When 11-year-old Anna Paquin won Best Supporting Actress at the 1993 Academy Awards, she became the category’s second youngest winner (only Tatum O’Neal was younger, at 10). Paquin hesitantly stepped onto the stage and, in true oh-my-gosh-I-just-won-an-Oscar fashion, was speechless for 20 seconds. Then, after thanking a few individuals, the preteen promptly skipped down the stairs and returned to her seat, leaving presenter Gene Hackman with no one to take backstage.
It all made for a precious Oscar moment, but did Paquin truly deserve the Oscar for her performance as Holly Hunter’s daughter in The Piano? It’s especially tricky to gauge the true talent level of young actors in breakout performances: Are we witnessing one-trick pony material or the real thing? Paquin has since offered numerous examples of acting ability, and there’s no doubting that she held her own against Hunter. But was she more worthy than fellow nominees Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence), Rosie Perez (Fearless), Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father), and — gulp — Holly Hunter herself (The Firm)? That’s the question we’ve been asking the entertainment industry in our Recall the Gold survey of all the major Oscars from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and now, PopWatchers, it’s your turn to have a say.
Ryder was the odds-on favorite going into the ceremony. Her introverted turn as Daniel Day-Lewis’s wife-to-be in 19th-century New York won her a Golden Globe and her first Oscar nomination. Yet the leisurely pace of Innocence may have put off some voters, and Ryder’s character didn’t capture people’s hearts in the way that Paquin’s did. Rosie Perez was also a strong contender for dialing down her "Fight the Power" intensity to play a mother who loses her baby in a plane crash. But Fearless was a box-office flop. Also in the derby were Thompson and Hunter, but they were considered longshots. Thompson had a small but memorable part in In the Name of the Father as Gareth Peirce, the real-life British lawyer who fought to clear the names of the Guildford Four. However, voters were probably suffering from Emma Thompson fatigue — she was also up for her leading performance in The Remains of the Day and had just won Best Actress the previous year for Howards End. As for Hunter, she was practically assured to win the Best Actress Oscar for The Piano, so voters had little incentive to also award her snazzy but less striking performance as a secretary in The Firm.
So, PopWatchers, take out your Oscar pens and tell us whom you thought should have won in our poll below. If you need a reminder of each performance, check out clips from each film after the jump. While you’re at it, if you haven’t already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar’s memory lane. Tomorrow, we’ll examine the 1983 Best Actor race, and you can check out coverage of this year’s awards contenders in Dave Karger’s Oscar Watch blog.
Holly Hunter, The Firm
Anna Paquin, The Piano
Rosie Perez, Fearless
Winona Ryder, The Age of Innocence – (trailer)
Emma Thompson, In the Name of the Father
Comments (1-30) of 48 Add your comment
Anna Paquin most certainly deserved that Oscar.
Anna Paquin all the way. Winona Ryder could never act.
Boy, I’d be on the fence this time last year, but since “True Blood”, I am a big Paquin fan. I’d love to see her sweep the awards for the show now, including the Emmy. She makes the show work. The other performances were okay, but Paquin’s is the most timeless, I think.
Emma Thompson deserved it. She had the most difficult role and she was magnificent. Anna Paquin was very good and natural but she didn’t deserve the Oscar.
Paquin deserved it and I’m sick of these posts asking whether this person or that person should have won. The fact is they did win and any attempt to question the validity of their victory bears all the futility of a pecker on a Pope.
On this one I actually don’t have a problem with any of the nominees; however, I vote for Holly Hunter all the way for her role in “The Firm”. What a terrific performance!…and since I had another pick for Best Actress, she definitely deserved an award for something that year. I just preferred her in “The Firm” rather than “The Piano” which gets somewhat tedious to watch when I see it now.
Well, I remember the Piano and it was a beautifully photo’d and acted story…and didn’t Holly win for best actress? so what’s the question for?
as for Paquin, yeh, she deserved it…and every year there’s going to be a discussion, who deserved it more?
I just wish Rosie Perez had a high flying career…she’s such a great actress. I guess having good management counts, because she could be at the top of the food chain, she’s such a good actress.
“The Piano” is great, the second best movie released that year after “Schindler’s List”. I don’t mind rewatching it because each scene is packed with detail, each performance top notch. Hunter deserved her Oscar, not many will say she didn’t, but her character played off Paquin’s and vice versa. At 11 years old, Paquin showed a lot of range and it turns out that her acting wasn’t a fluke performance. I will say that Rosie Perez was brilliant in “Fearless” and I was happy she was nominated. She was also fantastic in “White Men Can’t Jump” (a decent movie), so her nomination here shouldn’t be seen as a revelation. I would like to see her in more movies these days, but I have a feeling her best years may have come and gone. All in all a great year for supporting actress nominations. Remember, this Recall the Gold exercise doesn’t claim past winners are undeserving, just whether or not they would hold their votes nowadays.
It just dawned on me that I have never seen a memorable Wynona Ryder performance
She is extremely forgetable in almost everything she does. I remember seeing Girl Interupted a while ago and thinking “Oh yeah, Wynona Ryder was in that, wasn’t she”. Think about it, in both her bad and decent performances, she is always overshadowed by another actor. Dracula, overshadowed by Keanu’s spectacularly bad performance. The Crucible, overshadowed by a lot of other actors. Reality Bites, definitely overshadowed by Ethan Hawke. Girl Interrupted, Angelina Jolie, say no more. She all just seems to have supporting actress written all over her.
