The Academy Award is probably the most commercial prize in Hollywood – especially at the beginning of a career; winning an Oscar implies a flourishing career full of possibilities, development opportunities and, inseparable from it: a lot of money. Along with the “Palme d’Or”, the highest prize of the Cannes Film Festival, Oscar is the most prestigious prize in the film industry. Many filmmakers and actors wait a lifetime for one of these awards.
This circumstance is also because only 2 actors can win an Oscar every year: One for Best Leading Role, and one for Best Supporting Role, each taken into account separately by gender – this equally implies that the remaining 8 actors go home with empty pockets. One has been privileged to watch many great personalities play throughout recent film history.
Hollywood is like the history books: everybody remembers the winner, not the second-place finisher or even the third-place finisher. Plus, you will be surprised how many highly respected actors have yet to take home an Oscar! So, this is the list of 10 actors who have never won an Oscar, even though they are universally revered as iconic for their performing arts.
Harrison Ford
Before becoming a superstar, career Harrison Ford was a master craftsman, something he still does occasionally – for relaxation, said Ford. In his early days, Harrison Ford fell on a dummy gun during shooting, he lost some teeth in this accident, which artificial ones replaced. Since then, he mostly lets a professional stuntman do the stunts in his movies – understandably, after that negative experience.
He holds the Guinness record for the richest male actor. The divorce from his ex-wife, Melissa Mathison, entered history as the fourth most expensive divorce in the history of Hollywood (while during the time the divorce was finalized, she was considered the most expensive divorce in the history of Hollywood). A close friend of former President Bill Clinton, both often escape the stressful everyday life playing golf.
Oscar nominations:
- 1985: Best Actor (The Only Witness)
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise is an actor known, amongst other things, just for his deep religious convictions. Had you told him 39 years ago that one day he would be one of the most wanted and highest-paid actors in the world, he would probably have laughed in your face and replied that his destiny was already predetermined and that he would become a priest.
Tom Cruise publicly declared his allegiance to the Church of Scientology in 1990. He piously claimed that its teachings had cured him of his dyslexia, or poor reading and spelling. Despite his embarrassing TV appearances (legendary: Cruise’s appearance on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” where he paid homage to his then-wife Katie Holmes on a couch together with Oprah) as well as general private escapades, Cruise is an outstanding actor for whom such an appreciation is long overdue.
Oscar nominations:
- 1990: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Born on the 4th of July)
- 1997: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jerry Maguire)
- 2000: Best Supporting Actor (Magnolia)
Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson wanted to become a teacher because he loves children and considers the transmission of knowledge and values extremely important. In fact, he even took courses at St. Mary’s Teaching College in Newcastle, England. However, in 1976 he decided against it when he joined the “Belfast Lyric Player’s Theater”. He also later made his professional acting debut.
Two years later, he moved to Dublin, to Dublin’s renowned Abbey Theater, where John Boorman, a famous producer, spotted him and cast him for the movie Excalibur. Since then, Liam Neeson has made a great name for himself and gained an extremely well-paid status, often appearing in major productions, most recently for example “Clash of the Titans” and “The A-Team”.
Oscar nominations:
- 1994: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Schindler’s List)
Richard Gere
Yeah, you are surprised to see his name here. Richard Gere has never been nominated for an Oscar, much less won one. This is because he was banned from the Academy after he publicly made comments against China during the award ceremony in 1993. Richard Gere became a father for the first time at the age of 50, naming his son Homer James Jigme.
He visited refugees during the Kosovo crisis as part of a charitable project. Richard Gere has not eaten red meat for 30 years but continues to claim that he is not a vegetarian. Fun Fact: Gere’s middle name is “Tiffany,” his mother’s birth name.
Oscar Nominations:
- NONE
Hugh Jackman
Everybody knows Jackman from “X-Men” in the role of Wolverine, but did you know that according to the comic books based, Wolverine is much smaller than the character embodied by Jackman? Hugh Jackman always wears contact lenses; his sight is extremely limited and blurry without them. His brother in law is often his stunt double, for example, in “Van Helsing” and “X-Men”. It holds the record for the most portrayals of the same comic book character within his film career.
Jackman is known for leading a regular and quiet private life, appearing level-headed and calm in public; however, a certain incident shook his regular private life: a 47-year-old woman once threw an electric razor at Jackman while working out at the gym in Greenwich Village. Jackman had noticed the woman several times before near his Manhattan apartment but thought nothing of it until she suddenly revealed her true nature.
