The Academy Awards are alleged to be the top of the film business, however not each Hollywood famous person desires of successful an Oscar.
Katharine Hepburn holds the all-time report for many performing wins on the Oscars, having acquired the Greatest Actress trophy 4 instances. Nonetheless, the Hollywood icon by no means as soon as confirmed up to gather her Oscar statuette in particular person. (Hepburn’s one and solely look on the Oscars occurred in 1974 to current the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer Lawrence Weingarten.)
“Prizes are nothing. My prize is my work,” Hepburn famously stated.
Whereas the leisure business continues to be enamored with awards season, some outstanding trendy stars — together with Bradley Cooper and Amanda Seyfried — have publicly complained in regards to the hoopla surrounding the Academy Awards.
Nominations for the 2026 Oscars have formally been revealed, and as typical, movie followers are already calling out some main surprises and snubs. Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks teamed as much as announce the nominees for the 98th annual Academy Awards on Thursday, January 22. Sinners dominated the nominations listing, with a record-breaking complete of 16 (…)
Hold scrolling for a take a look at stars who’ve shunned the Oscars and different awards exhibits.
Samuel L. Jackson
The Avengers star is without doubt one of the most completed actors of his era to by no means win a aggressive Oscar — actually, he’s truly solely been nominated as soon as in his total profession, for Greatest Supporting Actor in 1995 for Pulp Fiction. (Samuel L. Jackson misplaced the Oscar that 12 months to Martin Landau for Ed Wooden.)
“As jaded as I needed to be about it, you already know pondering, ‘Nicely, I ought to have received an Oscar for this or ought to have received for that and it didn’t occur,’ as soon as I bought over it a few years in the past, it wasn’t an enormous deal for me,” he instructed the Los Angeles Occasions in 2022. “I at all times have enjoyable going to the Oscars. I at all times look ahead to getting a present basket for being a presenter. I give stuff to my kinfolk; my daughter and my spouse would take stuff out. It’s cool … However in any other case, I used to be previous it.”
Jackson stated that he’d stopped taking Oscar nominations into consideration when selecting his roles.
Samuel L. Jackson in December 2025. Leon Bennett/Getty Photographs for Critics Alternative Affiliation
“I’m not doing statue-chasing films. You realize: ‘In the event you do that film, you’ll win an Oscar.’ No, thanks. I’d moderately be Nick Fury (in Marvel). Or having enjoyable being Mace Windu (in Star Wars) with a lightsaber in my hand,” he added. “That’s the man I selected to be and I’m wonderful with it. I’m glad as a result of that’s who I’m. I’m the man who does the traces that folks see on T-shirts.”
He continued, “There’s actors who go their complete careers and nobody can quote a line they’ve stated in a film. Folks go to observe my films to see how loopy I’m going to be or see what number of instances I say ‘motherf***er.’ No matter will get them within the seats.”
The Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences lastly acknowledged Jackson with an Honorary Oscar in 2021.
Seth Rogen
The comic has 4 Emmy Awards, however he’s but to obtain an Oscar nomination. Throughout a 2022 interview with Enterprise Insider, Seth Rogen expressed confusion over why “film individuals care a lot if different individuals care what awards we give ourselves.”
“I don’t care who wins the auto awards,” he joked. “No different business expects everybody to care about what awards they bathe upon themselves.”
Rogen argued that “individuals simply don’t care” about who truly wins Oscars regardless of the entire hoopla that accompanies award season.
“Possibly they did for some time and so they stopped caring. And why ought to they?” he requested.
Ethan Hawke
As of March 2026, Ethan Hawke has been nominated for performing Oscars 5 instances, most not too long ago for Greatest Actor on the 98th Academy Awards for his efficiency in Blue Moon.
Hawke instructed Who’s Speaking to Chris Wallace? in April 2024 that he took his Coaching Day costar Denzel Washington’s recommendation about successful — or dropping — an Oscar.
“You don’t need an award to enhance your standing. You need to enhance the award’s standing,” Hawke recalled. “The Academy Award has extra energy, as a result of Denzel has a pair. It didn’t elevate who he was.”
