When Michelle Yeoh won her Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, she told the girls watching at home to never tell them when they were past their prime. She’s not old enough to be on this list, but her words of wisdom apply to everyone who follows.
Some of those actors have had good luck in their careers and then continued to have good luck as they get older. Some of those actors didn’t find much good luck until much later in life. All of them have reached the peak of action beyond the point. where many others prevent them from running because they have continued to push and do revolutionary work. Here’s a look at the wonderful actors who discovered the good fortune of the Oscar later in life. . .
Anthony Hopkins didn’t get his first Oscar nomination until he was 50 years old, but once he received his first recognition, the accolades didn’t stop. His paintings were constantly identified until the age of 80, when he was nominated several years in a row for The Two. Popes and The Father in which he gave very different performances.
Nighy most often starred in theater productions early in his career, but turned to film later on and had good luck with Love Actually. This led to key roles in a variety of massive franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter, and eventually, in the mid-’70s, he led to Living, which earned the popular actor his first Oscar nomination.
Bruce Dern has worked since the 1960s on a wide variety of engaging projects in many other genres. He earned his first Oscar nomination in 1979 for his paintings in Coming Home and received another wonderful nomination at age 77, more than three decades later for his Paintings in Nebraska, Alexander Payne’s fantastic black-and-white road movie.
Charlotte Rampling made a great career as a model and actress attracted by unusual and audacious projects, but it was her work much later in life that earned her immense recognition. Her performance in Swimming Pool was praised by critics and voters alike. however, it was forty-five years of 2015 that finally made its way into the Oscars and earned him a well-deserved first nomination at the age of 69.
There aren’t many total people who have had more Oscar success than Clint Eastwood. Over the course of his life, he picked up more than ten nominations, but only two of those were in the acting categories. He got one in ‘93 for Unforgiven and another in ‘05 for Million Dollar Baby. In both, he was also the director and clearly knew how to get the best out of himself as an actor.
A movie based on a play about a mid-’70s couple doesn’t seem like a likely box office winner, but On Golden Pond won seven weekends in a row at the box office in 1981. He also landed his first roles beyond Oscar nominations, adding one for Henry Fonda at age 76. This is his second nomination as an actor, more than four decades after the release of The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.
Jessica Tandy has enjoyed a lot of luck in her career in various mediums, but it’s her paintings at the level that have garnered the highest acclaim. At least that was the case until she turned 80, when she earned two Oscar nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and Fried Green Tomatoes. He won for the first time and then capped off a fantastic six-year run in which he also received praise for his work on Cocoon.
Jonathan Pryce was ten years younger than Anthony Hopkins when the two picked up acting nominations for their work in The Two Popes. It was his first recognition from The Academy, but it was far from his first recognition overall, as he netted both Emmy and Tony nominations earlier in his career.
Judi Dench didn’t get her first Oscar nomination until she was sixty, but that’s basically because she was too busy crushing the British theater scene. She earned an astonishing 8 nominations after turning 62, adding one at age 78 for Philomena and 87 for her performance playing Belfast. Among all this, she also found time to appear in eight James Bond films, which brought her a new generation of fans.
Between 1934 and 1969, Katharine Hepburn was nominated for a staggering 11 Academy Awards for Best Actress. It’s arguably the most important series in the history of cinema, and yet it’s not over. At the age of 74, 13 years after what everyone thought would be her last nomination, she returned to the red carpet as a Best Actress nominee for On Golden Pond in 1982. The victory made everything even sweeter.
There are many other people on this list who have been more successful in their careers than Laurence Olivier. The beloved comedian has won Emmy and Oscar awards and is now the namesake of the London edition of the Tonys. At the age of 71, he earned his last Oscar nomination. for The Boys of Brazil, but continued to perform for another full decade.
Peter O’Toole was nominated for an Academy Award for Actor in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 2000s. The last of those recognitions came when he was 74 years old and lost his 8 nominations for Best Actor. , won an honorary Academy Award, which identified him for his framework, adding to the fantastic performances he gave later in life.
Many of the nominations on this list came as a bit of a surprise. Not Morgan Freeman’s for Invictus. Playing Nelson Mandela sounded like the sort of thing that could pick him up an Oscar nomination for Invictus, and that’s exactly what happened when the movie came out and at 72, he was quickly given a nomination. It was his fifth overall.
Christopher Plummer’s entire career has been accompanied by critical acclaim and nominations, adding 3 Oscar nominations, all after the age of 75. None was more surprising than the one they gave him at the age of 88 for All the Money in the World. The role was originally filmed with Kevin Spacey, but after allegations of misconduct surfaced, producers recast Plummer in just 8 days.
From Taxi to Dear John to The Goldberg, Judd Hirsch has appeared on many popular television shows and has worked consistently since the mid-’70s. Along the way, he starred in a bunch of smart movies, but it was his work first in Ordinary People in 1980 and then in The Fabelmans in 2022 that stood out among Oscar voters.
