Oscar Nominees On TV

I confess to being an Oscar junkie and will be posting several Oscar related items today and tomorrow. Accept it.

First of all, lets take a look at this year's Oscar nominees and their experience in Television. These are the nominees in the Acting and Director categories. A couple of things are apparent: Actors are more likely to have worked in series Television than Actresses, and British and Australian actors and actresses tend to have more (and more recent) television experience than North Americans. Only Alan Alda is currently working in a regular series, The West Wing. (Format is Person - Film nominated for - Television series - not mini-series - where credited as a regular). Apparently American Directors think TV is beneath them, except for the three biggest (Eastwood and Scorcese).

Actors

• Don Cheadle - Hotel Rwanda - Golden Palace, Picket Fences
• Johnny Depp - Finding Neverland - 21 Jump Street
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator - Parenthood, Santa Barbara Growing Pains
• Jamie Foxx - Ray - In Living Color, The Jamie Foxx Show
• Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby - Rawhide

Supporting Actors

• Alan Alda - The Aviator - Story Theatre, M*A*S*H, The West Wing
• Thomas Haden Church - Sideways - Wings, Ned and Stacey
• Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby - The Electric Company, Ryan's Hope, Another World
• Clive Owen - Closer - Capital City, Chancer, Sharman (British)

Actress

• Annette Benning - Being Julia - Nothing except a voice credit in Liberty's Kids
• Catalina Sandino Moreno - Maria Full of Grace - Nothing (in fact Maria Full Of Grace seems to be her first acting credit of any kind)
• Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake - Thompson, Up The Garden Path, If You See God Tell Him, Is It Legal? (British)
• Hilary Swank - Million Dollar Baby - Evening Shade, Camp Wilder, Leaving LA, Beverly Hills 90210
• Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - Dark Season, Get Back (British)

Supporting Actress

• Cate Blanchett - The Aviator - Heartland, Bordertown (Australia; although IMDB classes both of these as mini-series, there may be some argument, particularly about Bordertown)
• Laura Linney - Kinsey - Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City
• Virginia Madsen - Sideways - American Dreams
• Sophie Okonedo - Hotel Rwanda - Staying Alive, The Governor, In Defence, Clocking Off (and a special shout out for voice work in Doctor Who: The Scream Of Shalka) (British)
• Natalie Portman - Closer - Nothing

Directors (Directing TV - just about anything)

• Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby - an episode of Amazing Stories
• Taylor Hackford - Ray - Nothing
• Mike Leigh - Vera Drake - The Wednesday Player, Play for Today (British)
• Alexander Payne - Sideways - Nothing
• Martin Scorcese - The Aviator - an episode of Amazing Stories, an episode of the mini-series The Blues

And a special mention goes to Paul Haggis the screenwriter for Million Dollar Baby, who has a ton of TV credits starting with One Day At A Time. Around here he's best known as the creator of Due South, but he also has a creator credit on Walker: Texas Ranger, something that embarasses him so much that in interviews he says that his greatest fear was that when he died the first thing that would be mentioned in his obituary would be creator of Walker: Texas Ranger.