Bill Hader names the greatest comedy performance of all time: “Why wasn’t he nominated for an Oscar?”
There’s always been an underlying sentiment that top-tier comedy performances don’t get the same recognition as straightforward dramatic turns, although Bill Hader knows which actor he thinks managed to strike the balance between both better than anyone ever has in a movie.
It’s not an invalid point, especially when the Golden Globes, which has a specific ‘Musical or Comedy’ category to reward those who wouldn’t normally qualify for the five-person shortlist at the Academy Awards, has an infuriating habit of handing those prizes over to people who weren’t in musicals or comedies.
The Martian and The Substance are neither musicals nor comedies, being sci-fi and body horror, respectively, but that didn’t stop Matt Damon or Demi Moore from winning those Globes. Even at the Oscars, comedic performances rarely even get nominated, never mind win, which has created the perception that it’s a lesser form of acting, even if it really isn’t.
After all, enough people have said that comedy is harder to master than drama to make it more than an urban legend, which could also explain why every big-name performer who built their career on making people laugh, including Peter Sellers, Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, and Adam Sandler, have each given at least one widely acclaimed performance when playing it straight.
The Skeleton Twins and Barry showed that Hader had it in his locker, which understandably took many by surprise when he’d gained fame as a gurning, face-pulling, and chameleonic Saturday Night Live impressionist before gradually working his way up the silver-screen ranks by stealing almost every scene he was in, usually with Judd Apatow involved in some way or another.
When asked to name the best dramatic performance from a comedian, though, he took a bit of a shortcut. It’s undoubtedly full of pathos and emotion, but at the end of the day, it came in one of the most beloved comedies of its era, which makes it a comedic turn by default.
“I really liked John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” he told Time Out. “He was so good in that movie. That’s when I didn’t understand how Hollywood worked. It was like the ‘seeing the man behind the curtain’ moment, where I was asking my dad, ‘Why wasn’t he nominated for an Oscar?’ And my dad was like, ‘I don’t know. They usually give it to more dramatic roles’. And I’m like, ‘But that was so fucking good!'”
It’s arguably Candy’s finest hour in front of the camera, with the role of Del Griffith giving him the opportunity to showcase every side of himself. He generated electric chemistry with Steve Martin and played the broadest comedy beats to perfection, all while giving the character plenty of heart and knowing how and when to play the smaller moments.
“I cried in that movie,” Hader confessed. “It’s so sad! It’s just heartbreaking.” He was equally heartbroken that Candy didn’t get an Oscar nod for his efforts, but he was too young to understand that’s just how Hollywood works when it comes to the genre.
