Cinematic icons: The only actors to win Oscars for playing the same characters
Though most artists would deem them crass or unenviable, the reality is awards mean something. A chance to adorn a subjective format with an arbitrary title is certainly something purists dismiss as irrelevant, but one needs only look at the joy on the faces of those bestowed with a gleaming new ornament to know how much it means. Even after almost 100 years of existence, there remains no bigger annual event for an actor or filmmaker than the Oscars.
Created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1929, the greatest minds of cinema have been awarded an Oscar statuette over the years, including the likes of directors Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, as well as actors Jack Nicholson and Christian Bale. Grabbing the little golden man is not just a nice way to mark your work but also opens countless doors for those in possession of them.
The most celebrated stars in movie history have been showered with multiple honours across the years, with Katharine Hepburn holding the most Oscars, winning four across her reign in the industry throughout the middle of the 20th century. Taking home awards for 1933’s Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967, The Lion in Winter in 1968 and 1981’s On Golden Pond, Hepburn remains the ceremony’s most decorated actor.
Coming in behind her are six actors with three awards and multiple nominations, including such contemporary stars as Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand, as well as classic actors Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan. Indeed, while many actors can be guaranteed awards success, several characters have remained favourites of the Academy for decades.
The range of factoids and records to be broken upon the newest event is part of what makes the esteemed evening enjoyable to watch. To become the first, youngest, oldest or likewise to achieve anything on the big stage is perhaps even better than winning the Oscar in the firstplace. In fact, in the ceremony’s near-100-year history, two sets of actors have been awarded Oscars for playing the same character, and they’re both memorable characters, too.
The first instance came about back in 1973 when Marlon Brando won an Oscar for his performance as Don Vito Corleone in the Francis Ford Coppola movie, The Godfather, famously inviting Sacheen Littlefeather to reject his award and speak of the atrocious toward the Native American people in the process, an infamous event the Academy has recently apologised for.
Just two years later, the iconic Robert De Niro took to the very same stage and accepted an Oscar for a younger take on the very same character in Coppola’s sequel movie, The Godfather: Part II. Whilst both actors most certainly deserved the praise, the dual wins became an Oscars first, with Don Vito Corleone being a two-time award-winning character until 45 years later, when the event would happen for a second time.
In 2020, after many unsuccessful nominations at the awards show, Joaquin Phoenix was finally named ‘Best Actor’ for his role in Todd Phillips’ Joker, shining as a mentally unstable version of the comic-book villain. His win came 11 years after Heath Ledger was posthumously awarded a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for playing the same character in the Christopher Nolan movie, The Dark Knight in 2008.
Both comic-book performances were celebrated in critical and commercial circles, with Ledger’s remarkably dedicated take on the Joker still being considered one of the greatest roles of the 21st century. Take a look at the actor being awarded the posthumous prize below.
