The Best Action Figues of Oscar Winners

Tim and I had this idea for a blog post about Oscar-winning actors and actresses who happen to have action figures, and although I didn’t get a chance to post it before the Oscars this year, at least I can get it in for this week’s challenge from The League.

At first I was going to make this a definitive list of every Oscar-winning actor who also has an action figure, but after doing some research I realized there are a veritable shit-ton of them. Since none of them seem to have action figures for the roles they won Oscars for (that would be awesome), I’ve opted to just collect the 10 best examples I could find.

So, get out your Morgan Freeman action figure and read the rest of this post in his voice, because here we go.

Kevin Spacey

Mr. Spacey has won two Academy Awards so far, for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty. Although I would have dropped some cash to get a Keyser Söze action figure, his action figure actually comes from the 2006 most-people-hate-it-but-I-kind-of-like-it movie Superman Returns. I’m impressed at how easily they were able to make this tiny piece of sculpted plastic look like him. When I track one down, I’m going to replace his body with a generic guy-in-a-suit so I can recreate the Will you go to lunch! scene from Glengarry Glen Ross.

Dustin Hoffman

If I would have been giving out Oscars in 1991, Dustin Hoffman would have won Most Awesome Villain for his portrayal of Captain Hook in Hook. I loved (and still love) that movie, but the action figure line was horrible. I had a Hook figure with adjustable legs, and I never played with it. All the cool kids had Rufio. Hoffman won for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man, neither of which produced any action figure lines (another bummer).

Alec Guinness

This is perhaps the oldest and most awesome example, because Sir. Alec Guinness was a proper actor before being molded into plastic for the marketing machine behind Star Wars in 1977. This is also the closest to an actor having a figure for their actual Oscar, because Guinness was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Obi-Wan, but lost to Jason Rhubarbs Robards, who unfortunately does not have an action figure as far as I can tell.

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence just won an Oscar for some movie I’ve never heard of, but I’m giving her some credit here for her geek-icon status as Katniss in The Hunger Games. She was awesome in Winter’s Bone, but I don’t know many other people besides me who would have bought action figures about poor Ozarks Methpeople. I think it’s safe to say that Lawrence will have a lot more action figures under her belt throughout her career too, because blockbusters.

Robin Williams

Robin Williams of course had an action figure in the Hook line too, but it looked nothing like anyone remotely resembling Robin Williams, so instead I’m using his Mork & Mindy figure. I’m going to have to track down this figure because it actually looks a lot like him, and it would be fun to repackage it as an 80s Robin Williams toy complete with cocaine lines and really hairy arms. He won for Good Will Hunting probably for that awesome park-bench monologue scene.

Morgan Freeman

I mentioned this one before, and it’s the action figure that gave me this whole idea. I’ve always loved my Azeem action figure from the guilty pleasure Robin Hood movie of the early 90s. That action figure line famously reused a bunch of Kenner molds from Star Wars, but I always thought Morgan Freeman’s looked pretty damn good. Plus, if you take off his cloth robe, he kind of looks like a super hero. Trust me. Freeman won for Million Dollar Baby, without even having a toy line.

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones surprisingly didn’t win an Oscar for his role in No Country for Old Men, but instead he got a Best Supporting Actor award for The Fugitive. He also got a ridiculous costume and action figure for 1995’s Batman Forever as Two-Face. Batman Forever was a favorite of mine as a kid, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like it very much now but I haven’t given it another chance yet. I wouldn’t mind seeing Tommy Lee Jones eat up the scenery as Harvey Dent one last time though. Maybe I’ll flip for it…

Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi won an Oscar for The Color Purple, one of the few Steven Spielberg movies I haven’t seen. I’m sure she’s way more proud of the fact she has a Star Trek action figure though. You know she’s got her Oscar sitting right next to her Guinan figure on some shelf in a mansion somewhere.

Jeff Bridges

This one is kind of obvious, but The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, has a coulpe action figures for the two TRON movies, and I can’t decide which one looks the worst. The 80s version lacks any detail at all, but the Tron: Legacy version doesn’t look like Bridges much at all. I’d much rather have a figure of his version of Rooster Cogburn from True Grit. He won for Crazy Heart, aka the Movie I Still Haven’t Seen for Some Reason.

Kevin Costner

Last and also least on my list is Kevin Costner’s action figure from the Robin Hood movie I mentioned above. Kevin Costner is one of those guys I can never decide if I like or not, and every Mom I ever meet seems to be in love with him. I grew up playing with this action figure and always just kind of thought of it as a Kevin Costner action figure instead of Robin Hood, mainly because I instantly lost the bow and arrow when I opened it. He won double-whammy Actor/Director Oscars for Dances with Wolves in 1990.

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I was a little disappointed to find that John Wayne never had an action figure back in the day. He has plenty now, but that doesn’t count. Also, it should be noted that I’m super lazy and probably missed some really good ones, but that’s why the site has comments, right?

What other award-winning actors have action figures that I left out? Or better yet, what action figures would you like to see based on actual award-winning roles?

Oscar-worthy posts from The League this week:

• Jaime at Shezcrafti made us all an 80s Oscar Mixtape
• Shawn at Branded in the 80s Rewrote Oscar History
• Henchgirl breaks down the Five Kinds of Fringe Oscar Winners