Does Michael B. Jordan get two Oscars, or just the one?
Jordan won Best Actor at the Academy Awards Sunday night, making him only the second actor in history to win an Oscar for playing twins. Jordan follows in the dual footsteps of Lee Marvin, who won Best Actor in 1966 for playing Shelleen and Strawn in Elliot Silverstein’s western “Cat Ballou.”
In “Sinners,” Jordan stars as brothers Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore (known more infamously as the Smokestack Twins), two World War I veterans who return to the Mississippi Delta to open a juke joint after working in the Chicago mob.
Though Jordan is only the second actor to win for playing twins, others have been nominated in the past. Nicolas Cage received a Best Actor nomination in 2003 for playing both Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald in “Adaptation” (written by Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze).
The list gets longer when you look at actors who portrayed multiple parts in the same film, such as Peter Sellers’ three-character turn in “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Oscar winners, like Ke Huy Quan, could fit this mold, playing distinct versions of the same character in a multiversal story.
Jordan’s fellow nominee Wagner Moura also portrayed two characters (though one with much less screen time) in “The Secret Agent.”
Jordan won at the end of a wild, spread-out season in the Best Actor race. Initially, Timothée Chalamet appeared to be the frontrunner for his work in “Marty Supreme,” picking up prizes at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. Chalamet won Best Actor (Comedy/Musical) at the Globes, while Jordan lost Best Actor (Drama) to fellow Oscar nominee Moura for “The Secret Agent.”
The tide started turning against Chalamet at the BAFTAs, however, where Robert Aramayo won for his work in “I Swear.” Aramayo was not nominated at the Academy Awards due to the film’s lack of a U.S. release.
Jordan emerged as a late-season frontrunner soon after when he won Best Actor at the Actor Awards (a prize that last year went to Chalamet for his turn as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown”). Still, after a tumultuous season, Jordan’s win wasn’t seen as a done deal heading into Oscar night.
