From Jeff Goldblum in The Fly to Lupita Nyong’o in Us, these are the four horror performances the Oscars famously and frustratingly snubbed.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: it feels so good to be a horror fan right now, and this year’s Oscars nominations are proof that the genre is finally getting the recognition it deserves.
It’s not that a film–or an entire genre, in this case–needs to be nominated or recognized by the Academy in order to be considered legitimate or worth watching. I’d argue that sometimes, being snubbed is one of the best things that could happen to a film. It’s been eight years since Toni Collette was snubbed for her portrayal of grieving mother and miniature artist Annie Graham in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, and we’re still talking about it–arguably more than we talk about the performance that actually won Best Actress that year (for those who are wondering, it was Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).
Only a handful of horror films have been nominated for and/or won an Oscar since the first Academy Awards were held in 1929, with one of the most notable exceptions being The Silence of the Lambs, which won Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay in 1992. While this year’s nominations are a major win for the genre as a whole–Ryan Coogler’s vampire Southern Gothic-musical hybrid Sinners was up for a record-breaking 16 awards, and Michael B. Jordan took home Best Actor–it’s also a reminder of just how many horror performances the Academy has overlooked.
Here are four of what I consider to be Oscar’s biggest horror snubs, in no particular order.
Jeff Goldblum, The Fly
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
While David Cronenberg’sThe Flywas nominated for–and won!–Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the Academy Awards in 1987, Jeff Goldblum did not receive a nomination for his role as Seth Brundle, the brilliant scientist-turned-horrifying-fly/man hybrid. The snub was so severe, in fact, that Goldblum “had to discuss the snub with his psychoanalyst.” Even Roger Ebert, whose opinion on horror films in general was complicated, to say the least, said the film was on his top 20 films list for 1986 and that Goldblum “deserves an Academy Award nomination.”
According to an article from the South Florida Sun Sentinel that year, “Many movie fans were upset that a witty, heartbreaking performance…had been ignored,” suggesting “a lot of older Academy voters…did not even see the film, scared off by rumors about its few ‘gross-out’ horror sequences.”
Anyone who watches The Fly today can see why this snub was so upsetting. Remove the makeup, and it’s clear that Goldblum’s transformation from an eccentric, slightly insecure, but charming scientist to a hyper-confident alpha-male to what is essentially a man slowly succumbing to a terminal illness is one of the best performances of the decade.
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Everybody’s been talking about Michael B. Jordan’s well-deserved Best Actor nomination for his dual role as twins Smoke and Stack in Sinners, and for good reason. It’s a remarkable performance, but I couldn’t help but to be reminded of how well Lupita Nyong’o played Adelaide Wilson and her doppelgänger Red in Jordan Peele’sUs. She embodied her dual roles so well that nearly everyone assumed she’d receive a nomination for Best Actress, but of course, the Academy didn’t give her that honor.
Clearly, it wasn’t because the Academy doesn’t think she’s talented or deserving–Nyong’o won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave. But her snub was proof at the time that the Academy was still unwilling to embrace the horror genre, and was made even worse by the fact that many of the nominations across all categories were mostly white. As Ineye Komonibo pointed outin an article for Refinery 29, “While Nyong’o wasn’t totally ignored this award season—the African American Film Critics Association gave her top honors for her dual role of Adelaide and Red—the Academy’s choice to overlook her performance in Us definitely hurts.”
Nyong’o does some incredible things with her dual roles. She gives Red a raspy, almost painful-sounding voice, inspired by a vocal disorder, spasmodic dysphonia. In an interviewwith Variety, Nyong’o explained that the “condition…comes about from trauma, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical,” which made this such a brilliant choice. But she also makes some fascinating, subtle choices with her performance as Adelaide, a woman who escaped an underground facility as a child and must spend the rest of her life pretending to be just like everybody else.
Naomi Scott, Smile 2
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
I know that the sheer concept of a sequel to an admittedly goofy horror movie receiving any kind of recognition from the Academy is actually ridiculous, and I shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed, but everybody can agree that Naomi Scott delivers a powerhouse performance as pop star Skye Riley in Smile 2.
Scott captures Skye’s pain and trauma while also reminding us that even though she’s lashing out and might not be the kindest person, she’s also worthy of care and sympathy, all while singing, dancing (she only had two-and-a-half days of dance rehearsals before filming), and hanging from the ceiling in a scene that took four daysto shoot. One of her most impressive moments comes from Skye’s flashback to her car accident. Her performance was so chilling, so different from the Skye we meet in the opening moments of the film, that some people didn’t thinkit was actually her in the car.
Like Goldblum’s performance in The Fly, if you remove the horror elements from the film, what you have is the familiar story about a young woman who has been catapulted into fame, only to be destroyed by drugs, toxic relationships, the media, and the demands that come with being a pop star.
Christian Bale, American Psycho
Courtesy of Lions Gate Films
American Psycho, at least to me, isn’t a horror film in the traditional sense. It’s a sexy, violent satire, one that the Academy should have been at least a little open to nominating for something, but especially for Christian Bale’s legendary performance as the murderous yuppie and Wall Street investment banker Patrick Bateman.
In the hands of any other actor, Patrick Bateman might have come across as just another slasher villain. But Bale plays Patrick with the right amount of friendliness to have his (supposed) crimes go undetected, even if there was “nothing behind the eyes,” a choice inspired by watching Tom Cruise on Letterman. As Roger Ebert put it(yes, he’s here again), “Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor.” It’s that fearlessness that makes Bale so watchable, whether he’s comparing business cards or awkwardly shimmying to Huey Lewis and the News before taking an axe to Jared Leto’s head.
So what was it about American Psycho that made the Academy so hesitant to nominate him for Best Actor? Bale told TV Guide Onlinein 2000, “I think [it] might be pushing it a little too far for the [Academy], but I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.” Perhaps that’s the best way to handle an Oscar snub.
