For the first time ever, two real life showbiz couples are nominated for Oscars in the four acting categories. The nominations for the 94th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday. Penelope Cruz and husband Javier Bardem are up for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively. Kirsten Dunst has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and her partner Jesse Plemons for Best Supporting Actor. Couples have scored nominations together at previous Oscars, even winning; this is, however, the first time that two couples have been nominated and covered all four acting categories.
Penelope Cruz is a Best Actress nominee for her work in Parallel Mothers. Javier Bardem is in the running for Best Actor for his performance in Being The Ricardos. Penelope and Javier, co-stars of films like Jamon, Jamon and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, married in 2010 and have two children.
Kirsten Dunst and partner Jesse Plemons, who play a married couple in The Power Of The Dog, are up for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor. The Power Of The Dog leads the Oscar nominations this year with 12 nods including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch and Best Supporting Actor for Kodi Smit-McPhee. Kirsten and Jesse have been a couple since they were cast together in the second season of Fargo in 2016. They have two children.
Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons in The Power Of The Dog. (Film still)
Penelope-Javier and Kirsten-Jesse join a surprisingly long list of couples up for Oscars in the same year. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were a couple when they were nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress at the Oscars in 2009, he for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and she for Changeling. Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams were also nominated together at the Oscars and for the same film - Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Brokeback Mountain in 2006.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were a couple when they were nominated in 2009. (Image courtesy: AFP)
The 1996 film version of Fargo fetched Oscar wins for real life couple Frances McDormand and Joel Coen. She won the first of her three Best Actress awards, he shared the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with brother Ethan Coen.
A Best Actress win came for Vivien Leigh in 1940 for her performance in Gone With The Wind; soon-to-be husband Laurence Olivier was nominated for Best Actor for Wuthering Heights. In 1967, Elizabeth Taylor won Best Actress for Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf Husband and co-star Richard Burton was nominated for Best Actor. Most recently, Alicia Vikander won Best Supporting Actress in 2016 for The Danish Girl; Michael Fassbender was nominated for Best Actor for Steve Jobs - the couple married the next year.
Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. (Image courtesy: AFP)
The first ever couple to be nominated for Oscars in the same year were The Guardsman co-stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine who were up for Best Actor and Best Actress in 1932. Other couples include Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts in 1964, nominated for Best Actor (Cleopatra) and Best Actress (This Sporting Life); Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in 1969 for Rachel - she had a Best Actress nod, he Best Picture as producer; and John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands in 1975, nominated for Best Director and Best Actress for A Woman Under The Influence.