See 2023 Oscar Nominees in Their Earliest Roles: Then and Now

It’s been fairly a journey to the 2023 Oscars—simply ask these nominees.

Whirlwind awards season apart, stars like Austin Butler, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh spent years—a long time, even—working and honing their crafts earlier than touchdown their nods. From the time of their performing debuts to now, these Academy Award hopefuls skilled a rollercoaster of feelings each on and off the display screen.

Take Ke Huy Quan, for instance, who broke out into Hollywood at simply 12 years previous in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The actor went on to nab a component in the beloved coming-of-age flick The Goonies, however mentioned he struggled to safe work as he acquired older attributable to an absence of Asian American roles in the trade. Eventually, he graduated from movie college and pursued a profession behind the digicam—solely to seek out success once more in the critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere All at Once.

“When I stepped away from that dream, all the dreams that I had of imagining one day walking down the red carpet at the Oscars, those dreams dissipated,” Quan, who’s up for a Best Supporting Actor award, recalled in a current interview with Good Morning America. “They were so distant that I didn’t think they would ever come back.”