The only actors to win Oscars for performances in horror films

At the 82nd annual Golden Globe Awards on January 5, Demi Moore, a Hollywood fixture for decades, won Best Actress. First ever Competitive Acting Award Thanks Coralie Farget’s body horror song “The Substance”.

Moore beat off some stiff competition to win Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, including Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked: Part One” and Mickey Madison in “Anora,” and her powerful speech about how women in the entertainment industry are constantly trying to live up to… A truly impossible level that was nothing if not extremely inspiring. Although she was apparently told that she would never be anything more than a “popcorn actress” by some idiot studio executive, Moore stood proudly on stage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles and said to women around the world “In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or thin enough or successful enough or basically not enough — one woman told me, ‘Just know that you are You’ll never be enough, but you can find out how much you’re worth if you just measure up.'”

All of this means that thanks to her absolutely stunning performance as faded star Elizabeth Sparkle in “The Substance” and her rousing awards speech, Moore has a very real chance of landing an Oscar nomination for her role. If you do, it means you are a star horror movie He could take home this prestigious acting award, defiantly The academy’s long-standing bias against horror. In recent years, the stunning performances of Toni Collette in Hereditary, Lupita Nyong’o in Us, and Florence Pugh in Midsommar have been overlooked.

If Moore keeps this up wins After receiving an Oscar for “The Substance,” she joined a very small group of artists who have won their own horror film statuettes. Here are the only six actors to perform this very specific feat.

The Academy Awards were first held in 1929, and a few years later, the first actor ever to win a role in a horror film took home the award. Specifically, Frederic March, a versatile performer known for his roles in A Star is Born (the 1937 version alongside Janet Gaynor) and 1951’s Death of a Salesman. Before either of those projects, March won his first He won two Academy Awards for his lead role in 1931’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a horror classic directed by Robin Mamoulian. (Technically He walks tied For an Oscar with Wallace Beerywhich appeared in the movie “The Champ,” is definitely a relic of the era.)

If you’re a horror fan, you’re probably at least familiar with the story of the gentle Dr. Henry Jekyll, who works in Victorian England and believes strongly in the dichotomy between good and evil — and who also creates a terrifying potion that transforms him into the evil and vile Sir Edward Hyde. As Hyde, the good doctor commits all sorts of terrible and terrifying acts… and there’s no doubt that Marsh, who perfectly embodies both Jekyll and Hyde in the film, deserves an Oscar – for a horror film, no less! – During the first decade of the award ceremony’s existence.

Based on Ira Levin’s 1967 novel of the same name, “Rosemary’s Baby” – directed by The now disgraced Roman Polanski – It is without a doubt one of the best and most important horror films of all time, and it also features one of the only horror film performances to ever win an Oscar. Mia Farrow plays Rosemary Woodhouse, who moves into a luxury Manhattan apartment building with her husband, Jay (John Cassavetes), and finds herself surrounded by a gang of people who seem like… very Interested in the lives of Jay and Rosemary. This gang includes husband and wife Roman and Minnie Castevet, played by Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon, who give Rosemary a necklace meant to serve as a talisman and some clearly drugged chocolate pudding that ends up allowing the cult to impregnate Rosemary with the devil’s child. .

Gordon is Incredibly As terrifying as Ruth, who hovers over Rosemary and pretends to be Mother’s companion until her true evil game is revealed. Although Roman ostensibly runs the soiree, it is Minnie who controls Roman and thus absolutely controls everything in the overall narrative. Gordon definitely deserves this Oscar.

Kathy Bates is one of the most popular actors in all of Hollywood, and there’s no denying that her role as Annie Wilkes – a deranged, obsessed fan of author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) – makes sure everyone knows exactly how good she is. She is at her job. Rob Reiner and William Goldman, who previously worked together as director and screenwriter on The Princess Bride (A.R.). very A different film, to be sure), adapted from Stephen King’s beloved 1987 novel of the same name to great effect, and the film wouldn’t work if the performer playing Annie wasn’t top-notch. Fortunately, Bates is.

