HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 09: Glenn Close attends the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ 14th Annual Governors Awards at The Ray Dolby Ballroom on January 09, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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After eight nominations, zero competitive wins, and four near-misses at the honorary award alone, Glenn Close is getting her Oscar. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this week that Close will receive an Honorary Academy Award at this year’s Governors Awards ceremony. She will be joined by director Ridley Scott and animator Floyd Norman, while producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler will receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
This will make Close a part of the honorary EGOT list, with this award rounding out her existing three Emmys, three Tonys and three Grammys.
Glenn Close’s Oscar Record
Dean Semler presented award by Glenn Close at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, United States, 25th March 1991. (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
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Close’s eight nominations tie her with the late Peter O’Toole for the most acting nominations in Oscar history without a competitive win. Her nominated films span over four decades: The World According to Garp (1982), The Big Chill (1983), The Natural (1984), Fatal Attraction (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Albert Nobbs (2011), The Wife (2018) (when many industry observers predicted she would finally win, only for the award to go to Olivia Colman for The Favourite) — and Hillbilly Elegy (2020). She has won virtually every other major award available to her, including three Emmys, three Tonys, three Grammys, and three Golden Globes.
The honorary award is overdue even by the Academy’s own recent standards. According to a Variety report published last week, Close had been proposed as an honorary Oscar recipient at least four times in the past decade and was nearly selected in one specific year. The report said she had been put forward both for her body of work and for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which recognises outstanding charitable work. In her case, this was years of mental health advocacy through Bring Change to Mind, the nonprofit she founded in 2010.
“Throughout her extraordinary body of work, Glenn Close’s unparalleled emotional range has brought to life some of the most complex characters in cinema,” the Academy said in its statement.
Who Else Is Receiving An Honorary Oscar At The Governors Awards
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – FEBRUARY 08: Director/producer Ridley Scott attends the 88th Annual Academy Awards nominee luncheon on February 8, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
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Ridley Scott, 88, also received an honorary Oscar. The director of Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator has never won competitively despite four nominations, including Best Director nods for Thelma & Louise and Black Hawk Down. His career spanning popular blockbusters and prestige dramas has shaped the visual language of science fiction, historical epic, and contemporary thriller across fifty years without ever producing a competitive Academy win. Floyd Norman, a pioneering animator who became the first African American professional animator at Disney in 1956 and worked on films including Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book and Toy Story 2, will also receive an honorary Oscar.
What The Oscar Governors Awards Are And How They Work
The Governors Awards is a separate ceremony held by the Academy each autumn specifically to present honorary Oscars, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. They often go to artists with extraordinary careers but no competitive Oscar; Tom Cruise received one last year. The honorary Oscar is recognised by the Academy as equivalent to a competitive one. For Glenn Close, whose eight nominations without a win are tied for the most in acting history, it ends a four-decade wait.