How Kristen Stewart, Will Smith, and More Beloved Stars Might Finally Get Their Due at the Oscars

One of many nice joys of following Oscar season is these moments when an actor or actress who actually deserves it—who’s been placing in nice work for years, with performances which have endeared them to audiences and impressed each critics and followers—lastly hits huge with Oscar: Julianne Moore lastly getting her second within the highlight in 2015 and successful finest actress for Nonetheless Alice after 4 earlier nominations; Jennifer Jason Leigh’s first nomination, in finest supporting actress, for The Hateful Eight, paying off years of snubs and close to misses; Christopher Plummer getting his very first Oscar nomination at age 80. For these of us who observe the machinations of the Oscars intently, it may be straightforward to fall into the lure of pondering that for each performer, their time will come.

However in fact that’s not true. Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, and Deborah Kerr by no means gained their long-awaited aggressive Oscars (although each Kerr and O’Toole earned honorary Oscars). Meg Ryan, John Cusack, and Donald Sutherland are amongst many acclaimed and achieved performers who’ve nonetheless by no means been nominated (Sutherland has acquired an honorary Oscar, although). Definitely, we’ll have loads of additional alternatives to debate the tempestuous Oscar fortunes of Glenn Shut and Amy Adams.

However the 2021 Oscar season, even in its nascent fall-festival stage, is providing indicators of hope that some overdue performers would possibly lastly be getting their Oscar second, whether or not a primary nomination or a long-awaited win. A lot of Oscar success could be circumstantial, however for Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Will Smith, and several other others, the circumstances would possibly lastly be proper.

In the meanwhile, the entire buzz within the best-actress race is swirling round Kristen Stewart for her efficiency as Princess Diana in Spencer. For starters, the function ticks off all of the bins on paper; taking part in a real-life determine with a tragic story who stays an indelible a part of the zeitgeist has served the likes of Renée Zellweger in Judy, Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn, and maybe most pertinent to this dialog, Natalie Portman in Jackie, which was directed by Spencer’s Pablo Larraín. The opinions for Spencer popping out of the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto movie festivals have additionally been effusive

This isn’t precisely a brand new phenomenon for Stewart. Regardless of a profession that would have simply discovered itself pigeonholed by one function and franchise—Bella Swan within the Twilight motion pictures—Stewart has taken to the artwork home route lately, turning into one thing of a film-festival all-star with movies like Private Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, the latter of which gained her prizes from the New York Movie Critics Circle and the Nationwide Society of Movie Critics, in addition to a César Award, France’s equal of an Oscar. Again in 2014, each Stewart and Sils Maria have been too far exterior of the mainstream Oscar fare to mount severe consideration by the Academy. However these aforementioned performances, and the important respect they amassed, all bolster the argument that Stewart is overdue for Academy recognition. Whereas her shelf of fancy-schmancy plaudits nonetheless doubtless pales compared to that of the Teen Alternative and MTV Film Awards she gained for Twilight, there could be little doubt that she’s efficiently made the transition from teen star to severe actress. Now can be the precise proper time for the Academy to christen that transition along with her first-ever Oscar nomination (and really probably a win).

One other actress who’s needed to navigate the uneven waters en route from baby stardom to revered actress is Kirsten Dunst, whose 30-plus-year profession has encompassed nearly every part besides an Oscar nomination. The closest she got here was doubtless when she was solely 12 years previous and a Golden Globe nominee for her efficiency as an eternally childlike creature of the night time in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire. Her function as Mary Jane Watson within the Sam Raimi Spider-Man motion pictures put her on the forefront of the youthful actresses of her era, however subsequent brushes with awards-worthiness all managed to land exterior of awards voters’ sight view. Dunst excelled in her work with Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette, most particularly), however these weren’t the Sofia Coppola motion pictures that Oscar latched on to. In 2001 she earned raves for enjoying the a part of Marion Davies in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Cat’s Meow, a long time earlier than Amanda Seyfried would get an Oscar nomination for enjoying the identical function in Mank. Dunst’s tender heartbreak in Everlasting Sunshine of the Spotless Thoughts is in some ways the key weapon of that movie, although maybe too secret, as she was too simply overshadowed by Kate Winslet’s lead efficiency come awards season. The 2012 darkish comedy Bachelorette featured Dunst’s blistering and caustic flip as a vicious bridesmaid—however barely anyone noticed the movie.

Maybe essentially the most irritating of Dunst’s award-season misses was 2011’s Melancholia, the place her efficiency as a depressed lady going through down the top of the world was justly rewarded with the Cannes Movie Competition’s best-actress prize. And but any potential awards marketing campaign for that admittedly darkish and troublesome movie was killed within the crib by director Lars von Trier’s controversial feedback on the pageant’s press convention, the place he determined to get puckish about how he sympathized with Hitler.

Now, Dunst is again within the awards dialog for her function as a widow stricken by a rancher in director Jane Campion’s The Energy of the Canine, which has emerged as one of many prime important darlings of pageant season. And whereas the opinions have extra closely targeted on Benedict Cumberbatch’s lead efficiency, that is simply Dunst’s finest likelihood in years to lastly get the Oscar consideration she’s lengthy deserved. Horrifying as it could really feel that Torrance from Deliver It On might mount a marketing campaign predicated on her lengthy profession, that’s precisely the angle that would earn her a nomination ultimately.