The two biggest snubs in Oscars history, according to Timothy Olyphant: “Not nominated!”
Timothy Olyphant is one of those actors who, despite not being a household name, is usually a known face and a sign of quality.
He always gives a great performance, be it in a TV comedy like The Office, an animated kids’ flick like Rango, or an auteur-led blockbuster like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Even the lacklustre fourth instalment in the Die Hard series is better off for having him as its villain. Just imagine how much worse it would have been without him.
Despite his obvious talent, Olyphant is severely lacking in major awards. He’s been nominated for multiple SAGs and Emmys, but the only significant victory to his name is a Critics’ Choice Television Award for ‘Best Guest Actor/Actress in a Comedy Series’ for his appearance in The Grinder. He did win the coveted ‘Best Bad Boy’ prize at the 2000 Young Hollywood Awards, so there’s that.
Given that he knows a thing or two about being snubbed, the actor is clearly qualified to pass judgment on his fellow snubbees. In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, the Scream 2 star was asked to give his five favourite movies. Three of his picks, Blue Velvet, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Chariots of Fire, passed by without incident, but for the other two, he saw a chance to stand up for his fellow overlooked club members. First up was one of his all-timers, which he thought had been robbed of the biggest prize in the game.
“I can’t get enough of Pulp Fiction,” he admitted, noting, “I just love it; it still holds up. And it didn’t win ‘Best Picture’, by the way. Didn’t win”.
Quentin Tarantino’s sophomore effort became the first of his three movies to be nominated for the top gong in 1995. It ended up losing to Forrest Gump in one of the most notorious ‘Best Picture’ battles of all time. Many saw this as the Academy favouring an old-school approach to a more modern, smash-mouth style of filmmaking. Tarantino himself expressed frustration over this incident in a way only he could.
Olyphant wasn’t done with taking on the Oscars just yet. For his final pick, he chose the 1986 biopic Sid and Nancy, which tells the story of Sex Pistols frontman Sid Vicious and his turbulent relationship with Nancy Spungen. “Oh my God. Gary Oldman, Sid and Nancy, not nominated!” Olyphant exclaimed at this injustice, adding, “And how about her? What’s her name? Chloe Webb. Oh my God, what a performance. Throw Sid and Nancy on there; I love that movie.”
In a year where Paul Newman (The Color of Money) and Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God) won acting Oscars in their respective categories, neither Oldman nor Webb was among the nominees. Oldman, who went on a bizarre diet for his role as Vicious, would eventually win an Oscar in 2018 for playing Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour. As for Webb, she never even got close to a statuette and fell into relative obscurity since her days as Nancy.
There’s still time for Webb, Tarantino, and even Olyphant himself to get their mitts on an Academy Award. For the time being, however, they are entries in a very long list of those overlooked by Hollywood’s finest.
