From Lance McMillian:
True Grit breakout star Hailee Steinfeld is nominated this year for Best Supporting Actress. In reality, Steinfeld almost certainly belongs in the Best Actress category, but the studio obviously believed her chances at winning would be greater in the Supporting Actress category.
Today's question focuses on truly supporting roles that garnered Oscar wins and asks: What actor and actress won Oscars in the supporting actor and actress categories with the least amount of screen time?
Pictured: The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Anthony Hopkins took home the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the film. Hopkins had less than 16 minutes of screen time, the shortest of any Best Actor winner ever.
What about Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men.
And maybe Judy Dench for Shakespear in Love. (This is actually one of those questions I've wondered about for a long time.)
Nicholson didn't win, only nominated, and he would not have been the shortest in any event. Judy Dench has the 2nd shortest screen of any Oscar winner for best supporting actress.
I think that it was William Hurt for "A History of Violence," but I'm not sure. If true — I saw the movie – can't say that I would agree with the choice – it was an fairly minor role and a performance that wasn't that interesting or captivating. For "best supporting performance with very little screen time" I might give the nod to Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross".
I'm in a rush, but this is such a great question that I just had to chime in. Although I do not know the names of the performers, I will guess that one of them was in "Network" because that film netted one of the (if not the) greatest number of Oscar nods for acting.
It looks like Kelly is right as Betrice Straight won for "Network" with only 8 minutes of screen time.
Yes, Beatrice Straight's performance as Louise Schumacher is the answer in the best supporting actress category. Wikipedia says that she clocked only five minutes and 40 seconds of screen time. Essentially, Straight won for one scene when her on-screen husband, played by William Holden, confesses his affair with the Faye Dunaway character. A great movie, which I only saw for the first time last week via Netflix streaming, one of the world's greatest innovations.
The winner for shortest screen time (about 9 minutes) for an Oscar winner in the best supporting actor category is Anthony Quinn for Lust for Life.