‘Entertainment Weekly’ Oscar Recall Forces Gwyneth And Renee To Declare ‘No Takebacks’

The results of Entertainment Weekly’s massive “Recall the Gold” project (in which thousands of industry insiders revote certain Oscar years to publicly humiliate past winners) are finally in! So which actors have been victimised?

EW polled its stand-in Academy on five specific years (2003, 1998, 1993, 1988, and 1983) and the six biggest categories therein (each actor slot, as well as Picture and Director). Only seven of the thirty original wins were revoked, and the sole non-acting substitution was Saving Private Ryan over Shakespeare in Love for 1998’s Best Picture.

The other six new “champs” were evenly split between actors and actresses. In the revised Supporting Actor races, Geoffrey Rush (Shakespeare in Love) trumped actual winner James Coburn (Affliction) in 1998, while the redone 1993 would steal the Oscar from Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) and hand it to Ralph Fiennes for Schindler’s List. The oldest revision? 1988, which traded real winner Geena Davis (The Accidental Tourist) for Frances McDormand (Mississippi Burning). No one lost their Oscars in 1983 because nobody remembers any movie from that year besides Terms of Endearment.

But enough about those nobodies! Here are the only three bits of schadenfreude big enough for a hungry populace to sink their teeth into: controversial Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love), Renee Zellweger (Cold Mountain) and Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful) were all junked for Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog), and Edward Norton (American History X), respectively. You liked them (before you didn’t)! You really liked them (before you really didn’t)!

• Oscar Do-overs: The Results of EW’s ‘Recall the Gold’ Project [EW]