10 Celebrity Careers That Took Off After An Oscar Win

Marisa’s roles got bigger and better, and her recognition as a formidable actress kept coming. In 2001, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for In The Bedroom. Thanks to her status as an Oscar-winning actress, she even appeared in a commercial for Hanes underwear in 2005 – not exactly great for artistic credibility, but dang if it doesn’t pay the bills. Marissa was nominated again for her role as a down-and-out stripper in 2008’s The Wrestler. Nobody is saying, “huh?” anymore.

#9 Angelina Jolie

Best Supporting Actress 1999 – Girl, Interrupted

Until Angelina won Best Supporting Actress in 1999, she was just another pretty - OK, gorgeous - face. She had already won a couple of Golden Globe Awards by that point, but those don’t have near the cachet of an Oscar. When director James Mangold cast her in the supporting role of mental patient Lisa Rowe, Angie stole the film from star Winona Ryder. Some say her relationship with Billy Bob Thornton helped her find the character. In the scene below, she shows that crazy people can be sexy, too.

Angie has been in some turkeys over the years (cough, Gone In 60 Seconds), but at least she’s headlining them and kicking butt at the box office. And of course, when she is given a well-written role, like Christine Collins in Clint Eastwood’s 2008 Changeling, she makes the most of it. No wonder the Academy nominated her for Best Actress this year.

#8 Jodie Foster
Best Actress 1988 – The Accused
Best Actress 1991 – Silence Of The Lambs

Jody started acting at the age of three, mostly in commercials, TV shows, and as a contract player in low budget Disney films. She was dependable, but not memorable… until 1976 when she was nominated for Taxi Driver. When you play a 14-year-old prostitute, people notice. Still, she had to audition for her Oscar-winning role of a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, she won again, playing an FBI agent who’s the object of Hannibal Lecter’s cruel mind games in Silence Of The Lambs. Her stalker, John Hinckley, Jr., unwittingly prepared her for the role. Jody was nominated again in 1994 for Nell.

#7 Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best Actor 2006 – Capote

Philip had a perfectly fine career as a New York stage actor, with the occasional TV guest spot. But in 1992 he was in four films. On his way to stardom, right? Wrong. He continued to play mostly offbeat characters in films with big time directors. All of them small parts. Why? Let’s face it: he’s no Brad Pitt. But his chunky build and dirty blonde hair - along with his undisputable talent - made him an obvious choice to play Truman Capote. The Academy agreed, naming him Best Actor for Capote in 2006. No longer a second (or third, or fourth) banana, now Mr. Hoffman gets the starring roles he deserves. He went toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep in Doubt and was nominated again for Best Actor.

#6 Charlize Theron
Best Actress 2003 – Monster

Poor Charlize Theron. Her looks kept getting in the way. So she put on some prosthetics, stopped washing her hair, and the Academy finally noticed. The beautiful South African kicked around Hollywood for eight years playing mostly generic parts, starting with the 1995 cult film, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. Then she finally gets a starring role in Mighty Joe Young in 1998, and her leading man is a giant ape! In 2003, Charlize took on the part of serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

Yes, that’s really Charlize. Roger Ebert said Monster was, “one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.” She won Best Actress and her fee went up to approximately $10,000,000 a picture. She’d better thank the Academy. Charlize was nominated for Best Actress again in 2005 for another unglamorous role in North Country.

#5 Denzel Washington

Best Supporting Actor 1989 – Glory

Best Actor 2001 – Training Day

When Denzel Washington says, “it’s an honor just to be nominated,” I’m guessing he really means it. In the ‘80’s he was part of the ensemble cast of “St. Elsewhere,” an unnoticed TV actor back when TV actors rarely broke into the movies. He got his big break in 1987 starring in Cry Freedom as Steve Biko, the charismatic South African Black Consciousness Movement leader. Turns out this TV actor had star quality. The Academy nominated him for Best Supporting Actor, but he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor. Two years later he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Glory. The nominations started piling up: for Best Actor in Malcolm X (1992) and in Hurricane (1999). And then in 2001 Denzel became the first African American since Sidney Poitier in 1963 to win the Oscar for Best Actor for Training Day.

Yes, just being nominated is an honor, but winning is pretty sweet, too.

#4 Heath Ledger

Best Supporting Actor 2008 – The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger has always been a well-respected actor, but it’s inevitable to wonder how this year’s Oscar win would have changed his career – thus, I felt compelled to place him on this list. Heath was already on Hollywood’s fast track after his 2005 nomination for Best Actor in Brokeback Mountain. In The Dark Knight, he took a two-dimensional comic book villain and made him funny, terrifying, sadistic, and yes, even sympathetic. Fortunately, we have one last chance to see Heath when Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opens this summer.

#3 Tom Hanks

Best Actor 1993 – Philadelphia

Best Actor 1994 – Forest Gump

In the early 1980’s, Tom Hanks was at Paramount doing “Bosom Buddies,” a sitcom where he happened to be in drag most of the time. On the stage next door, Ron Howard was doing “Happy Days.” One day, Ron asked Tom to be in a comedy he was directing called Splash. It was a hit, and Tom became the go-to guy for light comedies that the Academy unequivocally ignored. But in 1993 Jonathan Demme cast him in Philadelphia, playing a gay lawyer dying of AIDS. At that time playing a gay character was considered career suicide. (Times have changed, huh?) Tom’s moving portrayal of Andy Beckett got the Academy’s attention, and he won the Oscar for Best Actor.

The next year he won again for Forest Gump. These two Oscars transformed Tom’s career. He was no longer perceived as the star of silly comedies, but as a serious actor, director, and producer. He’s also the most bankable star in Hollywood. In other words, Tom Hanks in your movie is the same thing as money in your bank.

#2 Meryl Streep

Best Supporting Actress 1979 – Kramer vs. Kramer

Best Actress 1982 – Sophie’s Choice

We all know Meryl Streep is arguably the best actress living today. She has 15 Oscar nominations under her belt, more than any other actor, dead or alive. So did that Oscar 30 years ago for “Kramer vs. Kramer” change her life? I’d say so. The Academy first noticed her the year before “Kramer” when she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Deer Hunter, which was only her second movie! Since “Kramer,” it seems like she has been nominated almost every time she steps up to bat. Directors have cast her in a wide range of memorable roles: a Polish immigrant forced to make an unspeakable choice (Sophie’s Choice), a bitchy fashion maven (The Devil Wears Prada), a strict nun with doubts about a priest (Doubt). Expect another nomination for Julie & Julia, coming out in August.

#1 Hilary Swank

Best Actress 1999 – Boys Don’t Cry

Best Actress 2005 – Million Dollar Baby

Hilary is the “Oscar Changed My Life” poster child. She went from living out of a car with her mother to winning an Oscar in less than a decade. And since then, well, she’s maintained her indie spirit, but now has her pick of projects and probably doesn’t live in a car with her mother – to say the least. When her character on “Beverly Hills 90210” was prematurely written out of the show in 1998, it freed her to audition for Boys Don’t Cry, a low budget indie about a transgender teenager. Her performance as Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena thrust both the film and Hilary into the spotlight. Shannon Dougherty is probably still bitter.

Winning the Oscar put Hillary on the Hollywood map and made her a viable casting choice for the likes of Clint Eastwood. She won her second Oscar playing the plucky boxer in Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby in 2004. Look for her in 2009 in the lead role of Amelia Earhart’s bio pic – it has got Oscar written all over it.

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