Every ‘The Lord of the Rings’ actor who has been nominated at the Oscars

Peter Jackson‘s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy amassed 28 Oscar nominations and 17 wins between the three films while the prequel “The Hobbit” series garnered a further seven nominations. Out of those 35 Academy Award bids, however, only one came for acting. That was for Sir Ian McKellen when he was nominated in 2002 for Best Supporting Actor for “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” It was Jim Broadbent who won that category that year, for “Iris,” so Middle Earth performers have been overlooked somewhat for their part in the huge success of the fantasy film series. However, a handful of thespians who have appeared in either “The Lord of the Rings” or “The Hobbit” (or both) have found Oscar success elsewhere in their career. Here’s the rundown.

Cate Blanchett — Eight nominations and two wins
Cate Blanchett played Galadriel in all six of Jackson’s Middle Earth movies, playing a key role in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy including serving as a narrator for the opening segment of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Galadriel doesn’t actually appear in J.R.R. Tolkien‘s book “The Hobbit” but the film scripts were tweaked to add the character into the narrative. Galadriel appears in all three “The Hobbit” movies, with Blanchett at her ethereal best as the elf.

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Blanchett is the most nominated “Rings” alum with eight Oscar bids and two wins. She won her first Oscar in 2005 for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Scorsese‘s “The Aviator,” in which she played fellow Oscar-winner Katharine Hepburn. She’s picked up two more Supporting Actress bids across her career — consecutively in 2007 and 2008 for “Notes on a Scandal” and “I’m Not There,” respectively. She added a Best Actress award to her cabinet in 2014, winning for “Blue Jasmine.” She was also nominated for Best Actress a further four times — in 1999 for “Elizabeth,” in 2008 for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” in 2016 for “Carol,” and earlier this year for “Tár.”

Viggo Mortensen — Three nominations
Viggo Mortensen was cast as Aragorn late in the game after Stuart Townsend, the initial choice, was deemed too young. The role was offered to the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis and Russell Crowe but it’s now impossible to imagine anyone but Mortensen in the role of the Aragorn. He appeared in all three “Rings” movies while he was mentioned by Lee Pace‘s Thranduil in the final “The Hobbit” film, “The Battle of the Five Armies.”

Mortensen has a hattrick of Best Actor bids to his name, with the first coming in 2008 for “Eastern Promises.” He was then nominated in 2017 for “Captain Fantastic” and added the third nomination two years later in 2019 for “Green Book.” He lost on all three occasions. In fact, Blanchett is the only “Rings” acting alum who has won an Oscar.

Benedict Cumberbatch — Two nominations
Benedict Cumberbatch has played a whole host of beloved literary characters from Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Strange and you can add two characters to that list from his dual roles in “The Hobbit” trilogy. He provided the voice and motion-capture performance for Smaug the Dragon while he also voiced Sauron, who appeared as The Necromancer in the prequel series.  Cumberbatch has since gone on to score himself two Best Actor nominations. The first was for “The Imitation Game” in 2015 and the second came for “The Power of the Dog” in 2022.

Ian McKellen — Two nominations
McKellen has also played a handful of great literary characters including, again, Sherlock Holmes, Magneto, and Richard III. The most famous character he’s played, however, is arguably Gandalf in all three “Rings” movies and all three “The Hobbit” pictures. He played Gandalf the Grey in the three “The Hobbit” flicks as well as “The Fellowship of the Ring,” during which this iteration of Gandalf was “killed” off. McKellen and Gandalf returned as Gandalf the White in “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King.”

McKellen and Cumberbatch have both played Holmes and both featured as famous wizards (Gandalf and Strange). They also have one more thing in common — they each. have two Oscar nominations to their names. McKellen’s first bid came in 1999 for Best Actor for “Gods and Monsters” before he added the aforementioned Best Supporting Actor nomination for “The Fellowship of the Ring” to his resume in 2002.

Brad Dourif — One nomination
Brad Dourif played Grima Wormtongue in “The Two Towers” and also features in the extended edition of “The Return of the King.” In this role as the slippery operator who helped Saruman (Christopher Lee) control Theoden (Bernard Hill), he spoke with such a convincing English accent that his castmates didn’t realize he was American. Dourif earned his sole Oscar nomination in 1976 for Best Supporting Actor for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Sean Astin — One nomination
Sean Astin stole audiences’ hearts as Samwise Gamgee in all three “Rings” movies and Jackson himself said that he hoped Astin would have earned a Supporting Actor bid for “Return of the King.” Alas, he did not. However, he was nominated in 1995 for Best Live Action Short Film for “Kangaroo Court,” a nomination he earned alongside his wife Christine Astin.

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