Is Emma Stone the only actor capable of topping Meryl Streep’s Oscars accolade?
There was plenty of surprise and more than a smidgen of disappointment in some quarters when Emma Stone was named ‘Best Actress’ for a second time at the Academy Awards, with Killers of the Flower Moon breakout Lily Gladstone considered the favourite by many heading into the ceremony.
That’s not to say her bravura performance in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things didn’t deserve to be named as the best performance of the preceding 12 months, and the race was neck-and-neck after both Stone and Gladstone had largely shared the spoils throughout the rest of awards season.
There are only 14 performers in Oscars history to have won more than one ‘Best Actress’ prize, but there’s no reason why Stone can’t set her sights on something altogether more special. In fact, there are only four women who have gone beyond that, and time is very much on Stone’s side to emulate them.
Ingrid Bergman has two ‘Best Actress’ gongs and one ‘Best Supporting Actress’ trophy, as does Meryl Streep. Frances McDormand’s trio were all awarded for leading roles, with Katharine Hepburn way out in front as not only the only actor to have ever won four Oscars, but with all of them coming in the ‘Best Actress’ category.
Stone was 35 years old when she won her second Oscar on her fourth nomination, with her involvement on Poor Things as a producer bringing her up to five in total. Looking at how long acting careers tend to last, realistically, it’s not out of the question to suggest that she’s got 30 years, if not even longer, to try and catch up to Bergman, Streep, McDormand, or even Hepburn.
Breaking it down, though, and the challenges become clearer. Jodie Foster was only 29 when The Silence of the Lambs made her a two-time winner, but she’s only been nominated twice more since. Hilary Swank was 30 when she nabbed her second and so far last for Million Dollar Baby – which also gives her a 100% success rate – while Bette Davis was 31 and never won again despite a further eight nominations.
On the other hand, Bergman was 59 when she collected her third Oscar, McDormand was 63, Streep was 62, and Hepburn was 74. If Stone continues at her current trajectory, then there’s nothing stopping her from challenging the three and four-timers club when she’s already made her name as one of her generation’s finest talents by her mid-30s.
Longevity is a hard thing to attain, and while there’s no way of ruling out a historic run to even more Oscars in her long-term future, trying to chase down Streep’s record-setting 21 nominations is an altogether trickier challenge that was well proven insurmountable.
Discounting Stone’s ‘Best Picture’ nod for producing Poor Things, she’s got four acting nominations separated by nine years at the age of 35. For comparison’s sake, nine years after Streep’s first time being shortlisted for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ in The Deer Hunter, she was a seven-time nominee and two-time winner.
In addition, between 1979 and 2003, she only went more than three years without a nomination on one occasion, so consistency is obviously key. Everybody wants to emulate Streep in their own way, but it’s arguably much easier to imagine Stone winning at least three Oscars before the end of her career than it is expecting her to be nominated a further 18 times for her acting prowess.
Even at that, there’s nothing stopping Streep from enhancing her own record even further, even if her current drought that began with a 2018 nomination for The Post and hasn’t ended as of yet is the first time she’s ever endured a six-year stretch without gaining recognition from the Academy.
Unless another bright young star emerges in the coming years to take awards season by storm, then Stone is better placed than anyone else to hunt down the legends in front of her, but that’s by no means a guarantee that she will. Then again, it would be foolish to rule anything out.
