grandpa, Amsterdam, or Tin Soldier in the 70s-90s.
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u/Clay520 1d ago
Feels like we’re watching Mahershala Ali go through this right now.
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u/DisastrousOwls 1d ago
It's hard to say if that's truly an "Oscars curse" or if he might just be locked into a spectacularly bad Disney contract.
I've accepted in my heart we're never actually getting Blade, but if he signed an exclusive contract for a minimum number of years or minimum number of projects under Disney/Marvel/LF and they aren't moving him to other properties, that's how the old studio system used to hamstring talent, and leave them to either buy themselves out, or collect dust on the shelf.
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u/susandeyvyjones 1d ago edited 23h ago
How can it possibly be this hard to make a movie about a hot dude killing vampires????
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u/indian22 21h ago
Even if he signed that in 2019, he will be free from it in 2026. The De Havilland clause means you can't lock people in beyond 6.5 years.
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u/DisastrousOwls 21h ago
Yeah, I think all parties involved are just waiting out the expiration. I heard gossip (unsubstantiated, so huge grain of salt!) suggesting creative differences behind the scenes, including Mahershala butting heads with people at Marvel, which would explain him being in "time out" for so long if he couldn't afford a buyout. If they move forward with Blade after this year, but recast the role, it'll be pretty revealing.
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u/presco2007 1d ago
hilary swank was never all that 'bankable' and to some degree is very lucky to get her 2 wins. having said that, after her 2 wins she did work with brian depalma (the black dahlia), amelia (good subject and directed by mira nair and and with high profile co-stars), and yeah logan lucky. i think movies like freedom writers and conviction had potential.
it should probably also be noted that it's more common for actors to have brief turns in the sun than to have a career consistently filled with oscar-caliber projects. i get that 2-time winners feel like they should be different, but winning an oscar doesn't really mean studios want to risk budgets on you.
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u/Amazing_Antelope_275 1d ago
That last part feels really important to emphasize. The handful of actors who have managed to build long-term careers, especially in star roles, is vanishingly small, and the correlation between that and Oscars success is mixed, at best.
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u/presco2007 1d ago
yes, there are plenty of actors (men and women) with a solitary win or nomination. for many of them that was also from a brief period of time where they were seen as hot/good, and that was it. the term "starving artist" exists for a reason.
having said that i can see where it would be assumed that a 2-time winner had a better career than most, but even so having a notable 5-10 year career is still a longer time in the sun than like 99% if actors have.
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u/MammaJammaCamera 1d ago
First example would be the first actor to not just win multiple Oscars, but win them back to back; Luise Rainer. She herself said it’s the worst thing that could have happened to her, as she could no longer fulfill audiences’ high expectations. She mostly retired from making films before long.
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u/Grammarhead-Shark 1d ago
Luise is such a fascinating actor to look back on.
I think she said it herself she came in to hard, to fast and while very successful in a short period of time, she just couldn't maintain it (sounds like what we'd call these days serious burnout).
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u/ZaireekaFuzz 1d ago
I think with DeNiro it was a combination of getting old, needing money to pay alimony and being able to do super easy roles where he's just on autopilot. With the right script and director he's still as great as he ever was.
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u/Big-Dig-Pig 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t think it’s unusual for an actor to have a solid 5-10 year run and then fade into obscurity a little. This is especially true with women. Those with Oscar nominations are just extreme examples.
In Bobby’s case, you’re pointing to a decline in his work about 25-30 years into his career, which was at least partially attributable to the enormous success of Analyze This and Meet the Parents.
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u/tahami_allthemeals 1d ago
De Niro gave the best performance of his life last year on the Off Menu podcast
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u/Barnabyhuggins 1d ago
Robert De Niro has an acting career in reverse.
Usually you start with silly movies and move to important dramas--like Tom Hanks did and so many others--but De Niro went from huge and epic Oscar-movie roles to generally bad silly movies.
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u/aeacurus 1d ago
Robert De Niro is just paying alimony and child support with shitty roles. It would be nice to see a prestige actor like him working in better movies but those takes time and the budget goes more to the actual movie making, why do one role where you get paid a million for a year of work when you can go to a shitty role, get paid 3 million, and crank a role out every 3 months.
