5. And The Competition Is Always Tough When He Is
As alluded to in the prior entry, DiCaprio's fellow Oscar nominees are always a pretty formidable bunch. Still sticking to Best Actor, the 2004 group saw the actor up against the aforementioned Jamie Foxx, electric as Ray Charles in Ray, and Academy vet Clint Eastwood, nominated then for Best Actor for the first time since 1992's Unforgiven. If Foxx didn't win, you can bet your life that the Academy would've sooner rewarded an old favourite rather than making DiCaprio the second youngest Best Actor winner ever (after Adrien Brody, who was 29 when he won for The Pianist). The 2006 bench was a little weaker, and if DiCaprio had been allowed to be nominated for The Departed, there's a good chance he might've won. Saying that, Forest Whitaker is impressive in his own right in The Last King Of Scotland, an Academy-friendly performance that rightly won over DiCaprio's good turn in Blood Diamond. Moreover, 2006 saw the last of Peter O'Toole's eight Oscar nominations, the actor selected for his touching work in Venus. Again, you have to think that if it wasn't going to be Whitaker, it had to be O'Toole, and the chance for Oscar to right one of its very worst wrongs. 2013 saw the strongest bench, with DiCaprio nominated for The Wolf Of Wall Street alongside Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Christian Bale (American Hustle), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave). Ejiofor should've won for what is one of the great screen performances of all time, but alas the Academy fell for The McConaissance, honouring McConaughey for his good but overrated work as Ron Woodrow. DiCaprio really was the fifth favourite here, then, lacking in McConaughey's momentum, Bale's status as an AMPAS favourite, Dern's never-honoured cult legacy, and the eventually Best Picture-winning power of Ejiofor's 12 Years.