This is a feature that I initially wanted to call "Cineception" as the idea of Oscar-nominated actors playing Oscar-nominated actors on film feels like something that belongs in a Christopher Nolan film.
We can even add an extra layer of meta-ness when you consider that several of these actors were nominated for an Oscar for their performance as an Oscar-nominated actor - and have even won Oscars! Honestly, it gets all a bit... metaphysical-like.
But, anyway, here are ten Oscar-nominated actors who have played ten Oscar-nominated actors.
Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee (three as Best Actress [for American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right], and once as Best Supporting Actress [The Grifters]).
Grahame won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in The Bad And The Beautiful (1952), and was nominated in the same category for Crossfire (1947)
Bening puts in a superb performance as Grahame in Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool, about her later years in the theatre and her burgeoning relationship with a young Scouse actor (played by Jamie Bell). An Oscar nomination eluded her, but Bening did get a well-deserved BAFTA nod for Best Actress.
Blanchett and Hepburn both occupy places in Oscar history, so it's entirely appropriate that Blanchett should play Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator.
Hepburn still holds the record for most Best Actress wins, with four (Morning Glory, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, The Lion In Winter, and On Golden Pond) from 12 nominations (all in the Best Actress category)
Blanchett, on the other hand, is one of a select group of actors who has been nominated for a Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscar in the same year (for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I'm Not There.). Not only that. Blanchett has also won both a Best Actress Oscar (for her stunning turn in Blue Jasmine) and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for... yep, The Aviator (also making her the first actor to win an Oscar for playing an Oscar-winning actor). Blanchett's performance as Hepburn goes beyond a mere impersonation to capture not only the actress' strident vocal tones but her strength and fragility.
Just as with Blanchett and Hepburn, there are few actors better to play Sir Laurence Olivier than the man whose career trajectory has so closely followed his: Kenneth Branagh.
Both men have Oscar nominations in three categories (both acting categories, and Best Director), although Olivier won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Hamlet (1948).
Branagh takes on the role of Olivier in the utterly charming My Week With Marilyn, which details the making of The Prince And The Showgirl (1957) where Olivier worked opposite- and directed- Marilyn Monroe. Branagh's performance as Olivier isn't just an impression- he gets under the skin of a great actor who has to deal with an actress of great talent but flaky personal qualities. His exasperation, yet deep respect for Marilyn comes out.
Richard Attenborough's 1992 star-studded biopic of the silent movie star garnered the first Oscar nomination for Robert Downey Jr. (his second would come in 2008 for Tropic Thunder, this time as Best Supporting Actor). It's the first time an actor was nominated for an Oscar for playing another Oscar-nominated actor.
Chaplin was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in The Great Dictator (1940), and there are scenes in Chaplin where he watches speeches of Hitler to prepare for his role in that film.
[As a nice bonus, Chaplin features a second Oscar-nominated actor playing an Oscar-nominated actor: Diane Lane (a Best Actress nominee for Unfaithful) plays Paulette Goddard (who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for So Proudly We Hail!)]
Joan Crawford won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945) and had two further nominations (for Possessed and Sudden Fear).
Faye Dunaway won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Network (1976) and also had two further nominations (for Bonnie And Clyde and Chinatown).
Dunaway truly felt that her performance as Crawford in biopic Mommie Dearest, detailing the traumatic upbringing Crawford's adopted daughter had at the hands of her movie-star mother, was going to net her another Oscar. Nothing could have been further than the truth. It's a campy. larger-than-life, very hammy performance (not helped by such ludicrous dialogue as "NO. WIRE. HANGERS. EVER!"). The reviews were terrible, the Oscars gave it a wide berth, but the newly started Golden Raspberry Awards gave the film an (at the time) unprecedented nine nominations. It "won" five... including Worst Actress for Dunaway.
It's become something of a cult classic in latter years, but- even nearly thirty years later- Dunaway is known to stop interviews if Mommie Dearest gets mentioned.
