Who Should Have Been Invited to the Academy’s Acting Branch (a Year-by-Year Simulation)

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One of the less publicized elements of the Academy Awards is who gets invited to join the Academy every year. Every year, a press release gets sent out and it usually gets pushed down to the proverbial page six of Hollywood trade magazines. It doesn’t really get much more than an obligatory post on corresponding entertainment websites.

From digging up press releases, it appears that about 20–25 are from the actors branch. This often includes people who have just been nominated for the first time (provided they didn’t get an at-large invite).

This is the 2014 list which includes 5 first-time nominees from the year before, a nominee from 2005 (David Straithairn) who’s paperwork must have gotten lost in the shuffle, a variety of people who were hot at the moment (Josh Hutcherson coming off the Hunger Games; Julia Louis-Dreyfuss having the hit movie Enough Said) with people who had been amassing notable roles for a while (Ben Foster, Beth Grant)

Barkhad Abdi — “Captain Phillips”, Clancy Brown — “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano — “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”, *Michael Fassbender — “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”,
Ben Foster — “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”, Beth Grant — “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”, Clark Gregg — “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”, *Sally Hawkins — “Blue Jasmine,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”, Josh Hutcherson — “The Hunger Games,” “The Kids Are All Right”. Julia Louis-Dreyfus — “Enough Said,” “Planes”, Kelly Macdonald — “Brave,” “No Country for Old Men”, Mads Mikkelsen — “The Hunt,” “Casino Royale”, Joel McKinnon Miller — “Super 8,” “The Truman Show”, Cillian Murphy — “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Inception”, *Lupita Nyong’o — “Non-Stop,” “12 Years a Slave”, Rob Riggle — “21 Jump Street,” “The Hangover”, Chris Rock — “Grown Ups 2,” “Madagascar” *June Squibb — “Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”, Jason Statham — “Parker,” “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. David Strathairn — “Lincoln,” “Good Night, and Good Luck.