It’s awards season and for an actor there’s no greater recognition for a performance than winning an Academy Award and on the opposite scale there’s the Golden Raspberry Awards. A special kind of award given out to recognise some of the year’s worst films.
For every Lady Gaga, who is nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for A Star Is Born, there has been a Britney Spears, who was panned for her starring role in the coming-of-age drama Crossroads almost 20 years ago.
To celebrate Gaga’s incredible performance we chronicled the best and worst performances of artists who swapped the stage for the big screen.
Infographic
WALK OF FAME
There are 26 musicians who have received 37 Academy Award acting nominations between them, with 8 of them going on to win.
Bing Crosby was the first to receive an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the 1944 musical Going My Way. He later received 2 more nominations making him the most successful musician-turned actor of all time.
Will Smith (Best Actor nods for Ali (2001) and Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and Cher who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Silkwood (1983) came close. Although Cher did eventually go on to win Best Actress for her part in Moonstruck (1987).
The most recent musician to have been honoured at the Academy Awards is Jennifer Hudson who won Best Supporting Actress at the 2006 ceremony for her portrayal of Effie White in Dreamgirls. Only Hudon and Barbara Streisand have won an Oscar on their acting debut.
Genre
Dramas account for 18 of the 37 films in which musicians have received an acting Oscar nomination – eight more than any other genre.
Mary J.Blige won a Best Supporting Actress nomination for playing Florence Jackson in post-war period drama Mudbound in 2017.
Unsurprisingly, the next-most popular genre is musicals with 10 nominations.
Diana Rossearned a Best Actress nomination at the 1972 Oscars for playing Billie Holliday in Lady Sings the Bluesin one of four Biopics.
The remaining nominations are from comedies (2), rom-coms (2) and one western.
Gender/award split
When a musician has been nominated it’s typically for playing the lead role. Out of 37 nominations, 23 have been for either Best Actor or Best Actress.
Female musicians are also more likely to receive an Oscar nomination for acting than their male counterparts.
Twenty-two of the 37 nominations have been for women, equal to 59 per cent.
Role
Nine of the 37 Oscar nominees played musicians in the films they were nominated in – the most of any role.
The most recent example of this is Lady Gagain the absolutely incredible A Star is Born.
Three of the 37 nominees played actors or actresses – the next-most popular role – including Ann-Margretin Carnal Knowledge (1971), for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
WALK OF SHAME
It’s not all roses thou. Usually the transition from musician to actor will go horribly, horribly wrong. A total of 35 musicians have received 55 Golden Raspberry nominations with 10 of those winning 17 awards.
Madonna is the worst offender (nominated for eight Razzies) who has won 5 Razzie awards. She has won three for Worst Actress and two for Worst Supporting Actress in films including erotic thriller Body of Evidence (1993) and Swept Away (2002).
Mark Wahlberg and Barbra Streisand are next on that list with four nominations each. They are also two of five musician-turned-actors to have been nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie.
Liza Minnelli, however, is the only one to have won both. She won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Cabaret before respective Worst Actress Razzies for Arthur 2: On The Rocks and Rent-A-Cop in 1988.
Jazz musician Ahmed Best is the only musician to win a Razzie on their acting debut, having picked up the Worst Supporting Actor award for voicing Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).
Genre
It seems that comedies are the most popular genre to scoop a Razzie for musicians as 19 of the 55 films have been nominated which is 9 more than any other genre. That total includes Under the Cherry Moon, for which Prince received the 1986 Worst Actor award.
The next-most popular genre is drama with 10 nominations, followed by musicals (9), action (7) and thrillers (5).
Vanilla Ice was nominated for Worst Actor in Cool As Ice (1991) – a film that was later disowned by its own director – which is one of four rom-coms.
The remaining nomination was for Kris Kristofferson as Worst Actor in 1981 western Heaven’s Gate.
Gender/award split
Similar to the Oscars, musicians have been nominated for more Razzies in a leading role than a supporting one. Of 55 nominations, 34 have been either for either Worst Actor or Worst Actress – accounting for 62%.
Female singers and musicians are, again, more likely to receive nominations compared to men. 32 of the 55 Razzie nominations have been for Worst Actress or Worst Supporting Actress, making up 58%.
Role
Of the 55 Razzies nominees, 12 were playing musicians in the films which they were nominated – which, like the Oscar nominees, is more than any other role.
That includes Mariah Carey, who won Worst Actress for her role as aspiring singer Billie Frank in Glitter (2001), which was named as one of the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in the Official Razzie Movie Guide.
3 of the 55 nominees played dancers in the next-most popular role, including Chris Brown in 2014 box-office bomb Battle of the Year.
Brown was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in the film, which made a loss of $3.45m.
