10 Actors We Still Can't Believe Are Oscar Nominees

5. Cher (Silkwood, Moonstruck)

Cher is always going to be best known for her mega-stardom as a musician, but that apparently wasn't enough for her, and in the early 1980s, with her musical career on the downward slide, she turned her eye towards acting. After her forgettable performances in the 1960s in films like Good Times and Chastity, few filmmakers were willing to take her seriously, until Robert Altman took her under his wing on Broadway, and from her strong reception there, she was cast in the 1983 film Silkwood, opposite Meryl Streep. It was at this point that audience perceptions of Cher as an actress began to change, and she proved her detractors wrong with a riveting performance, earning her a Best Supporting Actress nod. Even more surprisingly, she actually went on to win a Best Actress Oscar 5 years later for her work on Moonstruck, one of the high-points of a career less punctuated by her acting (she only has 19 acting credits over 47 years) and more by her music. Still, she's the rare example of a musician attempting to act (rather than, say, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson, who were Oscar-nominated for their "acting" work on Chicago and Dreamgirls respectively, but spent most of their screen time singing), and actually succeeding.