Actors Who Won Oscars Outside Of Acting Categories

When Ben Affleck took home a best picture Oscar for his film "Argo," he was asked to weigh in backstage on awards season punditry. In a video shared by CNN, Affleck opted out of the way people closely track the race. "I don't get into the Oscarology, and the pontificating," he said, though he acknowledged that many people enjoy following the process. "I hope people are interested in the Oscars, because it helps our industry, and it helps make better films," he added, "but it doesn't help me."

If that's the case, Affleck may not know that he belongs to a relatively exclusive club: Actors who have won Oscars for something other than acting. Many actors who have spent decades on film sets eventually get the urge to try their hand at other aspects of the business, from producing to writing to directing. Many try, that is, but fewer succeed, and with that said, here are the actors who took home Oscar gold in non-acting categories.

Before they were A-listers, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were just two kids from Boston trying to make it in the entertainment industry. Together they wrote a script for the film that would become "Good Will Hunting," the story of a math genius moonlighting as a janitor at MIT.

The film earned critical raves, and those two kids from Boston ended up onstage at the Oscars, accepting the Academy Award for best writing, screenplay written directly for the screen. "I just said to Matt, losing would suck and winning would be really scary. It's really, really scary," Affleck joked. Throughout their acceptance speech, as Affleck rattled off a list of people, including "Good Will Hunting" stars Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård, their mothers, their agent, and Cuba Gooding Jr., Damon chimed in. "All our friends and family!" he said. "And everybody back in Boston watching us tonight!"

Affleck would win another Oscar for "Argo," which he produced (and directed); this is to date Damon's only Academy Award.

Emerald Fennell first rose to fame as an actor. In addition to parts in films like "Anna Karenina" and "The Danish Girl," Fennell famously played a younger version of Camilla Parker-Bowles in the third and fourth seasons of "The Crown."

In 2020, Fennell wrote and directed "Promising Young Woman," a rape-revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan as a woman seeking vengeance against abusive men. The controversial film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best editing, best picture, and best actress (for Mulligan). Fennell herself was nominated for both best director and best original screenplay, and she took home the latter award.

"The only speech I ever wrote was when I was ten," Fennell joked as she accepted her award. "And I had a look to see if there'd be anything useful from it, but unfortunately it mostly thanked Zack Morris from 'Saved by the Bell,' who was my very supportive husband. Unfortunately, he hasn't been as much a part of my life as I'd hoped, and so that speech is not that useful."

Robert Redford is primarily known as an actor. He's been in films like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "All The President's Men," "The Sting," and many more. Redford is also the man who founded Sundance, which has grown into one of the most influential independent film festivals ever.

In 1980, Redford moved behind the camera. He kicked off his directing career with "Ordinary People," a film about a teenager (Timothy Hutton) whose parents put him in therapy. The film was a major hit with the Academy Awards, where the team ultimately won four awards. In addition to best picture, Hutton won Best Actor and Alvin Sargent took home the award that was then called "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium."

Redford also won best director. In his acceptance speech, he shouted out previous collaborators. "I would like to express my debt for the directors that I worked with in the past," he said, "for what I've learned from them, consciously or unconsciously."

Ron Howard has had many lives in Hollywood. His career began in the 1950s with bit parts on television. In 1960, he began playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show," a role he held for more than 200 episodes. He followed that up with Richie on "Happy Days," which lasted until 1984.

These days, Howard has mostly stopped acting now that he also has a robust career as a director. After films as varied as "Backdraft," "Splash," "Apollo 13," and "Willow," Howard's 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind" finally netted him Oscar gold. In addition to winning a best picture statue for having produced the film, Howard also took home best director. 

"Golden boy?" he joked in his acceptance speech. "Well, I am not a good enough actor anymore to be able to stand up here and make you believe that I haven't imagined this moment in my mind over the years and played it out about a thousand times." 

Back in the day, Warren Beatty was quite the heartthrob. Early in his career, "Gilligan's Island" star Bob Denver pegged Beatty for stardom when they worked together on the late '50s/early '60s sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." From "Splendor in the Grass" to "Bonnie and Clyde," and from "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" to "The Parallax View," Beatty went on to be one of the most swooned-over men in Hollywood.