Cate Blanchett
The Australian actress has received two Oscars — a Greatest Supporting Actress Award for taking part in Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator in 2005 and Greatest Actress for 2013’s Blue Jasmine. Nonetheless, Cate Blanchett stated throughout Selection’s “Actors on Actors” podcast that awards recognition has by no means influenced her determination to tackle a task.
“Awards are so subjective … they’re not why you do the work,” she identified.
Kristen Stewart
In 2022, Kristen Stewart acquired her first-ever Oscar nomination for taking part in Princess Diana in Spencer. The Twilight star selected to not marketing campaign for the Academy Award, explaining that she didn’t outline success with awards.
“I don’t give a s***,” Stewart stated on Selection’s “Award Circuit” podcast. “The Oscars are such a humorous factor. There are such a lot of unbelievable films and performances that hardly get seen. It undoubtedly says one thing about the place we’re at as a cumulative presence, like, what we’re (and) what we care about.”
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix has typically shared his displeasure over awards season. When his film The Grasp acquired Oscar buzz in 2012, Phoenix instructed Interview Journal that he didn’t “need to be half” of any campaigning.
“I don’t consider in it. It’s the worst-tasting carrot I’ve ever tasted in my complete life. I don’t need this carrot,” he insisted.
Joaquin Phoenix in September 2025. Aldara Zarraoa/Getty Photographs
Phoenix described the awards buzz for his efficiency in Stroll the Line as “one of the vital uncomfortable durations of my life.”
“I by no means need to have that have once more,” he stated. “I don’t know clarify it — and it’s not like I’m on this place the place I feel I’m simply above it — however I don’t ever need to get comfy with that a part of issues.”
Amanda Seyfried
For the star of The Testomony of Ann Lee, an Oscar nomination is seemingly much more vital than truly successful. (Amand Seyfried acquired her sole Oscar nomination in 2021 for Mank. She misplaced the Greatest Supporting Actress Award to Minari’s Yuh-jung Youn that 12 months.)
Requested if successful an Oscar was vital to her, Seyfried instructed The New Yorker in January 2026: “No. Do you bear in mind who received prior to now 10 years? It’s not the win that’s vital. It’s the nomination. It does thrust you ahead. That’s a truth. Now, do I would like one in per week or two or each time? No, after all, I don’t.”
Seyfried conceded that an Oscar win may very well be useful for “each cause,” although she nonetheless felt it was not a “necessity.” She went on to match her critically acclaimed 2025 non secular drama, The Testomony of Ann Lee, to her extra standard blockbuster The Housemaid.
“Each single selection I made in (The Housemaid) was as clever as the alternatives I made in Ann Lee,” she stated. “I lastly was capable of marry the 2 in my coronary heart and in my head, and I spotted that’s what I need for the remainder of my profession. I’m going to leap between genres as a lot as I can, and bounce between indies and studios. So I’ve gotten this far with out an Oscar. Why would I would like one now?”
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper is without doubt one of the most nominated performers in Oscar historical past to by no means truly win a statuette. (Cooper has earned 12 complete nominations as an actor and filmmaker, as of January 2026.)
Again in 2020, he known as awards season “totally meaningless” whereas chatting with Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos for Interview Journal.
“That awards season stuff is an actual check,” he stated. “It’s fairly a factor to work by, and it’s utterly devoid of inventive creation. It’s not why you sacrifice every part to create artwork, and but you spend a lot time being part of it in case you’re, in quotes, ‘fortunate sufficient to be part of it.’ It’s finally an awesome factor as a result of it actually does make you face ego, self-importance, and insecurity. It’s very fascinating and totally meaningless.”
Throughout a subsequent look on SuperSoul Dialog, Cooper advised that the Oscars and different awards exhibits “play into issues that don’t have anything to do with inventive artwork.”
“It’s an entire different aspect of the enterprise,” Cooper added. “So, it’s actually reconciling its impact on you. That’s the factor I’ve to take care of.”
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins is one in all only a few actors to have received two Greatest Actor Oscars all through his profession — first for The Silence of the Lambs in 1992 after which once more for The Father in 2021.
Nonetheless, Hopkins as soon as dismissed award season as “sort of disgusting” when he was getting Oscar buzz for his 2012 biopic, Hitchcock.
