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What’s Oscar’s (Sort of) Problem with Amy Adams?
Here’s what she needs to do to finally be more than a contender.
Despite their shared initials, Amy Adams and the Academy Awards have an awkward relationship. Sure, it’s an honor just to be nominated, but after several unsuccessful rounds, even the most gracious loser must start to feel slighted when, once again, the Oscar goes to … someone else.
The 44-year-old actress has been nominated six years out of the last 13 (five times for Best Supporting Actress, once for Best Actress), and still, she’s scored no wins. Her perennial also-ran status has led many an Oscar-obsessed fan to put her right up there with Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sigourney Weaver as one of the active actresses most overdue for an Oscar win. Among female thespians, only Close, Deborah Kerr, and Thelma Ritter have been fruitlessly nominated as many times as Adams (Kerr and Ritter) or more (Close).
This year, she’s in the running once more for her supporting role as former Second Lady Lynne Cheney in Vice, and it looks like she’ll be going home without a little naked gold man to call her own, as usual.
Is it the Academy or is it Adams? I’d say it’s a little bit of both. Clearly Oscar voters love her, but only up to a point … which tends to be the day…
