Jack Nicholson was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Was this a record for an actor nominated with such little screen time? I noticed that he's only in 3 scenes. He's very effective in his scenes. Especially in the end. But he's only in a few minutes of the movie. Was there ever an actor before Jack to pull off a nomination with such little screen time?
shareChristopher Walken in Catch Me If You Can had very little screentime. I don't think Dan Aykroyd had much screentime in Driving Miss Daisy, either, but I may be wrong on that.
shareNed Beatty/Network, John Lithgow/Terms of Endearment, Robert Duvall/Apocalypse Now, Brad Dourif/One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Mark Wahlberg/The Departed come to mind.
shareBeatrice Straight in Network won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her five minutes onscreen. She played the devastated wife of William Holden, who reveals he has been having an affair and will soon leave Straight.
Trivia note: Network Director Sydney Lumet wanted to cut Straight's scene because they felt it wasn't working with the scene that followed it - the "romantic" getaway between Holden and Faye Dunaway. Film editor Alan Heim really liked the scene so much; he switched the two scenes so that Straight's scene came after the Holden/Dunaway scene. So Straight had Heim to thank for her Oscar!