True Blood isn’t strong because of Paquin. In fact I find her character to be a bit annoying at times, and the accent is a bit strong (Sounds more like Texan, than New Orleans). She suffers a bit from “Much better actor as a child than an adult” Syndrome (See Kirsten Dunst, & Tatum O’neal).
Why are we suggesting that Anna Paquin shouldn’t have won? Am I the only one who would consider this insulting for a (then) little girl who poured more into her role for veritable chump change than most “grown-up” actors who barely called their part in for millions? There’s nothing more irritating than *anybody* (not just you) questioning the Academy’s voters when they themselves disagree with the outcome. People did the same thing with Marisa Tomei the year before (“My Cousin Vinny”) – OH God, Jack Palance must have been drunk, etc. – and that’s truly obnoxious, particularly when one considers that Tomei scored herself another nod for a murdered boy’s girlfriend in “In The Bedroom” and will likely score a third nod this year for “The Wrestler.” Paquin has held her own nicely these last 15 years, but with mostly fluff pieces (bits in teen comedies or horror films). On the other hand, her more serious work *has* scored her SAG, Emmy, and Golden Globe nods; that’s not a one trick pony!
nope. anna shouldn’t have won
The Piano is a classic movie and Paquin’s performance was remarkable. In different hands, that character could have been unwatchable. But Paquin revealed an astonishing range of authentic emotions – protectiveness, innocence, jealousy, mischieviousness, devestation, wonder, fear – it was a fully fleshed character. One of the best child performances ever captured on film.
I have to comment on the complaint that the accent in True Blood is more “Texas” sounding. She actually NAILS the accent of NORTH Louisiana. You can divide Louisiana into the Cathlolic, Cajun south and the Baptist North – both of which have very different accents. I believe the series takes place in the north Louisiana (Fangbangers is in Shreveport) – so she actually gets the accent right – people talk like East Texan there.
Anna Paquin definitely deserved the oscar. As already mentioned without her acting Holly Hunter could never have done the outstanding job she did. They played off each other exceedingly well. To say that Winona Ryder ever deserved an Oscar is again giving the grossly overrated director of Age of innocence even more undeserved credit. The Piano Player was real story with characters we can respect and relate to. That movie is still something to be proud of and watch over and over again for its performances as well as wonderful story.
For child actors, I’d always go back to the 1999 Best Supporting Actor race, which had Haley Joel Osment being nominated for The Sixth Sense. Honestly, how can they nominate him in the Supporting category when he was a lead in the film? Osment could have beaten (eventual winner) Michael Caine. He was arguably better in that year’s zeitgeist film. Judge child acting by the standard Osment set (and hasn’t equaled since).
Honestly, I think this pick by the Academy was a gimmick. They wanted to do something memorable so they picked Paquin to join Holly Hunter’s sure win in the Best Leading Actress category.
these columns are utterly appalling. get over it, what’s done is done and who won, won.
She says it’s her piano not yours! That’s the only line I can remember from that movie. But year, I think Paquin deserved it.
I rented The Piano and Fearless on the same day, watching them both. When I was done with them both, all I could do was rant, “Rosie Perez was robbed!” The Piano was an over-hyped “Year of the Woman” piece of stupid dreck.
No Rosie Perez ever!
Aaron, I completely agree with you. This column is appalling. Who ever won had won already. Give it a rest. That said, Kate Winslet should have won an Oscar years ago. She’s been consistently incredible.
Paquin deserved it, although Holly Hunter in the Firm was extremely underrated that year. Her performance, much like Reese Witherspoon’s in Walk the Line, took an average movie that was on the brink of being dull and drew the viewer back in with a complex, entertaining, fascinating performance. Paquin is now, and will be, an average to moderately decent actress. That’s where she’s staying. But, by no means, was her Oscar undeserved.
Debate aside, I’m always surprised that actors and actresses like Winona Ryder and, I’ll go there, Tom Cruise have never won Oscars before yet Anna Paquin or Jamie Foxx have them. It goes to show that the Oscars definitely do not reward bodies of work or consistency, just stand-out performances in any given year. Hindsight is inevitably tainted by the work the actor has done since they were awarded an Oscar.
I’ve seen all the performances of the ones nominated that year and to this day I would still give it to Paquin.
I think she more than held her own in The Piano and that she has since given award worthy performances (Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee for example).
I think she completely deserved it. Wynona Ryder would have been a close second, but I’m still mesmerized by Anna Paquin’s tour-de-force performance in that movie. If her performance had been sub-par I think the whole film would have suffered. She deserved it, hands down.
No she shouldn’t have won. Fearless is such an underrated movie and Rosie Perez was really good in it. I hated the Piano and didn’t see any worthiness to giving it to either of the two female leads.
… find out how Recall the Gold works before you get all red-faced about it! The years and categories were chosen months ago (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years; each of the major categories). I wonder if a re-vote will change this particular outcome? I can see members having enough fond memories of Thompson, thereby “switching” the winner. Interesting.
The idea the Winona Ryder could win an oscar is ridiculous. She has to be one of the worst actresses ever nominated for the award. She basically shows the same range of emotion in every role she’s ever played. Terrible
To all the haters, Ryder was great in “Heathers”. She was on a roll in the late Eighties and early Ninties. And while she may have been overshadowed in many of those movies (“Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Reality Bites, etc.) she was always a solid addition.
So lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.
to hc: DUH. yeah, the oscar is a reward for the work an actor did in a certain movie. it’s not lifetime achievement, if that’s what you were thinking all these years.