For every stand-up comedian, Just for Laughs is our Super Bowl. Every comic in the world goes to Just for Laughs in Montreal. And they presented me with the Stand-Up Comedian of the Year award for 2018. This is my Oscar; this is my Emmy. That’s my baby now.
I know I’ve said it before in interviews, but the idea that all actors have their eye on some sort of prize – it being an Oscar, or fame, or whatever – not all actors I know are like that.
After I won the Oscar for ‘Pollock,’ some newspaper printed, ‘She should get a million-dollar bump.’ My sisters would write me, ‘You’re gonna get this million-dollar bump!’
You know it’s Oscar season when you see a slew of new movies based on true stories whose resolutions you can find in three seconds on Wikipedia.
I’m very ambitious. I’m the kind of person who still feels as if they could win an Oscar. Albeit, with no evidence to support that expectation whatsoever.
Moonstruck… was one of the few romantic comedies to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.
We are going to have a huge Oscar issue, you are going to see everything in such beautiful detail.
My only real advice to Oscar nominees is, ‘If you haven’t actually seen a competitor’s film, don’t fib and say you have and blow smoke up their wahooziewhatsits.’ Always best to be frank and tell them the truth.
You know, another jazz drummer, Ed Thigpen, who played with Oscar Peterson way back – it was the first time I ever heard rivets in a cymbal. And then I heard that Chico Hamilton had them too, and I went, ‘Oh, that’s it. I’m taking that for my sound.’ And it worked well on ‘Riders On The Storm,’ so that’s one thing.
I think the Emmy obviously is very prestigious and is the gold standard obviously in terms of television. But the Oscars go beyond that. I believe children, when they’re growing up, dream of holding that Oscar.
A lot of young Latino actors have said to me, ‘Why can’t we get an Oscar? Why can’t we be nominated?’ And the terrible truth is that if you don’t get the right parts, you’re not going to be. Are you going to get an Oscar nomination for one of those Judd Apatow movies? Not likely, no matter what nationality you are.
I caught malaria, and the medicines caused a hallucination. I dreamt I won an Oscar for acting. I know it sounds stupid, but it was so real, and I just knew then it would happen.
I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn’t want to win an Oscar.
The Oscar is not a curse. The real curse is that once you have an Oscar they think you can do anything.
I regret not taking my 83-year-old mother to the Oscars the year I won. She deserved the Oscar for giving up so much for me.
Is there a movie I think I should have won the Oscar for? Yeah. All of them.
I got an agent. He said, what do you wanna do, and I said, I want an Oscar nomination. That’s your job, that’s what I’m paying you for. And I got it.
I don’t care if you’ve just won an Oscar, you still have to campaign for parts.
I needed Oscar De La Hoya to get motivated.
I actually had to learn what an Oscar was.
Oscar De La Hoya looks good boxing, but you have to consider the opponent.
There was a theft! But, of course, if it was up to me, every two years I would win an Oscar.
I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.
I’ve always loved movies, so I tried to get into an acting school. I saw an ad for the Oscar school on the back of ‘The Irish Times,’ and I went along for an audition, very pragmatically, to see if I could do it or not.
I don’t think I have ever thought of myself as a movie star. I think when I was about seven, I thought it must be lovely to have an Oscar. But the more involved you are in this business, the more that pretence disappears, and you really get to see what you love about it, and what I love is working.
I want to win an Oscar. I want to be known for more than, like, going out. For being the ‘party girl’. I hate that. I bust my ass when I’m filming and when I have time off, yeah, I like to go out and dance.
I told Simon, ‘I don’t want to play Oscar. I want to play Felix because Oscar is too easy. He gets all the laughs. Felix is a hard part; that’s the part I want to play.’
All my earlier awards were for a particular film or a song. Even the Oscar or the Grammy was for a particular song, but Dadasaheb Phalke is for my entire work so it is the biggest honor for me.
Every actor wants to win an Oscar.
I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.
An Oscar nomination? That would be a very satisfying thing, I’m sure. I would appreciate the thought. It would be like taking your hat off as an actor to all the people who walk through you.
It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever – I don’t feel the pressure to be there.
For a film maker, an Oscar is like a Nobel Prize, you know. So I am very happy… delighted. There is nothing more after this. I cannot hope to get anything more prestigious.
It is a remarkably beautiful piece of home furnishing, the Oscar. I used to keep it up in front of a mirror so that it looked like two.
Every actor wants to win an Oscar, full stop. It doesn’t mean you try to design things around how to accomplish that because that’s impossible.
In ‘Training Day,’ Mr. Washington’s dry-ice grandeur – the predator’s reflexes contrasting with a pensive mouth – deserves regard, and his powerhouse virtuosity will almost guarantee him an Oscar nomination.
What I really want is an Oscar.
In L.A., unless you’ve just won an Oscar or you’re Mr. Studio Head, no one talks to you. Even at parties.
We all have that moment when we think, ‘Hand me that Oscar now – you don’t even have to have the ceremony’.
After the Oscar for ‘Shampoo,’ I had a sense, even as I was walking up to get it, that this was the height of where I was going to go as an actress. And I felt that now was the time, if I wanted a longer life in the arts, that I had to jump from acting to directing.
Being asked by Oprah Winfrey to be on her show and do her eyebrows in 2006 – to me, that was like getting an Oscar. It was a stamp of approval from a woman that is incredible. It propelled my career to a different level.
I don’t go to premieres. I don’t go to parties. I don’t covet the Oscar. I don’t want any of that. I don’t go out. I just have dinner at home every night with my kids. Being famous, that’s a whole other career. And I haven’t got any energy for it.
There are actors who have never gotten an Oscar and have done amazing work.
A year after winning the Oscar, almost to the day, I was directing a dog food commercial.
Making the best-seller list is a big deal; it’s like being nominated for an Oscar. Hitting No. 1 is like actually winning the award. It’s very gratifying.
So I won an Oscar. It’s amazing. I’ve got that for the rest of my life for a performance I am proud of. It nearly killed me. I am really proud of the film. That’s it, moving on.
It was quite a ride and very conflicting for me, too – to be nominated for an Oscar, to be straight and healthy, and to be getting all these accolades while these people around me were suffering and dying from AIDS.
My peers say I have made a difference. That means more to me than winning an Oscar.
You must remember that I won an Oscar for my role Johnny Eager. Then I went into the Army. But before I did, I was rushed into three other pictures to capitalize on the first.
Linda Hunt is so good and so sweet. She is a Tony Award nominee and won an Oscar. Pearls just come out of her mouth.
Winning an Oscar ain’t about performance. There’s a lot of politics involved.
If you think about it, I made history. Not only was I the first black British woman to be nominated for an Oscar, I was the first black British person.
When you’re up for an Oscar, you just get offered everything. It’s fantastic, but a lot of it you’re completely inappropriate for.
Oscar De La Hoya is unique. Even Ray Leonard didn’t have the star power Oscar has.
People say an Oscar validates your career. No, it doesn’t. There’s more good actors without Oscars than there are with Oscars.
Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar.
I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they’re going into acting, they’re going to win the Oscar… If they’re going into law, they’re going to be chief justice.
I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he’d be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies – George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.
The other puppeteers are really good, often when they are singing together, they go left, right, left… But if they are all moving to the left, I’m moving to the right. Big Bird and Oscar, that’s okay, because they are individuals anyway.
Hopefully, after ‘Victorious’ has lived a long and beautiful life, I would like to go into movies. And I’d like to have a very successful movie career. Ultimately I’d love to win an Oscar; that’s my big goal in life, so that’s what I’m going for.
