1. Leonardo DiCaprio Genuinely Thought He'd Win Before
The "Leo Deserves An Oscar" brigade has been running strong for over a decade now, although there was recently a new addition to their numbers nobody quite expected; Leonardo DiCaprio himself. The actor has typically been rather passé about awards, but on the awards trail for The Revenant (which finally looks to end his life-long dry spell) he
coyly claimed there were times in the past he felt he should have received more recognition: "I've been in situations before where I've thought films or performances, either mine or others, should be either nominated more or adored by the public." It's not overt, but in the context of Leo hype and how he has to play things totally by the book to increase his chances of a win for The Revenant, the implication is there. But which movie is he on about? In my mind, there's really only two movies he could have legitimately won an Oscar for, considering both the performance itself and the movie's suitability for the Academy; Howard Hughes in The Aviator and Calvin Candie in Django Unchained. And neither of those really had a full, fair fighting chance; the former was up against Jamie Foxx's Ray and for the latter the Weinstein's chose to back Christoph Waltz instead of DiCaprio's superior turn as a twisted plantation owner. All other performances either don't quite hit the right marks or were in films that didn't have that Oscar slant; The Wolf Of Wall Street is some of both his and Scorsese's best work, but its duality, revelling in and condoning opulence at the same time, is something that predictably proved too much for the PC Academy. I'm not saying Leo hasn't deserved to win, just that it's clear why he hasn't yet; The Revenant is the first time where everything has lined up to the point where you can say he has a legitimate chance. If he was hoping for it before, he was being a tad optimistic.
Which other actors have wrongly thought they could win Oscars? Share any we missed down in the comments.