The only actors to win an Oscar for their performances in horror films

At the 82nd annual Golden Globe Awards held on January 5, Demi Moore, who has been a steady presence in Hollywood for decades, won her. the first time competition award in acting thanks to Coralie Farjit's body horror hit “The Substance”.

Moore beat out stiff competition to win Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, including Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked: Part One” and Mike Madison in “Anora,” and her powerful speech about how women in the entertainment industry are constantly striving to achieve truly impossible standards was not nothing if not deeply inspiring. Despite apparently being told by a silly studio executive that she would never be anything more than a “popcorn actress,” Moore proudly stood on stage at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, telling women around the world, “In the moments when we don't think we're enough smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough, I had a woman tell me, “Just know you'll never be enough, but you can find out the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”

All of which suggests that thanks to her absolutely incredible performance as fading star Elizabeth Sparkle in “The Substance” and her rousing award speech, Moore has a very real chance of earning an Academy Award nomination for her role. If she did, it would mean that the star a horror movie could win this prestigious acting accolade in defiance Academia's lingering prejudice against horror. In recent years, incredible performances by Toni Collette in Legacy, Lupita Nyono in Us, and Florence Pugh in Midsommar have all been exhausted.

If Moore continues to win With an Oscar for “The Substance,” she joined a very small group of performers who won their own statuettes for horror films. Here are the only six actors to ever accomplish this very specific feat.

The Academy Awards were first held in 1929, and just a few years later, the first actor to win for a role in a horror film received the award. Specifically, Frederick March, a wildly versatile performer known for his roles in A Star is Born (1937 version with Janet Gaynor) and Death of a Salesman in 1951. However, before both of these projects, March won his first place. two Oscars for his lead role in the 1931 horror classic Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, directed by Reuben. Mamoulian. (Technically, March tied up for the Oscars with Wallace Beerywho appeared in The Champ, which is definitely a relic of the time.)

If you're a fan of horror movies, you're probably at least somewhat familiar with the story of the mild-mannered Dr. Henry Jekyll, who works in Victorian England and firmly believes in the dichotomy of good and evil. creates a horrific potion that transforms him into the vile, evil Mr. Edward Hyde. As Hyde, the good doctor does all sorts of horrible, horrific things… and there's no doubt that Mart, who perfectly embodies both Jekyll and Hyde in the film, deserved an Oscar – for a horror film, no less! — in the first decade of the award ceremony.

Based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel of the same name Rosemary's Baby – Dir. the now disgraced Roman Polanski — is arguably one of the best and most important horror films ever made, and also features one of the only horror performances ever to win an Oscar. Mia Farrow stars as Rosemary Wodehouse, who moves into a luxury apartment building in Manhattan with her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) and is surrounded by a cabal of people who seem very interested in the lives of Guy and Rosemary. This cabal includes husband and wife Roman and Minnie Castevet, played by Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon, who present Rosemary with both a necklace intended as a talisman and some clearly drugged chocolate pudding, which ultimately allows Rosemary to be impregnated with the devil's child. .

Gordon is unbelievable creepy as Ruth, who hovers around Rosemary and pretends to be her mother's companion until her real, sinister game is revealed. Although Roman seems to be in charge of the community, Minnie is the one who controls Roman and thus controls absolutely everything in the overall narrative. Gordon absolutely deserved this Oscar.

Kathy Bates is one of the most highly regarded actresses in all of Hollywood, and there's no denying that her role as Annie Wilkes—the deranged, obsessive fan of author Paul Sheldon (James Caan)—made sure everyone knew exactly how good she was. is at work. Rob Reiner and William Goldman, who previously worked together as director and screenwriter on The Princess Bride (a very another movie, of course), adapted Stephen King's beloved 1987 novel of the same name to great effect, and the movie wouldn't be a success if the performer who plays Annie wasn't brilliant. Fortunately, Bates is.

We first meet Annie after Paul, who is traveling in dangerous weather from Colorado to New York after working on his latest book—he's known for a series of romance novels centered around a character named Misery Chastain—ends up crashing your car. Annie, who is a nurse, takes him in and promises to help him get better soon. Unfortunately for Paul, Annie reads his latest Misery Chastain manuscript and realizes that he's killing off the character in hopes of moving on to more “serious” work. Enraged, she keeps him imprisoned and forces him to revive the character and write a new book. Bates' performance as Annie is truly the stuff of legend, so it's no surprise that she won an Oscar for the role — even though it was in a horror movie.

Anthony Hopkins caused quite a stir in 2021 when he won an Oscar for his role as an aging man suffering from cognitive problems in The Father, but it wasn't his first Academy Award. He won that award for a much more unusual role. In Jonathan Demme's 1991 horror masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins plays psychiatrist-turned-serial-killer (and cannibal) Hannibal Lecter, who agrees to sit with FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, and we'll be back). moment) to discuss the new serial killer. The new guy, James “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, is based on Ed Gein, and if you at everyone If you're familiar with Gaine, you know how depraved Buffalo Bill is, even if you somehow haven't seen the movie.

Hopkins is undoubtedly excellent as Hannibal, a calm, cool and collected man who can read Clarisse like a book. After she is attacked by another inmate during a prison visit, Hannibal is strangely protective of Clarissa and even trusts her after he manages to escape from his imprisonment. Hopkins played Hannibal again in 2001's Hannibal and 2002's Red Dragon, which, along with The Silence of the Lambs, was based on the novels by Thomas Harris, but he only received an Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs. . Lambs' and it's easy to see why.

Anthony Hopkins is undoubtedly great in The Silence of the Lambs, but he's lucky to have a pretty phenomenal co-star in Jodie Foster, who won Best Actress the same night Hopkins won Best Actor. I've already explained that Clarissa starts the movie by sitting next to Hannibal Lecter while he's in prison to try and gain insight into the killer's mind, and while many viewers might associate this movie with just Hopkins and Hopkins, the guy. appears on screen only in Jonathan Demme's film approx sixteen minutes. This is indeed Foster's film.

Foster has been playing since the age of three, making her debut as a healthy Coppertone ad — and with The Silence of the Lambs, she cemented her place in Hollywood history and ensured that no one would ever doubt her immense talent. How Clarice Foster serves as a surrogate for the audience and the hero tells, eventually finding and killing Buffalo Bill and even saving his latest victim in the process. Foster actually won a Golden Globe for “True Detective: Night Country” on the same night as Demi Moore, proving that the actress is as well-regarded as ever. Perhaps Moore will join Foster in the exclusive club of actors who have won Oscars for horror films.

The last horror show to win an Oscar is also one of the most disturbing — and to be honest, Natalie Portman's stunning turn in 2014's Black Swan paved the way for roles like Elizabeth Sparkle in The Thing. ” In Darren Aronofsky's deeply disturbing ballet thriller, Portman plays Nina Sayers, a prima ballerina desperate to play the double lead in the New York City Ballet's latest production of Swan Lake. Unfortunately, the company's artistic director, Thomas LeRoy (Vincent Cassel), doesn't think she can. As he tells Nina , she can perfectly dance Odette, the gentle, graceful Balto swans, but he doesn't think she has the darkness necessary to play Odile, the wily and cunning Black Swan.

Nina throws herself into training like a madwoman, encouraged by her ambitious stage mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), but when new dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the company and Thomas immediately praises Lily's unrestrained performance style, it puts Nina on edge. She begins to experience frightening visions and hallucinations, especially after a wild night with Lily. If you haven't seen the surreal ending of Black Swan, I won't spoil it here. Suffice to say, Portman, a Hollywood veteran, absolutely deserved an Academy Award for her riveting performance.