We first meet Annie after Paul, who is traveling through dangerous weather from Colorado to New York City after working on his latest book – he is known for a series of romance novels centered around a character named Misery Chastain – ends up crashing his car. Annie, a nurse, takes him in and promises him that she will help him get better soon. Unfortunately for Paul, Annie reads his latest script for Misery Chastain and realizes that he is killing off the character in hopes of moving on to more “serious” work. Enraged, she detained him and forced him to revive the character and write a new book. Bates’ performance as Annie is truly the stuff of legend, which makes her relatively unsurprising He won an Oscar for this role – Even though it was in a horror movie.

Anthony Hopkins pulled off a big surprise in 2021 when he won an Oscar for his role as an elderly man with cognitive issues in The Father, but this wasn’t his first Oscar. He won Which Award for the most unusual role. In Jonathan Demme’s 1991 horror masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins plays psychiatrist-turned-serial-killer (and cannibal) Hannibal Lecter, who agrees to sit down with FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster; we’ll return for her in Just a moment) to discuss the new serial killer on the block. The new guy, Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, is inspired by Ed Gein, and if you’re in everyone Familiar with Gein, you’ll know how deviant Buffalo Bill is even if you haven’t seen this movie one way or another.

There’s no denying that Hopkins is fantastic as Hannibal, a calm, cool, collected man who is able to read Clarice like a book. After she is attacked by another inmate during her visit to the prison, Hannibal becomes strangely protective of Clarice, even trusting her after he manages to escape from prison. Hopkins went on to play Hannibal again in 2001’s “Hannibal” and 2002’s “Red Dragon” — which were based on Thomas Harris’ “Silence of the Lambs” novels — but he only won an Oscar for “Silence of the Lambs.” Lambs,” and it’s easy to understand why.

There’s no doubt that Anthony Hopkins is great in The Silence of the Lambs, but he’s lucky to have a great scene partner in Jodie Foster, who took home the Best Actress award on the same night that Hopkins won Best Actor. I’ve already pointed out that Clarice begins the film sitting down with Hannibal Lecter while he’s in prison to try to get an insight into the killer’s mind, and although many viewers may associate the film with Hopkins and Hopkins alone, the man only appears on screen in Jonathan Demme’s film for about Sixteen minutes. This is truly Foster’s film.

Foster has been acting since she was three years old, making her film debut Coppertone Healthy Ad With the movie “The Silence of the Lambs,” she cemented her place in Hollywood history and made sure that no one would doubt her tremendous talent. As Clarice, Foster acts as a surrogate for the audience and The hero of the story, eventually finds and brings down Buffalo Bill, and even saves his latest victim in the process. Foster actually won a Golden Globe for “True Detective: Night Country” on the same night that Demi Moore received her award, proving that the actress is more respected than ever. Perhaps Moore will join Foster in the exclusive club of actors who have won Oscars for horror films.

The most recent horror performance to win an Oscar is also one of the most disturbing — and if I’m honest, Natalie Portman’s breakout turn in 2014’s “Black Swan” paved the way for roles like Elizabeth Sparkle in “The Substance.” ” In director Darren Aronofsky’s deeply disturbing ballet thriller, Portman plays Nina Sayers, a prima ballerina striving to play the double lead role in New York City Ballet’s latest production of “Swan Lake.” Unfortunately, the company’s artistic director, Thomas Leroy, doesn’t think so. (Vincent Cassel) She’s capable of it, he tells Nina, she’s perfectly capable of dancing Odette, the gentle and graceful white swan, but he doesn’t think she has the darkness needed to play Odile, the swan. The deceitful and cunning black woman.

Nina throws herself into training like a mad woman — driven by her aspiring theater mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) — but when new dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the company and Thomas immediately praises Lily’s uninhibited performing style, it puts Nina over the edge. She begins to experience frightening visions and hallucinations, especially after spending a wild night with Lily. If you haven’t seen the surreal ending to “Black Swan,” I won’t spoil it here. Suffice it to say that Portman, a veteran Hollywood actress, certainly deserves an Oscar for her stellar performance.