In 1981, he wrote, directed, and starred in "Reds," a film about a journalist tracking the rise of communism in Russia. The epic drama was nominated for an astounding 12 Oscars, ultimately winning three. Beatty himself would've taken home a statue had the film won best picture or best original screenplay, but he ultimately won best director.

In his acceptance speech, Beatty pointed out that the film being greenlit at all said something good. "I think that it reflects more particular credit on the freedom of expression that we have in our American society," he mused.

Jordan Peele first made his name as an actor. On his show "Key & Peele," Peele and Keegan-Michael Key set the comedy world alight with their incisive, yet thoroughly silly approach to sketch. They took that approach to the film world too, starring together in a film called "Keanu" about a kidnapped cat. 

That was 2016. In 2017, Peele stepped behind the camera. He wrote and directed "Get Out," an incisive, thoroughly disturbing, darkly funny thriller about a white family that steals bodies from Black people.

The film was a smash hit with audiences and critics alike, and at the Academy Awards, it was nominated for four honors. Peele won Best Original Screenplay, cementing the actor as a powerful new voice in the horror genre. "I stopped writing this movie about twenty times because I thought it was impossible," Peele said while accepting the award. "Let's keep going."

Frances McDormand has won several acting Oscars. She picked up her first back in 1997 for "Fargo," having led the film as easygoing Midwestern cop Marge Gunderson. In 2018, she won again, taking home a statue for her leading role in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

Just three years later, in 2021, McDormand won best actress again for her part in "Nomadland." That year, she won a second Oscar because she also produced the film, and it won best picture. Taking the stage with director Chloe Zhao, McDormand proudly told the audience, "Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible. And one day very, very soon take everyone you know into a theater, shoulder to shoulder in that dark space, and watch every film that's represented here tonight." In honor of the film's late sound mixer, M. Wolf Snyder, she punctuated her speech with a howl.

Clint Eastwood is one of the most celebrated actors of all time. His iconic scowl made films like "Dirty Harry" and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" into massive hits, and he cemented his legacy with tons of other Westerns, like "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

Eastwood has four Oscars, but none of them are for his acting. His first two came in 1993, when he directed a Western called "Unforgiven." The film took home best director and best picture, netting him two statues that night. "I've been around for thirty-nine years, and I've really enjoyed it," he said from the podium. "I've been very lucky."

In 2005, he took home two more, again for a best director and best picture double-header. That film was "Million Dollar Baby," and once again, Eastwood credited his luck. "I'm just lucky to be here. Lucky to be still working," he said. "I've got a lot of stuff to do yet."

In the 1980s and 1990s, Emma Thompson made her career as a thespian in several of Kenneth Branagh's filmed Shakespeare adaptations. She starred in "Henry V" in 1989 and followed it up with "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1993. She was also in other period pieces, too, like "The Remains of the Day."

"Sense and Sensibility" came out in 1995, and Thompson starred as Elinor Dashwood. She'd also adapted the Jane Austen novel for the big screen, a feat that took her all the way to the Oscars. Thompson won the award that was then called "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published." Standing on stage, she told the audience, "Before I came I went to visit Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral to pay my respects, you know, and to tell her about the grosses. And I don't know how she would react to an evening like this but I do hope, I do hope she knows how big she is in Uruguay."

Taika Waititi has been around for a while as an actor. In addition to credits dating back to the 1990s, when he was going by his birth name of Taika Cohen, he broke through to international audiences when he starred in "What We Do In The Shadows" — the movie, that is, not the FX television show.

He's also a director, and he often acts in his own projects. He voiced the rock-like alien Korg in "Thor: Ragnarok," for example, and he was also in "The Hunt for the Wilderpeople." In 2019 he starred as Adolf Hitler in "Jojo Rabbit," which he also wrote and directed.

Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" script won him the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. "I dedicate this to all the indigenous kids who live in the world who want to do art and dance and write stories. We are the original storytellers," he said in his acceptance speech. "And we can make it here as well."

Mel Gibson was a movie star long before he decided to try his hand at directing. Franchises like "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon" made him an action mainstay throughout the 1980s, and he even proved his Shakespearean bona fides in a 1991 adaptation of "Hamlet."

Four years later, in 1995, Gibson directed and starred in "Braveheart," an epic about Scottish warrior William Wallace. The film was hugely successful, not just at the box office but with critics. Thanks to his handling of the film's breathtaking battle sequences and emotional, rousing speeches, Gibson was awarded Oscars for best director and best picture.