“You realize, kissing the bottom of the authorities that may make or break it; I can’t stand all that,” he complained to HuffPost on the time. “I discover it nauseating to observe and I feel it’s disgusting to behold.”
Anthony Hopkins speaks onstage through the 94th Annual Academy Awards in March 2022. Neilson Barnard/Getty Photographs
Hopkins admitted he was embarrassed to see colleagues “groveling round and kissing the backsides of well-known producers.”
“It makes me need to throw up, it actually does. It’s sick-making,” he declared. “I’ve seen it so many instances. I noticed it pretty not too long ago, final 12 months. Some nice producer-mogul and everybody kisses this man’s bottom. I feel, ‘What are they doing? Don’t they’ve any self respect?’ I needed to say, ‘F*** off.’”
Glenda Jackson
Two-time Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson joked to Leisure Weekly in 2016 that the Oscars had been extra about “frocks and the entire shebang of nonsense” than artistry. The British actress didn’t attend the Oscars ceremony any of the 4 instances she was nominated.
“These days, it looks as if the actual competitors is between the completely different award exhibits,” Jackson identified. “The Golden Globes, again in my day, in case you received you had been fortunate to get a discover within the subsequent day’s Los Angeles Occasions. Now the protection is ludicrous.”
Pressed on whether or not she was underselling the significance of an Oscar, Jackson shot again: “Show it. See, you may’t. Who received final 12 months? Who received the 12 months earlier than? Does it make one scrap of distinction? On the time, it does, sure. However that’s not how human beings are.”
“We benefit from the glitz of the second, which is what it’s,” she argued. “However how are you going to say that (Civil Rights dramas) 12 Years a Slave or Selma has precipitated a elementary cultural shift? After which you’ve these Black guys being shot by policemen. Would that the Oscars might change the world however, I’m sorry, it simply ain’t true.”
Woody Allen
The actor-turned-director has received 4 Oscars all through his profession however famously refused to attend the ceremony any of the instances he was nominated. (Woody Allen received Greatest Director twice for Annie Corridor and Midnight in Paris, in addition to Greatest Unique Screenplay twice for Annie Corridor and Hannah and Her Sisters.)
“I’ve no regard for that sort of ceremony,” Allen as soon as stated. “I simply don’t assume they know what they’re doing. If you see who wins these issues — or who doesn’t win them — you may see how meaningless this Oscar factor is. … I do know it sounds horrible, however successful that Oscar for Annie Corridor didn’t imply something to me.”
Allen appeared on the Oscars solely as soon as in 2002 to honor the resilience of New York Metropolis within the wake of the 9/11 terror assaults.
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington instructed Jake’s Takes in 2025 that Oscars had been not a motivating issue in his profession. (He received Greatest Supporting Actor for Glory in 1990 and Greatest Actor for 2002’s Coaching Day, along with being nominated eight different instances all through his profession.)
“I don’t do it for the Oscars. I actually don’t care about that stuff,” Washington insisted. “You realize, I’ve been at this a very long time, and there are occasions once I received once I shouldn’t have received … and didn’t win and will have received.”
He continued, “Man provides the award. God provides the reward. I’m not that desirous about Oscars. Folks ask, ‘Nicely, the place do you retain it?’ I say subsequent to the opposite one. I’m not bragging. I’m simply telling you ways I really feel about it.”
“On my final day, it ain’t gonna do me a bit of excellent,” Washington quipped.
George C. Scott
Maybe no actor in Hollywood historical past had a extra contentious relationship with the Oscars than George C. Scott. He issued a press assertion in 1971 to request that the Academy rescind his Greatest Actor nomination for Patton.
“I respectfully request that you just withdraw my title from the listing of nominees. My request is under no circumstances supposed to denigrate my colleagues,” he stated on the time. “Moreover, peculiar as it could appear, I imply no offense to the Academy. I merely don’t want to be concerned.”
The Academy declined to take away him from competition, and Scott ultimately received the Greatest Actor Oscar at that 12 months’s ceremony.
Per Time, Scott nonetheless likened the Oscars to a “goddam meat parade” and insisted that he didn’t “need any a part of it.”
The Academy nominated him once more for Greatest Actor anyway in 1972 for The Hospital, although this time he misplaced out to Gene Hackman for The French Connection.