The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been host to no shortage of Oscar-winning actors, including even some of the series’ most obscure side-characters. It’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe survives and thrives off the strength of its actors, as proven by the recent announcement of Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the MCU as Doctor Doom. The franchise has slowly collected Oscar-winners like Infinity Stones over the years, with even the most unrecognizable of roles often going to distinguished performers.
It’s easy to see how many of these brief roles have gone under the radar over the years. Sometimes, Oscar winners have shown up in the MCU for the briefest of voice roles, playing unseen or CGI characters without making their physical appearance obvious. Often, the cheeky cameo of a well-known actor is sometimes teased within one of the MCU’s famous post-credits scenes, going overlooked by many viewers who don’t bother to stick around. Either way, the MCU doesn’t always parade their Oscar-winners around front and center.
10. Michelle Yeoh As Aleta Ogord
Won Best Actress For Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Michelle Yeoh is perhaps best-known in the MCU as Ying Nan, the sister of Ying Li and aunt of Shang-Chi. A master martial artist and protector of the mystical land of Ta Lo, Ying Nan made the most out of Yeoh’s status as kung fu movie royalty. However, Yeoh is among the few actors who’ve played multiple MCU roles, also appearing as Aleta Ogord, a leader of one of the Ravager space pirate crews. With her smoky eyeshadow and brief appearance, Yeoh’s lesser-known MCU role is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance.
Michelle Yeoh won her Oscar for Best Actress in 2023 for her performance as protagonist Evelyn in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Similarly to recent phases of the MCU, Everything Everywhere All at Once was a fantastical adventure through the multiverse, though painted through a startlingly human lens. With two MCU roles to her name, Michelle Yeoh has further proven her ability to shapeshift into different characters.
9. Jennifer Connelly As Karen
Won Best Supporting Actress For A Beautiful Mind
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is rife with artificial intelligence, from the polite and helpful J.A.R.V.I.S. to the cheerful F.R.I.D.A.Y. Of all the hyper-intelligent systems Tony Stark creates, Karen might be the most undersung, only getting a single appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming. The near-sentient A.I. that helps Spider-Man pilot his high-tech Stark-made suit, Karen is affectionately named by Peter Parker. Karen is voiced by Jennifer Connelly, an Academy Award-winning actress.
Connelly got her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in A Beautiful Mind. The film was a biopic that told the story of real-life mathematician John Nash, with Connelly playing Nash’s fellow physicist and eventual wife, Alicia Nash. Karen wasn’t Connelly’s first brush with Marvel filmmaking, also playing Betty Ross in the 2003 version of Hulk released by Universal Pictures.
8. Taika Waititi As Korg
Won Best Adapted Screenplay For Jojo Rabbit
Not every background actor in the MCU that’s won an Oscar has actually done so for acting. When director Taika Waititi took the reins as the director of the Thor films, overseeing the production of both Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder, he couldn’t resist casting himself as Korg, the stony extraterrestrial gladiator who becomes a good friend of the Asgardians. While Korg’s appearance is far-fetched, the hilarious comedic timing of his exaggerated Kiwi accent is all Waititi.
Despite the backlash he received as director on Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi’s own filmography is quite impressive, with several highly-praised projects worthy of an Oscar Nomination. Waititi eventually got his win in 2019 for Best Adapted Screenplay, taking home the coveted trophy thanks to his direction of Jojo Rabbit. Starring fellow MCU alum Scarlett Johansson, the film tells the story of a young boy growing up in Nazi Germany who creates an imaginary friend in Hitler himself, again played by Waititi.
7. Matt Damon As The Loki Actor
Won Best Original Screenplay For Good Will Hunting
Matt Damon might boast the highest discrepancy between actor fame and character importance in the entire MCU, giving only the briefest of glimpses of his star power in Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder. In both films, Damon plays an Asgardian actor who, in turn, plays an idealized version of Loki, clearly commissioned by Loki posing as Odin to portray the “dead” God of Mischief in a positive light. This isn’t the only time Damon has lent his talents to a throwaway role in a superhero movie, also putting in a hilarious cameo in Deadpool 2.
Of course, Matt Damon is incredibly well-known as an actor, appearing in a great deal of films that run the gamut of tone, genre and quality. Yet his sole Oscar win to-date has actually been for his writing instead, The Academy praising Damon for his efforts on the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, which he also stars in. The film posits Damon as a janitor working at MIT who possesses a genius-level IQ, and is then discovered by a professor.
6. William Hurt As General Ross
Won Best Actor for Kiss of the Spider Woman
General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross is a character of waxing and waning importance in the MCU, being regulated to the background by the time of Phase 4. The surviving the transition from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk to the rest of the MCU, William Hurt’s General Ross is a ruthless representation of United States Armed Forces’ interests in the many global conflicts the MCU’s heroes often find themselves mired in. While he’ll have a much bigger role in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, Hurt was traded out for Harrison Ford.
