- Raymond
Massey was
nominated as Best Actor in 1940
for playing Abraham Lincoln in
Abe Lincoln in Illinois.
- Alexander
Knox was nominated as Best Actor in 1944 for playing Woodrow Wilson in Wilson.
- James
Whitmore was nominated as Best Actor in 1975 for playing Harry S. Truman in
Give `em Hell, Harry!
- Anthony
Hopkins was nominated as Best Actor in 1995
for playing Richard M. Nixon in Nixon. Hopkins also
received a 1997 Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing John Quincy Adams in Amistad.
- Frank
Langella was also nominated as Best Actor for playing Tricky Dick in
Frost/Nixon in 2008.
- Daniel Day-Lewis became the second actor to be nominated for playing the rail splitter for his performance in Lincoln (2012)
Of the actors who were nominated for playing a real-life U.S. president, only Whitmore and Langella were born in the United States. Massey and Knox were Canadian and Day-Lewis is British. Hopkins was born in Wales but became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Sam Rockwell was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for playing President George Bush in Vice (2018), the biopic of his V.P. Dick Cheney.
Actors
nominated for playing ficitional US Presidents include
Peter Sellers for playing President Merkin Muffley (as well as Lionel
Mandrake and
Dr. Strangelove) in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Jeff Bridges for playing President Jackson Evans
in The Contender. |
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