TV Stars—Meet Oscar!

Rami Malek, star of USA Network’s Mr. Robot, received a 2018 Oscar nomination for Best Actor
as Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced this week, on Tuesday [January 22, 2019], and a pattern has been held. (Here is a link directly to the site of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences: https://oscar.go.com/nominees.)

It used to be television and film stars didn’t mix.

This decade of the 2010s has seen nearly each year bring an Oscar nomination, at the least, to an actor or actress who was or is currently with a television series.

This wasn’t the case in the previous decade, the 2000s. In fact, I find I have to do some research in order to cite particular years, and examples, but which not add up to many consecutive years of such examples. From the 1970s to 2000s, these actors were examples: Cloris Leachman, while starring on CBS’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show, won the 1971 Best Supporting Actress Oscar in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. … Lee Grant, while starring on her ill-fated NBC comedy series Fay, won the 1975 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo. … Judd Hirsch, while starring and winning two Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series on ABC’s Taxi, was nominated for the 1980 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Robert Redford’s Best Picture winner Ordinary People. … Louis Gossett Jr., while starring on NBC’s ill-fated The Powers of Matthew Star, won the 1982 Best Supporting Actor Oscar in Taylor Hackford’s An Officer and a Gentleman. …  Denzel Washington, while starring on the final season of NBC’s St. Elsewhere, received his first Oscar nomination for 1987 Best Supporting Actor in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom. … Christine Lahti, while starring on CBS’s Chicago Hope (and winning the 1997–98 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series), won the 1995 Oscar as co-producer for Best Live Action Short Film (and Lahti-directed) Lieberman in Love. … Helen Hunt, while starring and winning four Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on NBC’s Mad About You, won the 1997 Best Actress Oscar in James L. Brooks’s As Good As It Gets. … Felicity Huffman, while starring and winning the 2004–05 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, was nominated for the 2005 Oscar for Best Actress in Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica. (It does dawn on me that I may have missed at least one more name. I am not claiming to have provided a full list.)

During this decade, this has been happening nearly every year for someone on television landing an Oscar nomination; in some cases, actually winning.


Here were (and, pending the outcomes of the upcoming 91st Academy Awards, are) the examples from the decade of this decade:

2009

On March 7, 2010, and while starring on her BET series, The Mo’Nique Show, Mo’Nique won the 2009 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Lee Daniels’s Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.

2010

On February 27, 2011, and while starring on HBO’s Treme, Melissa Leo won the 2010 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for David O’Russell’s The Fighter.

2011

On February 26, 2012, and while starring on NBC’s Community, Jim Rash was one of the three writers who won the 2011 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. … While starring on DirecTV’s Damages, Glenn Close was nominated for the 2011 Oscar for Best Actress in Rodrigo García’s Albert Nobb. … While starring on HBO’s short-lived drama series Luck, Nick Nolte was nominated for the 2011 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior. … While starring on CBS’s Mike & Molly, and winning the 2010–11 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Melissa McCarthy was nominated for the 2011 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids. … While starring on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, Kristen Wiig was nominated for the 2011 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Bridesmaids.

2012

With the ceremony held February 24, 2013, and while executive producing and providing voices on his animated Fox comedy series Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane was nominated for the 2012 Oscar for Best Original Song for “Everybody Needs a Friend” from (the MacFarlane-directed) Ted.

2013

On March 2, 2014, and while starring for one season on HBO’s True Detective, which broadcast January 12 to March 9, 2014, Matthew McConaughey won the 2013 Best Actor Oscar for Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club.

2014

With the ceremony held February 22, 2015, Patricia Arquette won the 2014 Best Supporting Actress Oscar in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Her CBS series, CSI: Cyber, premiered March 4, 2015. But, clearly, Arquette had already been in production with that series.

2015

Not applicable!

2016

Ceremony was held February 26, 2017. While starring on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder, and winning an Emmy for her work in 2015, Viola Davis won the 2016 Best Supporting Actress Oscar in Denzel Washington’s Fences, which had won Davis a Tony in 2010. (The original production of August Wilson’s play dates back to the 1986–87 Broadway season.) With this achievement, Davis became the 23rd person to win the Triple Crown of Acting: Oscar, Tony, and Emmy.

2017

While starring on, and having won two (of her seven Emmys) on CBS’s Mom, Allison Janney won the 2017 Best Supporting Actress in Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya. … Nominated for the same award, for her performance in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Laurie Metcalf was in production of the reboot of ABC’s Roseanne, which premiered March 27, 2018, just 23 days after the 90th Academy Awards of March 4, 2018.

2018

At this time, awards are pending outcomes on February 24, 2019. But, there are three applicable. Rami Malek, nominated for Best Actor playing Queen lead singer Freddy Mercury in Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody, currently stars on USA Network’s Mr. Robot, for which he won an Emmy in 2016. (It last aired in the fall of 2017. But, it will return in 2019 for its fourth and last season.) … Mahershala Ali, the 2016 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, is nominated again for Best Supporting Actor in Peter Farrelly’s Green Book. Ali currently stars in the third season of HBO’s anthology drama series True Detective. … Sam Elliott, nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star is Born, co-stars on Netflix’s The Ranch.



My theory is this: It has to do with material. That, when it comes to quality material, motion pictures no longer lords over its perceived superiority to reduce television as so small. Television already has the reputation for being bigger nowadays in much of its scope—HBO, Netflix, some basic-cable programmers, et al. While this has been going on, there is no longer such a great divide between actors from films vs. those from television productions.