Oscar-Nominated Actors Reveal Their Favorite Movie Moments

LOS ANGELES -- Many of this year's Oscar-nominated actors first experienced the magic of movies as children.

When asked on Oscar.com to reflect on their favorite movie moments, nominees such as Jessica Chastain, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman and Octavia Spencer immediately went back in time.

"My favorite was perhaps the first time I saw `E.T.' as a kid," said Spencer, who is nominated for supporting actress for her turn as Minny Jackson in "The Help." "The first time I saw E.T., the actual image of an alien, and he was so sweet-looking. I wanted him. I wanted E.T."

Oldman, up for best actor for his role in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," said he remembers seeing "A Hard Day's Night" at age 5 with his teenage sisters at the Rialto Theater in South London "and my sister nudging me because I was singing too loud along with the songs."

Branagh was a young kid at a Belfast theater with his family when he experienced his first memorable movie moment: Seeing Dick Van Dyke "driving Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over a cliff at the end of the first half of that movie," said the supporting actor nominee for "My Week With Marilyn."

"All the audience gave a huge, "Aww," and then it said intermission and we didn't know what was going to happen until we came back with popcorn and ice cream 10 minutes later," Branagh recalled. "And it was a flying car! The car was going to fly, and that was just a wonderful moment of real sheer cinema magic."

Chastain, also nominated for "The Help," said she was dazzled as a little kid watching "The Wizard of Oz."

"That was the beginning, for me, of my love affair with movies and me wanting to be a part of that wonder," she said.

George Clooney and Viola Davis said they were both moved by the same film: 1976's "Network." Both cited Peter Finch's unraveling character as particularly inspiring.

"When he's breaking down for the first time and he's rambling and rambling and it's so honest but at the same time so completely out of control and he says, `I'm just mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore,'" recalled Davis, nominated for lead actress for her role in "The Help." "It was just a revelation of a man who could be insane but at the same time was just so absolutely lucid."

Melissa McCarthy, meanwhile, said Davis provided her most memorable movie moment.

"I always think of Viola Davis in `Doubt,'" the "Bridesmaids" star said. "That singular moment when she was talking, speaking in the park about her son, to me was one of the most impactful, little tiny moments. I remember it just blew my mind."

These and other nominated actors share their favorite film moments in a series of videos posted on Oscar.com. The 84th annual Academy Awards will be presented Sunday at the Hollywood & Highland Center and broadcast live on ABC.

___

___

Online:

Comments

[Worrierking]

11:10 AM on 02/26/2012

The Oscars are meaningless. Evidenced by "Goodfellas" losing to "Dancing With Wolves", "Fargo" losing to "The English Patient", And both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line" losing to "Shakespeare in Love" and Phil Collins winning for best song over Randy Newman.

[BillAnthony]

11:12 PM on 02/25/2012

First movie I recall seeing, and had a memorable impact was Jason and the Argonauts at a drive-in. Next I loved watching the weekend and late night horror films grade A-Z including the original Universal classics. Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (the original) and Little Shop of Horrors stand out as a kid. Some local channels, there were four in L.A. would show the same movie every night of the week, like a theater. My friends and I were fixated by a week of The Blob. Night of the Living Dead was a jolt in a theater on a grey Fall Saturday afternoon. 12 Angry Men home alone from school on a rainy Friday afternoon. Loved and was especially moved by the finale of Papillion. Frankenstein stumbling upon a blind man in I think it was Bride of Frankenstein made me cry as a kid. Cinema Paradiso's "original" commercial version emotional ending on a big screen was breathtakingly out of the blue. Also grew up on the great 70's films, that often provided a cool glimpse into the grownup world. My favorite guilty pleasure scene might be the nightclub seduction between Stacy Walker (Miss Winters) and hoodlum "Tony" in A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine. That's where the movie ends for me as it goes bad after that. The whole soundtrack to Jess Franco's Venus in Furs, sadly unavailable as a soundtrack recording, is a thing of beauty to me.

[songbird-53]

05:21 PM on 02/25/2012

mary poppins!

[freddsky]

10:57 AM on 02/25/2012

It was that moment in Body of Evidence when Madonna actually got Willem Dafoe to lie down on broken glass for her, that I realized that Lee Strasberg must be dead. And glad.

[dbrockskk]

10:24 AM on 02/25/2012

I gave up when Brokeback lost to Crash.

[Arthur Byron Cover]

01:22 PM on 02/24/2012

After having watched a gazillion Hammer movies, westerns, b&w sci fi epics, if you could call 'em that, the first time I remember thinking movies could a powerful medium in other ways was when I saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the theater when I was 12 or 13. I don't know if the film is considered liberal or conservative these days (there's a big shout out to the notion of black obtaining their civil rights in it), certainly John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart were infinity to the right of the young man I was to become, but it certainly had something to say about how civilization changes and evolves.

[Megandale]

08:10 AM on 02/24/2012

ET was my first experience feeling the magic of movies...still love revisiting ET today

[rich3324]

07:15 AM on 02/24/2012

In to Kill a Mockingbird, when Attics is leaving the court room after Tom Robinson was found guilty.

[Carlynn Lawrence]

12:18 PM on 02/24/2012

Awesome moment, I got chills just thinking of that. Attics is one of the best characters ever in print or screen. Love the movie and the book equally. And that is rare for me.

[prog]

01:06 PM on 02/26/2012

Atticus.

[Lat24]

08:01 PM on 02/23/2012

One of the most seductive pieces of film on record is the dance scene between Kim Novak and William Holden in the 1955 masterpiece "Picnic" Their simple physical presence on screen, the stunning musical score and the obvious geniuses at work behind the camera, provided a very young girl her first reason to willingly go to confession before Sunday morning mass.

[dbrockskk]

07:21 PM on 02/23/2012

I gave up when Brokeback lost to Crash.

[Contact1972]

09:48 PM on 02/23/2012

That was BS-'Brokeback Mountain' should have won.

[Contact1972]

05:00 PM on 02/23/2012

The very first movie I saw in a theater was ' Star Wars' in 1977. I was a transfixed 5 year old and right then and there, I fell in love with movies.

[Lat24]

08:08 PM on 02/23/2012

I was .... WELL BEYOND 5 years old in 1977 ... but I stood in line just like every other pseudo adult and was just as blown away as you were the first time I saw it ... and the 2nd time .... and ... well .. you get the picture. lol

[alsm9]

11:11 PM on 02/23/2012

Me too!!!!!! 5! First film! I remember my feet just went over the edge of the seat and when the ship came onto the screen at the beginning of the film I knew it was going to be good. It looked like a real space ship in outer space! lol! Not a cartoon. :)

[Contact1972]

02:21 PM on 02/24/2012

Fanned for the love of 'Star Wars' and our mutual appreciation of it at 5 lol!!!!

[TOats99377]

03:18 PM on 02/23/2012

I love the moment in "Network" too. I saw it for the first time last year (bad me) and I was surprised by how relevant it is today. www.thelettersproject.org

[totalliberal]

05:32 PM on 02/23/2012

Unfortunately Roger Ailes saw it also. And cheered for the Mega-corp.

[TOats99377]

06:26 PM on 02/23/2012

Ugh, you had to remind me. www.thelettersproject.org