8. Laura Linney
Akin to the likes of Julianne Moore and Sigourney Weaver, Laura Linney is yet another middle-aged Hollywood actress that tends to be much under-appreciated by the Academy. In fact, Linney has previously been branded as "the chameleon of Hollywood". In her career, she has encompassed an amazing range of roles, from repressed housewife to undercover agent. With this in mind, she has rightly been the recipient of 3 Academy Award nominations for her roles in the films You Can Count On Me, The Savages and Kinsey (the latter being a performance that in my opinion desperately deserved an Oscar). She is among the rare breed of actresses in that whatever film she figures in, she is always, always good. As I have said, she should have beaten Cate Blanchett to the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for her performance in Kinsey. She also impressed with admirable work in films such as Mystic River and The Squid & The Whale, which inevitably went unnoticed by the Academy. Linney is also no stranger to the domain of prime-time television, and she has starred in hit T.V series such as Frasier, John Adams and The Big C. These appearances have contributed to her status as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood.