Feature: Oscar Nominees
They’ve paid their dues! Us looks back at the early careers of this year’s top film stars
Daniel Kaluuya
The hit 2017 film Get Out turned him into a household name, but Kaluuya actually got his big break a decade earlier in British teen drama series Skins. Now, nominated for his second Oscar — this time for Best Supporting Actor in Judas and the Black Messiah — the star is pinching himself. “My life’s mad,” he’s said of his success. “I can’t even process it.”
Carey Mulligan
Mulligan was bound to be a star. At 18, she landed her very first film gig — on her first audition! — as Kitty Bennet in 2005’s Pride & Prejudice. “I didn’t imagine [acting] would lead to a career, so I was trying to enjoy it for what it was,” Mulligan, who’s nominated for Best Actress in Promising Young Woman, said, adding: “I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it.” Keira Knightley, who costarred in the drama, disagreed. She said Mulligan had “taken to it like [a duck] to water.”
Viola Davis
Although she appeared in a few projects in the ’90s — like the crime comedy Out of Sight — it wasn’t until the 2000s that Davis began seeing massive success. And while she’s gone on to win two Tonys, an Emmy and an Oscar award, she has no regrets about her early years. “I would not have done anything differently,” said Davis, who’s up for Best Actress in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. “I learned a lot in the ruins.”
Frances McDormand
Nearly four decades after making her silver screen debut in 1984’s Blood Simple (also the first movie made by her now-legendary filmmaker husband, Joel Coen), McDormand is eyeing her third Best Actress statue — this time for Nomadland. To be able to be a part of director Chloé Zhao’s critically acclaimed flick, she recently said, has left her “bursting with pride.”
Sacha Baron Cohen
The comedian has the Da Ali G Show to thank for putting him on the map — and making him a double Oscar nominee! Not only is Borat Subsequent Moviefilm — a mockumentary based on a character from his early 2000s HBO series — nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, but Cohen’s also up for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Trial of the Chicago 7. Said the Brit, “I’m incredibly humbled and grateful.”