Like Cate Blanchett, Scarlett Johansson is part of the two-nominations-in-one-year club (garnering a Best Actress nod for Marriage Story and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Jojo Rabbit at the 92nd Academy Awards). Just like buses... you wait ages for one, and two come along at once...
Johansson was part of the ensemble cast of the 2012 biopic Hitchcock, which focuses on the struggles he had to get Psycho (1960) made. In it, she plays Janet Leigh who is famously killed off in the notorious "shower scene". There are moments in the film where Johansson looks so like Leigh, I did a double take, thinking they'd just used stock footage.
Leigh would receive her only Oscar nomination for Psycho, with a Best Supporting Actress nod for her role as Marion Crane.
I've long felt that Nicole Kidman is her generation's Grace Kelly, so it's again appropriate that Kidman should play Kelly in Olivier Dahan's 2014 biopic, focusing on her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco.
Kidman won the Best Actress Oscar for her devastating turn as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (and has further nominations for her roles in Moulin Rouge!, Rabbit Hole and Lion).
Kelly received her first Oscar nomination in the Supporting Actress category for Mogambo (1953) and won Best Actress the following year for her performance in The Country Girl. According to rumour, there were only half-a-dozen votes separating Kelly from her nearest rival, which was... Judy Garland.
Grace Of Monaco is not a great film. It's soapy, melodramatic and (like many biopics) plays fast and loose with historical events. Dahan's version, which opened the Cannes Film Festival to what might be charitably called "mixed reviews", doesn't really do anyone any favours. That said, Kidman does a solid job bringing Kelly to life.
It might come as a surprise to some people, especially if they only know him from things like The Goon Show or The Pink Panther films, to realise that Peter Sellers is a double Best Actor Oscar nominee. He was nominated for his three roles in Kubrick's scabrous Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove (1964), and for his turn as the simple-minded gardener turned political adviser in Being There (1979).
Scenes which feature the filming of Being There are included in Stephen Hopkins' 2004 biopic, The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, in which the British funnyman is played by Oscar-winning Australian actor Geoffrey Rush who does a good job to encapsulate the various facets of Sellers' character- even the less than palatable ones.
Rush won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as pianist David Helfgott in Shine (1996) and received further nominations for Quills, Shakespeare In Love and The King's Speech (the latter two in the Supporting Actor category).
There's a scene in Beyond The Sea, Kevin Spacey's 2004 biopic of crooner Bobby Darin (clearly a passion project for Spacey as he directs, stars, and co-wrote the film) where Darin rants about losing the Best Supporting Actor to Melvyn Douglas (who won for playing Paul Newman's father in Hud).
Darin, better known as a singer ("Beyond The Sea", "Mack The Knife"), played Jim Tompkins, a young Corporal traumatised after his aircraft was shot down, in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963) opposite Gregory Peck and Tony Curtis. It was his only Oscar nomination.
Spacey is a two-time Oscar winner (Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects, and Best Actor for American Beauty). Beyond The Sea is an entertaining enough biopic, but Spacey is far too old to play Darin, and the relationship between Darin and his wife Sandra Dee (played by Kate Bosworth) just looks wrong because of the two-decade age difference.
Judy Garland was nominated for two competitive Oscars during her career- a Best Actress nod for A Star Is Born (1954) [which she lost out to Grace Kelly, in a result which Groucho Marx called "the biggest robbery since Brink's"] and a Best Supporting Actress nod for her role in Judgment In Nuremberg (1961)- but was given a special Juvenile Award in 1940 for "her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year" (which would cover her performance as Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz)
Zellweger is, like Cate Blanchett, an actress who has won both a Best Actress and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. After two Best Actress nods (for Bridget Jones' Diary and Chicago), she won the Supporting Actress award for Cold Mountain (2003), and won Best Actress this year for her superlative performance as Judy Garland in Judy, which focuses on Garland's time in London in 1968 to do a series of sold-out concerts.
Whilst Judy is a bit patchy (which seems to be a running complaint when it comes to biopics), Zellweger's performance is just sublime, encapsulating the strength, inner turmoil and turbulent life of this great performer.
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