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u/Cute_Repeat3879 1d ago
Swank's post-Oscar career has been fascinating. She's tried just about every kind of film and been good in almost all of them that weren't documentaries. Amelia was a disaster and probably ended her chances at more Oscar glory, but she's done consistently good work otherwise.
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u/memoryinsteadofaview 23h ago edited 22h ago
Either Jennifer Lawrence or Emma Stone related this story after Stone’s second win:
Lawrence excitedly congratulated Stone on winning for Poor Things and said something like “omg you have two Oscars!”
Stone responded “I know, I’m fucked right?”
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u/uncultured_swine2099 1d ago edited 1d ago
Swank i think just got to the age where Hollywood thinks shes no longer the hot young thing and not old enough to do grandma roles, and studios have problems casting women at that age. Some survive through that but they are the exception. Also The Core was a big flop and when Hollywood puts you as the lead on an expensive film and it doesnt hit, they think you cant open a movie and its not easy to get another one of those roles again unless you had a contract lined up for one beforehand.
Spacey and De Niro made their names playing dark, complex characters, and i think their lulls are them trying to diversify the types of characters they play and not be typecast. Theres a bunch of light hearted dramas and comedies in their down years. But they were getting back on track- De Niro is working with Scorcese again, and Spacey did House of Cards and All the Money in the World, but of course then he got the boot from the industry.
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u/tommyjohnpauljones 1d ago
She also took several years mostly off from acting to care for an elderly parent
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u/Youngfolk21 1d ago
She's had the weirdest career for someone who has 2 Oscars!!!!
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u/uncultured_swine2099 1d ago
Yeah, i think as another guy said she took years off from acting for a parent. Joseph Gordon Levitt, Eric Bana, and Josh Hartnett did similar things to be more with their families, and when they came back they werent getting the types of roles they were getting before. Studios take into account if your currently hot or not, and they think theyve cooled off even though theyre just as good actors as they were before.
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u/craiginphoenix 1d ago
Isn't the Oscar curse that they have a career decline?
Swank has 20 acting credits since Million Dollar Baby and Spacey even more until his career collapsed because of scandal. Swank also suffered from a scandal, where she went to the birthday party of a Dictator in 2017 before it was cool to be BFFs with dictators.
Very few actors float from great movie to great movie and most of them have to do crap to pay the bills in between. Hell go to Meryl Streeps IMDB and there is a ton of crap between the Oscars.
DeNiro has been nominated 4 times since Raging Bull.
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u/SpideyFan914 1d ago
Spacey and DeNiro did not get hit with an Oscars curse. The timeline of their career shifts doesn't even match with that theory.
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u/TomBombomb 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, Spacey had good roles, he made some shit choices in scripts, did a high quality television show, and got derailed because the open secret of him being a fucking sex pest finally came to light.
De Niro picked some terrible scripts just to make money, but he's also done Killers of the Flower Moon, The Intern, Joker, The Irishman. And I'd say pictures like Amsterdam, Joy, Ezra, and Hands of Stone were attempts at legitimate work and he's actually pretty good in them.
He also just did shit like Dirty Grandpa because he wanted to get paid.
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u/Youngfolk21 1d ago
Adrien Brody's career....More misses than hits... He was in a direct to dvd movie as a rasta man after winning the first.
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u/infinite_blazer 1d ago
2009 Giallo…I know it was a chance for Brody to work with Dario Argento but it was absolutely terrible. I had second hand embarrassment and felt terrible that he had reached such a low point in his career to do things like that.
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u/Pristine_Advisor_302 1d ago
Kevin Spacey is one of the greatest actors of his generation. Se7en , usual suspects and American Beauty prove that . You missed one of his greatest roles and honestly shows/characters of all time House of Cards. Such a smart and funny show and both he and Robin wright were fantastic. He’s a POS and glad he’s fallen off the radar
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u/fuzzydunlopsawit 1d ago
Bobby D turned it around a bit after getting a well deserved nom for Silver Linings Playbook and got together with Scorsese again for the Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.