Want to win Best Actress at the Oscars? Then play a real-life person

Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress last year for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a dazzling fictional tale of a woman trying to save the multiverse. However, when we think of typical Best Actress winners, we do think of performers portraying real-life people. Sally Field in “Norma Rae” comes to mind, so, too, do Julia Roberts in “Erin Brockovich,” Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side,” and Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady.”

But is this an old-fashioned way of thinking? Or is it still a relevant metric with which to measure to potential Best Actress winners. Lily Gladstone portrays a real person in “Killers of the Flower Moon” but Emma Stone is the Oscar favorite for “Poor Things,” in which she plays a fictional character. So, let’s take a look a closer look at this category and what sort of roles Best Actress winners typically win for. Below is a chart that details the winners in this category throughout this century.

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As you can see, there is a pretty clear split. In the first 12 of these 24 years, eight of the Best Actress winners won for playing real people. Hilary Swank won for playing transgender man Brandon Teena in “Boys Don’t Cry;” Julia Roberts played activist Erin Brockovich in the film of the same name; Nicole Kidman played author Virginia Woolf in “The Hours;” Charlize Theron played serial Aileen Wuornos in “Monster;” Reese Witherspoon played singer June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line;” Helen Mirren played Queen Elizabeth in “The Queen;” Marion Cotillard played singer Édith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose;” and Sandra Bullock played Leigh Anne Tuohy, who was the guardian to football player Michal Oher, in “The Blind Side.”

However, in the second 12 years — from 2012 to 2023 — the majority of the winners won for playing fictional characters. In fact, there were only four winners (half the amount of the first 12) who won for playing real people. Streep played British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady;” Olivia Colman played Queen Anne in “The Favourite,” Renée Zellweger played Judy Garland in “Judy;” and Jessica Chastain played evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Otherwise, actresses all won for playing fictional characters, including a run of six fictional character-winners from 2013 to 2018.

This strongly suggests that the academy, which has made huge efforts to modernize and diversify its memberships in the last five to 10 years, is changing its tastes. Playing a real-life person is seen as a classic, traditional way of winning Best Actress. But the academy’s preferences are now shifting to more unique, flavorful movies — as shown by the recent list of Best Picture winners such as “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Parasite,” and “The Shape of Water.”

Yeoh, for example, would never have won Best Actress for the chaotic, brilliant, sci-fi “Everything Everywhere All at Once” 15 years ago. Her performance is eccentric and very distinct in its flavor. The fact that she won over more traditionally dramatic performances such as Cate Blanchett in “Tár” and Ana de Armas, who played Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde,” is a sign of the academy’s shifting tastes.

But what does all of this mean for this year’s likely nominees? Well, our current predicted Best Actress nominees are Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), and Margot Robbie (“Barbie”). Then there are five other actresses who are on the precipice of breaking into our predicted five nominees: Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”), Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Greta Lee (“Past Lives”), Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), and Natalie Portman (“May December”).

Out of those 10, four play real people. Gladstone plays Osage tribe member Mollie Burkhart in “Killers of the Flower Moon;” Mulligan plays actress and partner to Leonard Bernstein, Felicia Montealegre, in “Maestro;” Bening plays swimmer Diana Nyad in “Nyad;” and Spaeny plays Priscilla Presley, the wife of Elvis Presley, in “Priscilla.” Perhaps this is one of the key reasons the academy’s list of winners is changing: the type of films being made.

Previously, a lot of the stories that were made with women as their leads were based on real-life stories, hence the amount of women who won for biopics. Now, however, as the film industry slowly begins to diversify and embrace more films with central female characters, we’re getting a broader range of movies and, hence, a more thorough mix of real-life stories and fictional stories. This, in turn, leads to more of a variety in our Best Actress contenders. We could have two or three women nominated for playing real people this year. Equally, all five slots could be occupied by actresses playing fictional characters. At the moment, however, we are predicting that there will be two actresses nominated for playing real people (Gladstone and Mulligan) and three for playing fictional characters (Stone, Hüller, and Barrino). We are also predicting that Stone will be the ninth Best Actress winner to win for playing a fictional character in the last 13 years.

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