LOS ANGELES: What’s happened to those onetime Oscar winners who’ve remained onetime Oscar winners? In the case of Cuba Gooding Jr., if you aren’t destined for a return to the Academy Awards stage, you do a Pepsi commercial for the Oscar show.
The ad, touting Pepsi’s mini can, celebrates iconic quotes from movies like “Titanic,” “Scarface” and “Jerry Maguire.”
“People still ask me to say ‘Show me the money,’” laughs Gooding, who scooped the best supporting actor win in 1996 for “Jerry Maguire.” “You go to a bar and people have a few cocktails and they’ll say ‘Just say it one time!’“
This year, it seemed “Lee Daniels’ the Butler” was going to get Gooding back to the Oscar ceremony, but the film didn’t make the cut in any category. Is the actor upset? “You can’t get caught up in the horse race that is the awards season,” said Gooding during a recent interview.
But that’s exactly what the actor did after winning in ‘96. “Immediately after it was that thing, ‘What do I do next?’” said Gooding. It took eight months before he’d commit to another role — in “What Dreams May Come.”
“I think the mistake I made then was I was too precious with my art when I should have just been jumping back into it,” said Gooding. “When you have people celebrate you in the way that the Oscars are celebrated, there is a lot of pressure to get to that place. Once you get there, there is a lot of pressure to prove that you deserve to be there, so you always second guess yourself. I had to tell myself to get over it and work.”
Gooding has since appeared in more than 30 films.
Here are other one-time Oscar winners who have yet to repeat:
In 2009, Mo’Nique picked up the best supporting actress win for “Precious.” “After I won I looked at my husband and said ‘Daddy, I’m tired,’” said Mo’Nique in a phone interview. After a five-year hiatus, the actress has finally returned to the screen with the indie film “Blackbird.”
Joe Pesci won an Oscar for best supporting actor in 1990’s “Goodfellas.” Playing opposite Helen Mirren in 2010’s “Love Ranch” was Pesci’s most recent acting gig, but he’ll soon reunite with his “Goodfellas” crew, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, for “The Irishman,” according to his manager, Melissa.
Goldie Hawn won the best supporting actress Oscar in 1969 for “Cactus Flower.” She last appeared opposite Susan Sarandon in the 2002 comedy “The Banger Sisters.”
In 2013, she voiced a cartoon character in an episode of the TV show “Phineas and Ferb,” but she has stepped away from the film world now to focus on The Hawn Foundation, an organization she launched in 2003 that’s dedicated to social and emotional literacy for children.
Where are those one-time Oscar winners now?
