Who is the youngest actor to win two Oscars?
The first edition of the Academy Awards was held in 1929, and to indicate just how difficult it is for any actor to win multiple Oscars, only 45 people have taken home at least two prizes in the near century since.
Only six people have ever conspired to claim three, and only one has nabbed four. Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, and Meryl Streep are the sextet in the three-timers club, with the legendary Katharine Hepburn in a league of her own.
It’s arguably much harder now to rack up multiple Oscar wins in the modern era when there are so many candidates to choose from. Sure, each acting category is always going to have five nominees at the end of the day, but the sheer volume of awards-worthy films being released on an annual basis comfortably dwarfs the amount of nailed-on contenders in generations past.
It’s an even bigger ask to expect younger performers to start hoovering up Oscars like there’s no tomorrow, with only four names in Oscars history claiming two trophies before turning 30. Luise Rainer blazed that particular trail after completing back-to-back Oscar wins for The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth, taking to the stage to collect her second at the tenth edition of the ceremony, which took place in March 1938 just two months after her 28th birthday.
The very next year, Bette Davis claimed her sophomore Oscar a little over a month before turning 30, and it would be over half a century before anybody else replicated the feat. Jodie Foster took home her second ‘Best Actress’ prize at the 64th showcase in March 1992, eight months prior to her 30th birthday.
Million Dollar Baby may have been released in cinemas when she was still 29, but Hilary Swank was three months removed from turning 30 when she accepted her second Oscar, ruling her out of what’s become one of the Academy’s most highly exclusive clubs.
Having been the first, then-28-year-old Rainer remains the youngest person to have won two acting trophies, and it’s a record that could stand for a long time to come, considering nobody has been able to exceed her accomplishment in almost 80 years.
Who was the youngest person to win two Oscars?
The youngest person to win a pair of Oscars isn’t an actor, but they are a world-famous superstar. Not only does she boast a 100% track record after both of her nominations resulted in victory, but 22-year-old Billie Eilish made history at the 96th Academy Awards as the most youthful two-time winner ever.
Her James Bond track ‘No Time to Die’ and Barbie‘s ‘What Was I Made For?’ were victorious in the ‘Best Original Song’ category, and there’s no reason why Eilish couldn’t end up as the youngest three-time winner, too. After all, drafting her in to write a song for a movie has yielded impeccable results so far, and it’s something plenty of filmmakers have no doubt sat up and taken notice of.
Who was the oldest actor to win two Oscars?
In another case of doubling down, the oldest person to win two Oscars for acting also happens to be the oldest person to win any acting Oscar in general, with Anthony Hopkins 83 years old when he caused an upset and claimed ‘Best Actor’ for his heart-wrenching turn in The Father.
The entire ceremony appeared to have been built around a posthumous win for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom star Chadwick Boseman, with the Academy deviating from the norm and positioning ‘Best Actor’ as the last award of the night, presumably to end things on an uplifting-if-bittersweet posthumous win for the late star.
Due to the time difference and the pandemic, Hopkins wasn’t even present at the ceremony, either in person or virtually, although he did release a video message to celebrate his achievement.