Robert Duvall has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, but six of them won between 1973 and 1999. His last Array, by far, was the biggest surprise, as he got it for The Judge when he was 84 years old. Proof that the popular actor was still capable of achieving greatness, and also a sign of how much enthusiasts and critics got hooked on his paintings at other stages of his life.
During his incredible career that spanned seven decades, Max Von Sydow played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Three-Eyed Raven on Game Of Thrones. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1987 for his work in Pelle The Conqueror, but he wound up getting recognized one more time at the age of 82 for his incredible work in Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.
George Burns had a career as a radio star and later became one of the first big names on television, however, he began to lose momentum as an actor and turned to producing until he signed with The Sunshine Boys in 1975. He was his first The Movie in 36 ans. et earned him an Oscar at the age of 80, while paving the way for the definitive act of his career.
After a successful career, Jack Palance became a major movie star in the early 1950s, attracting tons of enthusiasts and several Oscar nominations. He then moved to Europe and directed a number of popular films, but his career began to falter in the 1980s. He was then hired to present a revival of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and the popularity of that exhibition earned him many roles, including City Slickers, which proved so popular that it earned him an Oscar at age 73.
Alan Arkin worked constantly for sixty years because what director wouldn’t want to hire him? He was seemingly always in very highly seen projects, often in key supporting roles. Little Miss Sunshine and Argo are, of course, the two most notable examples, as both netted him Oscar nominations in his seventies and the former landed him his only win.
There are many, if any, bigger families in Hollywood history than the Barrymores. They were firmly established when Pinky came out in 1949 and earned Ethel Barrymore another Oscar nomination. For much of her career, she focused on the stage, but then she turned more frequently to Hollywood and earned four nominations when she was in her mid-60s. What career.
Ruth Gordon had a lot of good luck in her career as a screenwriter. She earned 3 nominations for her writings between 1947 and 1952. Later in her career, she discovered a new life as an actress, earning several Oscar nominations, the last at age 72. for Rosemary’s Baby and starring in cult classics such as Harold and Maude.
With fantastic reviews and strong word-of-mouth, Minari made a lot of noise at awards season. It eventually earned six Oscar nominations, but it was Youn Yuh-jung who received the most enthusiastic enthusiasts. The 73-year-old actress ended up winning in the funniest moment of the entire ceremony, becoming the first Korean actress to win an Oscar trophy.
You probably won’t find many other people on this comprehensive list more effectively than Helen Hayes. She is an EGOT winner with at least one additional nomination at each of those four awards shows. He won his last Oscar at the age of 70 for his paintings in Airport, where he stood out alongside many other film legends, including Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset and many more.
Primarily a high-level actress, she didn’t appear in her first film until she was sixty. In the mid-’80s, he found the best role opposite Bruce Dern in Nebraska. The audience fell in love with her performance and landed a wonderful nomination for wellness. This opened the door to a lot of laugh-out-loud portions in everything from Pixar videos to Shameless.
I’m not sure there’s a single Titanic quote more referenced than Gloria Stuart’s “It’s Been 84 Years. “It took her 87 years to find an exhibition that would appeal to so many other people, but it was so clever and engaging. so many other people that he got an Oscar nomination. Well deserved too. One of the most famous movies of all time simply wouldn’t have the same emotional effect without it.
Peggy Ashcroft made less than twenty film appearances during a career that was mostly dedicated to the stage, but despite that limited output, she was nominated for four BAFTAs and won an Oscar at 77 for her supporting work in A Passage To India. She then turned her focus toward television, where she was picking up Emmy nominations into her 80s.
Holbrook had plenty of success in his career with wins at the Tonys and Emmys, but it wasn’t until later in life when he was finally singled out by The Oscars for his work in Into The Wild. With more than 130 acting credits, his nomination at 82 was a good reminder that sometimes the best way to get acclaim isn’t by shopping for possible Oscar roles, it’s by consistently doing good, creative work and waiting for the right project to resonate.
Cocoon features plenty of fantastic performances from older actors, but it was the supporting role of veteran comedian Don Amèche that garnered the most attention from voters. He scored a wonderful victory at age 77 for his paintings as a revitalized Arthur Selwyn. It was a fantastic result, especially after the studio fired Robert Zemeckis, early in his career, from pre-production on the director’s chair.
If you want to have sustained a good fortune in Hollywood, you have to find a way to reinvent yourself and start playing other types of roles. Melvyn Douglas had a wonderful early career as a leading lady, betting alongside some of the biggest girls in the industry, but it was later in her career, when she started betting on more mature characters, that she enjoyed good luck at the Oscars with 3 different nominations. For being there when he was 79 years old.
Probably best known for his work alongside Orson Welles, John Houseman works as a director and especially as a producer, but he also finds time to be an actor. At the end of his career, he won an Oscar at the age of 71 for The Paper Chase in a role that enthusiasts enjoyed so much that he later played it on television as well.
You never know what your defining role as an actor will be until that happens. Edmund Gwenn has had a very successful career in film and screen, but his greatest fortune came at the age of seventy. His role as Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street is still remembered decades later, and it also opened the door to some wonderful late-career work for him, including an Oscar nomination in Mister 880.
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