by Eurocheese
All Oscar season, I’ve heard a comment that didn’t sit quite right with me. When discussing Regina King’s Oscar chances for a Best Director nomination, the belief was that because she is a well-known actress, her nomination was more likely. Is that true, when we look at previous Best Director nominees? My knee jerk reaction has been 'tell that to Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper', two of the most surprising Oscar snubs in the category over the last decade. Does Best Director typically resist award winning actors? And would King be an unusual choice for a nominee? My answer to both questions is yes, and before you object, I brought receipts.
There have certainly been acclaimed actors (mostly white males, of course) that have crossed from the acting world to become acclaimed directors. Examples typically fall into a few specific categories...
The first category is a windfall year of success where the Best Director winner was also nominated for acting in their own film. Clint Eastwood managed to pull this off twice, for Best Picture winners Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. Warren Beatty, who had been nominated in both categories before, also managed it when he won Best Director for Reds. This also happened for Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves and Woody Allen, whose only acting nomination came the same year as his Director win for Annie Hall.
There’s also a group of Best Director nominees who landed acting nominations in their windfall year, but went home with only the acting trophy. Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet may have won Best Picture, but he walked away from the evening with the Best Actor prize alone. Roberto Benigni was also nominated for Best Director when he danced across chairs to take his Best Actor prize for Life is Beautiful. George Clooney is a bit of an odd case – he won Best Supporting Actor the year he was nominated for Best Director, but it was for a different film. Each of these cases have something in common, though – none of these actor/directors were ever nominated for Best Director again. In the history of the Academy Awards, no person has won both an acting trophy and the Best Director award.
This leads me to Regina King. If she is nominated for Best Director this year, she will of course be the first woman of color nominated in the category (a shared honor, presumably, with Chloe Zhao if it happens). But that wouldn't be the only first! If nominated she will be the first acting winner in the history of the Oscars to later receive a Best Director nomination, and I assume that the members of the Directors Branch are aware of this. Barbra Streisand was notably unable to pull off this feat, both times she was in the conversation after winning Best Director at the Globes for Yentl (1983), and helming the Best Picture nominated Prince of Tides (1991). She had famously won Best Actress for her debut Funny Girl (1968).
King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami immediately received critical acclaim with its festival bows at Venice and Toronto in September. I have no doubt it will go on to multipl nominations on Oscar morning, including Best Picture. If I had to guess, though, my sense is that the Directors Branch in particular resists new directors who have received acclaim in other areas of their career. While there is no doubt King would be a deserving nomineee, this will be her biggest hurdle.
I should also point that there are a number of actors and actresses who have crossed from acting earlier in their career to become acclaimed Best Director nominees – Robert Redford (who scored a Best Actor nomination before his Best Director win), John Huston (who scored an acting nod after winning Best Director), John Cassavetes, Mel Gibson, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig… the list goes on. Actors learn their craft and want to explore other areas over the course of their career, so we will no doubt see this happen again and again. The question becomes, how comfortable will directors be inviting successful actors to receive the highest honor in their field? I get the sense that the Academy pushes success in one direction or another. One day we will surely see someone win Oscars for both directing and acting, but it’s telling that we haven’t yet seen that crossover in almost a century worth of Oscars.
Don’t get me wrong – if Regina King is nominated for Best Director, it will be an exciting achievement and she might very well be the first person to win for both acting and directing. Does her recent Supporting Actress win give her an advantage in the race, though, or does it make her path more difficult? Tell us what you think in the comments.