10 Actors We Still Can't Believe Are Oscar Nominees

7. Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story)

When you hear the name Gary Busey, what films do you think of? Lethal Weapon? Predator 2? Maybe Under Siege, and we all know Point Break's definitely in there as well. He has a reputation for being that crazy, wide-eyed lunatic who will star in pretty much anything nowadays for a ham sandwich (Bikini Model Academy is the latest project listed on his IMDB page), but it wasn't always this way. Much like Hudson, he earned a career-boosting Oscar nod early in his career, for 1978's acclaimed The Buddy Holly Story, being nominated alongside acting heavyweights Jon Voight (Coming Home), Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait), Robert De Niro (The Deer Hunter) and Laurence Olivier (The Boys from Brazil). It's the single film Busey earned any serious awards consideration for, and by most accounts is something of a blip in his filmography. This isn't to say that Busey's a bad actor, because he certainly isn't, but that he's not one you'd typically associate with the Academy. It's not so much that he peaked too early as he pulled off an impressive fluke.