Every year, big names in the film industry are presented with the Oscar at the Academy Awards. Once there was a special nomination – because in reality there was no winner.
Which Oscar was it about? At the Academy Awards in 2003, Charlie and Donald Kaufman were nominated in the “Best Adapted Screenplay” category for their script for the film Adaptation (via oscars.org).
But in reality, Donald Kaufman doesn’t exist. He is the first fictional character ever to be nominated for the film award.
Here you can see a German trailer for the adaptation with Nicolas Cage in the roles Charlie and Donald Kaufman:
German trailer for adaptation with Nicolas Cage in a double role
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That’s why a fictional character was nominated for an Oscar
How did the nomination come about? The script for Adaptation was actually written by Charlie Kaufman. At that time he was commissioned to produce the book The Orchid Thief as a screenplay.
However, he was plagued by writer’s block and he simply couldn’t come up with a green denominator. So instead of a pure 1:1 adaptation of the book, he wrote a slightly different story, namely the plot of Adaptation.
What is adaptation about? It’s about self-hating screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who has a fictional twin brother named Donald and has problems adapting The Orchid Thief into a film.
The writer simply had the brilliant idea of writing his current situation as a story. Donald is Charlie’s personal nightmare, but he then becomes a source of inspiration for the screenwriter and thus embodies the writing process behind the film.
In the end, because Charlie Kaufman was so grateful that the character had solved his writer’s block, Donald was quickly listed as the adaptation’s co-writer.
Because the name is in the credits, the character was then included in the Oscar nomination alongside the actual author.
If you want to know who was nominated for an Oscar this year, then check out our colleagues from Filmstarts here: The Oscar nominations 2024: “Oppenheimer” vs. “Barbie” – and Germany also has a chance at the film award
Did the brothers win the Oscar? The Oscar for Best Adapted Script did not go to Adaptation, but was ultimately given to Ronald Harwood for the screenplay of The Pianist.
However, with his nomination, Donald Kaufman secured an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as “First fictional character to be nominated for an Oscar.”
You could have seen Nicolas Cage not only in the adaptation but also in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, he rejected the project. He once explained why exactly in an interview: Nicolas Cage could have had a leading role in “Lord of the Rings” – but he turned it down because he wasn’t as badass as he was in “Massive Talent”.