An Astonishing 16 Of The Oscar Acting Spots Went To First-Time Nominees

Just four of the 20 people nominated in the acting categories had been nominated before.

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The nominations for the 95th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday, with multiverse action film Everything Everywhere All at Once leading the pack with 11 nods. 

That movie’s four main stars — Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis — were all nominated in the various acting categories. It was the first time each of them had received an Oscar nomination. While Hsu is a relative newcomer, Yeoh, Quan, and Curtis have all been acting for decades, making their recognition on Tuesday feel long overdue. 

But they’re not the only actors to receive their first nod this year.

Of the 20 spots for Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor, 16 actors received their first-ever Oscar nomination. 

In fact, the Best Actor category is comprised entirely of five men who are receiving their first nominations. The oldest of these first-timers is 73-year-old Bill Nighy, who scored his first nomination for Living. The youngest is 26-year-old Paul Mescal, who’s up for Aftersun. The other actors in that category are Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Brendan Fraser (The Whale).

In the other acting categories, Ana de Armas (Blonde), Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway), Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), Hong Chau (The Whale), and Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) all received their first Oscar nominations on Tuesday.

The four actors who have been nominated before are two-time winner Cate Blanchett, who received her eighth nomination for Tár; The Fabelmans star Michelle Williams, who has now been nominated five times and has yet to win; Angela Bassett, who picked up a second nomination for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, having been previously nominated in 1994 for What’s Love Got to Do With It; and Judd Hirsch, who is also up for The Fabelmans and who was nominated back in 1981 for Ordinary People

Good luck to all the first-time nominees!

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