Oscar Embarrassment: When Stars Drop a Stinker in the Middle of an Awards Campaign

Academy Award nominees Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore saw their Oscar hopes flash before their eyes on Feb. 6, when their respective would-be blockbusters Jupiter Ascending and Seventh Son opened opposite each other in theaters and bombed with audiences and critics. Both movies represented potential embarrassments for actors who seem poised to cruise to victory at Feb. 22’s ceremony — Redmayne for The Theory of Everything and Moore for Still Alice. We’ll have to wait until Oscar night to see if they’ve successfully skated around those twin disasters. In the meantime, here’s a look back at what happened to previously nominated performers who had stinkers released in the middle of their Oscar campaigns.

Natalie Portman (2011)
Nominated For: Best Actress, Black Swan
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: No Strings Attached
Did She Win? Yes
Fallout: Even Ashton Kutcher couldn’t spoil Portman’s march to an Oscar victory for her bravura star turn in Darren Aronofsky’s ballet-world psychodrama. In fact, perhaps the movie even helped her win — voters could’ve decided it would be a pre-emptive way to keep her from having to reunite with Kutcher for More Strings Attached.

Watch the trailer for No Strings Attached:

Nicole Kidman (2011)
Nominated For: Best Actress, Rabbit Hole
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Just Go With It
Did She Win the Oscar? No — Kidman’s compatriot in Oscar shame, Natalie Portman, took home the trophy (see above).
Fallout: Kidman’s name and face were mostly kept out of the advertisements for the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy, which she probably appreciated, even if it didn’t ultimately help her in that year’s Oscar race. Maybe she should have dug her Virginia Woolf nose from The Hours out of storage to completely obscure her identity in the movie.

Anne Hathaway (2009)
Nominated For: Best Actress, Rachel Getting Married
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Bride Wars
Did She Win the Oscar? No — Kate Winslet won for The Reader.
Fallout: Viewers and voters couldn’t help but get whiplash watching Hathaway go from a scruffy independent family drama to a glossy romantic comedy with a horrendously hateful message. The embarrassment didn’t linger though: Hathaway would go on to win a Supporting Actress award four years later for Les Misérables.

Mickey Rourke (2009)
Nominated For: Best Actor, The Wrestler
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Killshot
Did He Win the Oscar? No — Sean Penn won for Milk.
Fallout: In the midst of his comeback tour for The Wrestler, Rourke appeared in this small-scale crime thriller that felt like a tonier version of the direct-to-video fare he’d been trapped in before Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky came calling.

Eddie Murphy (2007)
Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor, Dreamgirls
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Norbit
Did He Win the Oscar? No — Alan Arkin won for Little Miss Sunshine.
Fallout: Still the go-to example of a movie that may have cost its star a shoo-in statue (although that conclusion has been hotly contested by some), Norbit has since spawned its own awards season phrase: “The Norbit effect.” Frankly, the low-brow romantic comedy would have been an embarrassment whenever it was released, but just before the Academy Awards was especially poor timing.

Watch the trailer for Norbit:

Alec Baldwin (2004)
Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor, The Cooler
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Along Came Polly
Did He Win the Oscar? No — Tim Robbins won for Mystic River.
Fallout: Director Wayne Kramer’s gambling drama gave Baldwin his juiciest supporting role since his one-scene humdinger in Glengarry Glen Ross. But then along came a Jennifer Aniston rom-com to spoil the fun once again. Of course, Polly co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman went on to receive four Oscar nominations (including one win), so there’s still hope for Baldwin.

Ben Affleck (1998)
Nominated For: Best Original Screenplay, Good Will Hunting
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Phantoms
Did He Win the Oscar? Yes — he and costar and cowriter Matt Damon won the trophy.
Fallout: Filmed before Good Will Hunting commenced shooting, this low-budget horror film stayed on the shelf for over a year until studio Miramax dumped it in theaters to capitalize on Affleck and Matt Damon’s ascending star power leading up to and following their Oscar victory. It’s now best remembered for inspiring one of the funniest lines in any Kevin Smith joint: “Affleck, you da bomb in Phantoms, yo!”

Anthony Hopkins (1992)
Nominated For: Best Actor, The Silence of the Lambs
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Freejack
Did He Win the Oscar? Yes
Fallout: More than a full year elapsed between the release of The Silence of the Lambs in February 1991 and Hopkins’s accepting his Best Actor trophy in March 1992. During that time, the British character actor filmed a supporting role in this goofy Emilio Estevez star vehicle about a race car driver transported into the distant future…of 2009. Maybe he should have just taken a long vacation instead.

Dan Aykroyd (1990)
Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor, Driving Miss Daisy
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: Loose Cannons
Did He Win the Oscar? No — Denzel Washington won for Glory.
Fallout: In a rare dramatic turn, the Ghostbusters star held his own alongside Daisy’s central duo, Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, both of whom were also nominated (Tandy won). But his ill-advised team up with Gene Hackman for this buddy cop comedy may have made it hard for voters to take his Oscar chances seriously.

Kevin Kline (1989)
Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor, A Fish Called Wanda
Pre-Oscar Embarrassment: The January Man  
Did He Win the Oscar? Yes
Fallout: Kline was a superhuman force of nature in the caper A Fish Called Wanda, but the widely-loathed January Man brought him down to Earth…though thankfully without costing him his statue.

Watch a special Katie Couric report on what it takes to win Oscar gold:

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