One you never heard of before is Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit.” She carries the picture but was only 13 years old and never had been in a movie before. She was chosen out of 15,000 applicants -- the Coen brothers, Bridges and Matt Damon have nothing but praise at her acting, especially the stilted dialog. Much, much better than Kim Darby in the 1969 original.
Kim Darby was pretty wooden in the original, IIRC.
“the Coen brothers, Bridges and Matt Damon have nothing but praise at her acting, especially the stilted dialog”
That’s an odd way of putting it. The Coen Brothers dialogue is strange, but I wouldn’t exactly call it stilted. That’s the way it would read, I suppose. But the way it’s delivered is usually very funny and appropriate in context, if appearing weird and unnatural from the outside.
Or maybe that’s what you mean, it would be “stilted” without being delivered with care, which could be to the actress’ credit. I always figured the Coens themselves pretty well controlled their actors’ speech, like the way they control their camera angles. That is, given the how similar have been the performances across their ouvre.
Some actors especially excel at it, like John Goodman and Jeff Bridges, which is probably why they’ve made multiple appearances. I don’t know if this actress is one of them, or one of the various other people who have wafted in and out of Coen Brothers movies. Nominating her may just be a way of indirectly nominating them.