In his acceptance speech, Gibson pointed out his unusual status in the industry. "Every director I've ever worked with, they were my film school," he said. "And now that I'm a bona fide director with a golden boy ... like most directors, I suppose what I really want to do is act."

In 2020, Brad Pitt won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood." That was actually Pitt's second Oscar, though he'd never won for his acting before. Instead, Pitt's first statue came thanks to his role as a producer — one of several people behind Steve McQueen's Best Picture winner "12 Years a Slave."

Pitt took the stage first, shouting out the real-life, formerly-enslaved writer whose story the film adapted. "I know I speak for everyone standing behind me that it has been an absolute privilege to work on Solomon's story," he said before handing the mic over to the film's director.

Backstage, Pitt answered a question from the gathered press about how all the producers spent the day leading up to the ceremony. "I had to clean up dog poop today," Pitt deadpanned (via CNN). "In my bedroom."

Kevin Costner has two Academy Awards, and he won them both for a movie he starred in. "Dances With Wolves" is a Western epic about a soldier who befriends a Native American tribe; Costner played the lead role, winning accolades from critics and audiences alike.

That being said, Costner's Oscar wins weren't for his performance. Instead, he won Best Director and Best Picture, taking home two statues because he also produced the film. In his acceptance speech for the Best Picture recognition, Costner obliquely acknowledged the end of the Gulf War. "I will never forget what happened here tonight," he said. "My Native American brothers and sisters across the country, especially the Lakota Sioux, will never forget ... 'Dances With Wolves' won this year, and while it's not as important as the rest of the world situation where it sits, it will always be important to us."

2006 was a breakthrough year for George Clooney at the Academy Awards. He won his first Oscar, earning best supporting actor for his role in "Syriana," but he was also nominated for two others. That year, he wrote and directed "Good Night, and Good Luck," which got him noticed like never before. Over the next few years, Clooney would be nominated several more times for his acting and several more times for his work as a writer and director.

In 2013, he won again. This time, he picked up a Best Picture Oscar thanks to the fact that he produced "Argo." Clooney didn't speak on stage as they accepted the award, but he had plenty to say after the broadcast concluded. After a journalist asked Ben Affleck how it felt to miss out on a Best Director nomination for the film (via CNN), Clooney joked, "I wasn't nominated as an actor! ... [I'm] not in the movie."

The world first met Sarah Polley as an actor. She was a child star perhaps best known for her role in "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," where director Terry Gilliam reportedly terrified Polley with his use of explosives. She went on to a solid career as an adult too, appearing in genre classics like "eXistenZ," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Splice."

Polley hasn't acted since 2010 and has moved behind the camera instead. In 2022, she won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay thanks to her work on "Women Talking," which she also directed. Polley used her acceptance speech as a chance to draw attention to the abuse of women at the center of her film, telling the audience, "The last line of our film is delivered by a young woman to a new baby, and she says: 'Your story will be different from ours.' It's a promise, a commitment, and an anchor."

When "The Descendants" won the Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, three people picked up golden statues. In addition to director and co-writer Alexander Payne, the script was also written by actors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon. Rash is perhaps best known as the costume-wearing Dean Pelton on the NBC sitcom "Community," while Faxon is a funnyman who can be spotted in everything from "Reno 9-1-1" to "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story."

Payne was the only one who gave a speech, but Rash got noticed anyway; he went viral for standing onstage like Angelina Jolie, leg out. Rash later addressed his win in an interview with People. "When my name was announced as [a] winner at the Oscars, the first thought to go through my head was, sorry, but, 'Holy s***.' That's how it goes, folks," he said.

"Landman" star Billy Bob Thornton has been nominated for three Oscars. Two were for performing — in "A Simple Plan" and "Sling Blade" — but those aren't the ones he won. In addition to starring in the film, Thornton also wrote it, and it was the screenplay that won him the award.

Back then, it was called "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published," and Thornton won for his script about a mentally disabled man who strikes up a friendship with a kid after being released from prison. "Whoa. Lord, have mercy," Thornton said to cheers upon taking the stage. "This is a terrific honor and, you know, this is the big one. What can you say? To the Academy, all you people who supported everything this year, not just this, and a bunch of great actors and crew people in this movie, God bless you all."