Winning an Oscar is perhaps one of the highest honors one can hold in this world, and the Oscar statuette itself is, as Jim Carrey once called it, the King of All Kickknacks. It is one of the more iconic images in show business, and the Oscar (designed by sculptor George Stanley in 1927) has been handed out to only about 3,000 people over the years. Given how coveted the award is, it’s easy to imagine ourselves – we the hoi polloi – as Oscar winners, and several of us have likely imagined a scenario wherein we can prepare a speech, put on a nice outfit, and clear off a shelf to keep our own imaginary awards.
Also: The Academy’s Biggest Losers | When Oscar Nominations Go Bad
Or perhaps I’m the only one to do that. Personally, I’d have my imaginary Oscar fashioned into a necklace, and I would wear it everywhere, no matter how impractical that may be (the statuette weighs about 8 1/2 pounds). I would build up my own back and shoulder muscles to accommodate my own vanity.
But that, of course, is me. For the people who actually have won Oscars, the decision on where to put it is a very real one. Indeed, where people put their Oscars has been a playful matter of journalistic curiosity since time immemorial, and the question is asked of Oscar winners often. Various outlets often poll famous actors as to where their statuettes are kept, and those polled are open about their answers. Some keep them in expected places, although at least one of them doesn’t keep hers on display at all.
Where Oscar Winners Keep Their Oscars
Top Image: Paramount/AMPAS
Witney Seibold is a longtime contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Where Do they Keep Their Oscars?
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Dustin Hoffman
A studious man who won Academy Awards for his performances in both Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man has said that he keeps his Oscars in his study. We haven't been to Hoffman's house, but it's easy to imagine a room full of books, low lighting, and darkened wood furniture. This was admitted to InStyle, where he also said they used to be kept out of sight.
Image: MGM/UA
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Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson has won two Oscars, one for her performance in Howard's End, and another for her writing of Sense & Sensibility. In an interview with The Guardian she said her statuettes were gaudy, and the only good place for them is in her bathroom.
Image: Columbia Pictures
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George Clooney
Clooney also has two Academy Awards, for acting in Syriana, and for producing the Best Picture winner Argo. Like Hoffman, as he told The Guardian, he keeps his statuettes in a studious place: His personal library.
Image: Warner Bros.
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Goldie Hawn
Hawn won an Academy Award back in 1969 for her performance in Cactus Flower, playing opposite Walter Matthau. A famously spiritual person, Hawn, according to InStyle, keeps her Oscar in a room in her house she calls "The India Room." It's where she goes to meditate.
Image: Columbia Pictures
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Gwyneth Paltrow
Paltrow won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, and she may feel ambivalent about the attention she got. She claims to have her statuette "tucked away." Evidently, as she told Digital Spy, it's not on display anywhere.
Image: Miramax
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Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence, one of the more lauded actresses of her generation, won an Oscar for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook, and gave the statuette to her parents. According to The Radio Times, they keep it in her old Kentucky home, on top the piano.
Image: The Weinstein Company
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Jodie Foster
For many years, Foster, who won Oscars for The Accused and for The Silence of the Lambs, kept her Oscars in the bathroom in an attempt to be modest. She has since moved them into a trophy case. This was a fact collected by ABC News.
Image: Orion Pictures
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Kate Winslet
The bathroom seems to be a rather popular place to keep an Oscar. I like to think that all actors keep them atop their toilet tanks. Winslet, who won her Oscar for The Reader, has said her statuette is in her loo, according to an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Image: The Weinstein Company
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Russell Crowe
Crowe, who won an Oscar for Gladiator, feels that the statuette has some appealing properties that help chickens lay eggs, so he keeps his statuette, as he told The Guardian, in a chicken coop in his Australian ranch.
Image: DreamWorks
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Timothy Hutton
Once, just to play a prank on some party guests, Timothy Hutton stuck his Oscar, won for Ordinary People, in his refrigerator. Evidently, according to ABC News, he liked in there so much, that it remains there to this day.
Image: Paramount
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Tom Hanks
Hanks famously won the Best Actor Oscar two years in a row (for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump), but he is still one of the friendlier and humbler of Hollywood's giant stars, keeping his Oscars - according to The Hollywood Reporter - on the same shelf as football trophies and "World's Greatest Mom" trophies.
Image: TriStar Pictures
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Anna Paquin
Anna Paquin admitted to InStyle Magazine that she keeps her Oscar for The Piano, won when she was a wee lass, in her closet next to her boots.
Image: Miramax
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Susan Sarandon
As told to The Hollywood Reporter, Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for Dead Man Walking, used to keep her Oscar in a guest bathroom, but eventually lent it to a traveling exhibit in the Natural History Museum, according to what she told ABC News. It doesn't seem to be in earshot anymore.
Image: Gramercy Pictures