The film William Hurt won Best Actor for at the Academy Awards, Kiss of the Spider Woman, may sound like an MCU film in name. However, the movie is a meditative drama that takes place in a Brazilian prison, starring Hurt as a gay cinephile imprisoned alongside a leftist revolutionary. It’s a shame Hurt’s subtle, Oscar-winning acting capabilities won’t be returning to the MCU in favor of Harrison Ford’s sheer marquee value.
5. Kenneth Branagh As An Asgardian Distress Caller
Won Best Screenplay For Belfast
Astonishingly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has sometimes hid Oscar-winning performers in even the tiniest of spaces. Kenneth Branagh is best known in the franchise for directing the first Thor film, a solid, if not outstanding, Phase 1 origin story. But Branagh also briefly lent his voice to the commotion of Avengers: Infinity War, being simply credited as “Asgardian Distress Caller.” Not only is this a background character with no name, but Branagh doesn’t even get an on-screen appearance.
Unsurprisingly, Branagh won an Academy Award for his work as a writer rather than for his acting chops. He took home the coveted golden trophy for Best Screenplay in 2022 for his work on Belfast. The 2021 film is a reserved, grounded story that chronicles the life and times of a Protestant family living in the titular city in the wake of the turbulent Irish sectarian violence of the 60s.
4. F. Murray Abraham As Khonshu
Won Best Actor For Amadeus
Khonshu is yet another vocal performance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that goes underrated due to its attachment to a CGI character. F. Murray Abraham plays Khonshu, the patron god of Moon Knight who shows up in the character’s eponymous Disney+ show. The god of the moon and night sky, Khonshu is a manipulative player on the stage of the MCU’s gods, but seems unlikely to return outside of Moon Knight any time soon.
F. Murray Abraham is perhaps most famous for his Oscar-winning role in Amadeus, which tells a fictionalized version of the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life story. In the film, Abraham plays Antonio Salieri, a fellow musician through whom the story is told with a fierce mixture of admiration and jealousy for the titular character. Abraham is also well known for his recent performance in the hit drama series The White Lotus, for which he has garnered further acclaim.
3. Olivia Colman As Sonya Falsworth
Won Best Actress For The Favorite
Sonya Falsworth is a fairly important character in the series she appears in, but considering Secret Invasion might just be the MCU’s most seldom-seen Disney+ project, Olivia Colman’s performance in it largely went by the wayside. Falsworth is an agent of MI6, Britain’s premiere national intelligence organization in both the MCU and real life. A former colleague of Nick Fury and one of the few members of the international intelligence community to trust and respect him, Falsworth was instrumental in the events of the series.
Falsworth is played by Olivia Colman, an English actress with a high pedigree. Colman officially won her first Academy Award for Best Actress with the release of 2018’s The Favourite, a period piece that told the story of three royal cousins all vying for the favor of Queen Anne. Colman played Queen Anne herself, gaining critical acclaim for her humorous performance in the dark comedy.
2. Mahershala Ali As Blade
Won Best Supporting Actor For Moonlight And Green Book
The troubled production of Mahershala Ali’s Blade has been a sore point for the MCU for some time now, ever since the film’s announcement way back in 2019. However, what few people realize is that Ali has technically already played Blade once in the MCU. During a post-credits scene for Eternals, Ali’s voice can be heard addressing Dane Whitman from just off-screen, later confirmed to be none other than Blade himself.
Mahershala Ali is one of the few MCU actors to boast not one, but two Oscars to his name. Ali won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Moonlight, in which he plays a drug dealer who acts as a father figure to a young gay man growing up in Miami. A few years later, he won the same award for his performance as Dr. Don Shirley in Green Book, which tells the story of the creation of a guidebook for traveling African Americans in the 60s’ dangerous Deep South.
1. Charlize Theron As Clea
Won Best Actress For Monster
Though Clea is a relatively important character in the Marvel Comics, she has only a brief appearance in the MCU thanks to a post-credits scene in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Despite the brevity of her role, Clea is played by lauded actress Charlize Theron. Clea is the niece of Dormammu and a powerful sorceress in her own right who hails from the Dark Dimension. She seeks out Doctor Strange’s help at the end of the film after declaring that his actions had caused an incursion between two universes.
Charlize Theron is better known as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road these days, but she won her Academy Award for Best Actress for 2003’s Monster. The film tells the story of real-life female serial killer Aileen Wuronos, played by Theron, who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. It remains to be seen if Theron will ever get the chance to return her award-winning talents to the MCU as Clea anytime in the near future.