Oscar nominations:
- 2013: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Les Miserables)
Samuel L. Jackson
Yeah, you might find it hard to believe, but in fact: Samuel L. Jackson has never been able to call an Oscar his own. But aside from this truly amazing fact (considering the many memorable roles Jackson has already portrayed), here are a few other things you probably didn’t know up to this point: Jackson was kicked out of the prestigious Morehouse College in 1969 for holding the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King hostage during a protest, alongside several other prefects and trust-fund students.
Yep, read that right. Students were protesting that there were no ethnosociology courses on African-American culture – or African-American trust students. Samuel L. Jackson often poses as a tough badass in his movies – obviously not just a role, Jackson lives that image.
Oscar nominations:
- 1995: Best Supporting Actor (Pulp Fiction)
John Travolta
Apart from being an actor, John Travolta is also an author and musician, writing the books “John Travolta Staying Fit” and “Propeller One-Way Coach – A Fable For All Ages”. He also published several albums within his activity as a musician. As his wife fervently loves horses and devotes herself to these animals with extraordinary sacrifice, together with her, he moved to Ocala in Florida, a place known for its horse breeding and its vast land.
He married his wife Kelly Preston twice, as the first wedding was performed illegally and was declared invalid. Fun Fact: The second marriage was organized, planned and performed by a French Scientologist.
Oscar Nominations:
- 1978: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Saturday Night Fever)
- 1995: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Pulp Fiction)
Bruce Willis
You know Bruce Willis as a much-acclaimed actor, obviously, yet did you know Willis went down in history as the first actor to mime for a PC game? A computer game called “Apocalypse” became the first computer game to use voice recordings of a movie star for lines of dialogue and have his character mimic movement patterns of a real-life role model (long before motion-capturing technology).
Bruce Willis claimed a few times in public that he didn’t want to make any more action movies, given the imminent threat of terrorist organizations worldwide, but obviously revised that decision a few times. However, Willis has also achieved worldwide fame in the role of the gritty action hero (“Die Hard”), and this decision, therefore, comes as little surprise.
Bruce Willis was also one of the few actors to declare his support for the war in Iraq publicly. Indeed, He offered one million US dollars to the man who captured Saddam Hussein or published information leading to his capture. The offer gained media focus because it is illegal for a soldier to accept such a reward in the US.
Oscar nominations:
- NONE
Will Smith
Many know Will Smith from the series that made him famous, “The Prince of Bel-Air”; however, his life was not always so exuberant and majestic. Will Smith even faced bankruptcy after spending all his securities and his entire fortune on cars, houses, jewels, and other luxury goods at one point in his career. At one point, he held the Guinness World Record for the most public appearances in one day, before he was replaced by two German actors: Daniel Brühl and Jürgen Vogel.
Few know one more interesting detail: the role he played in “Men in Black,” that of Agent J, wasn’t initially written for an African-American. Moreover, Smith has made some business mistakes in the course of his career, which he has also publicly admitted to – among other things, he regrets having shot the film “Wild Wild West”, he also regrets having turned down the role of Neo in “Matrix”, because he failed to recognize the enormous potential of the film at that time.
At times Will Smith also makes music in the field of hip-hop; in fact, he was the first hip-hop star to be nominated for an Oscar (a little later, Eminem won it for “8-Mile”, though not as an actor, instead for the title song “Lose Yourself”). Although Will Smith has never won an Oscar, he is appreciated worldwide for his acting performances, easily recognizable by the fact that a screaming mob greets him at every press appointment – a true crowd favorite, after all.
Oscar nominations:
- 2002: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ali)
- 2007: Best Actor in a Leading Role (The Pursuit of Happiness)
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp was nominated and crowned “sexiest man alive” in 2003 by “People Magazine”; he has diverse and unusual interests; for example, he collected testimonies of the memoirs of “Jack the Ripper”. According to Depp, he loves to watch animated movies with his daughter. When he was a child, he was allergic to chocolate, so when he turned 16, he flew out of high school and pursued a career in music.
He’s generally not very publicity-shy and openly approaches his fans signs autograph cards in large numbers; he doesn’t allow his fans to take pictures of his children, though. A good friend of the author Hunter S. Thompson (a famous journalist who became famous for the quality of his reports as well as his drug escapades, wrote the report “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, later made into a movie, starring Jo
hnny Depp), he helped Johnny Depp realize his last wish: Thomson wanted his mortal remains to be shot into the sky by cannon.
Oscar nominations:
- 2004: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl).
- 2005: Best Actor in a Leading Role (When Dreams Learn to Fly)
- 2008: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sweeney Todd, the Devilish Barber of Fleet Street)
