Many aspiring actors and actresses see winning an Oscar as the ultimate goal in one’s career. A Golden Globe or Screen Actors Guild Award is nice, but there is nothing quite as revered as the Academy’s top honors.
Past winners like the 2023 Best Supporting Actor Ke Huy Quan or 2022’s Best Supporting Actress Ariana Debose were primed to have flourishing careers post win. But how successful are they really?
Ke Huy Quan won his Oscar for the 2022 phenomenon “Everything Everywhere All at Once” as Waymond Wang, acting opposite established actress Michelle Yeoh. It was his first main role since “The Goonies” in 1985, and the public quickly fell in love with Quan’s touching story and bubbly demeanor.
Since his win, Quan has mainly stuck to supporting roles in shows like “Loki” and “American Born Chinese.” Though well received, none of these roles have been nearly as impactful as Waymond Wang.
Ariana Debose found Oscar success in 2021 as Anita in “West Side Story.” The once-Broadway-actress-turned-movie star has continued to star in middle of the road movies like “Argyle,” “Kraven the Hunter” and “Wish” in the time since her win.
Though talented superstars in their own right, Quan and Debose have seemingly become victims to the heavily speculated Oscar curse.
The Oscar curse is the idea that winners of Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress will have a poor career after their win. Not just that they will never win again, but that their future roles and projects will be nowhere near as sophisticated or respected as their winning role.
The originator of this pattern was Luise Rainer, who was the first person to win multiple Oscars when she won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1937 and 1938. Though she created history with her wins, Rainer later stated that “nothing worse could have happened to me.” She went on to explain that movie studios began to put her in anything and she lost her creative control, eventually stepping away from Hollywood altogether only one year after her second win.
Other perpetrators of this curse include 2002 Best Actress winner Halle Berry and 1999 Best Actor and Best Actress winners Roberto Benigni and Gwenyth Paltrow. All three reached one of the highest heights in the entertainment industry, but have failed to even come close since, despite their best efforts.
In 2025, the Oscar curse claimed its most recent victims. Though it has only been three and two years since Ariana Debose and Ke Huy Quan’s big wins, their film projects have left much to be desired for audiences and critics alike.
Their joint venture, the 2025 action comedy film “Love Hurts,”currently has an 18% critics score on the popular film rating website Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is not as bad, but isn’t impressive either, sitting at a fine 61%.
Main critics of the film blame the unbelievable romantic relationship between Quan and Debose and the nonsensical, often rushed plot, for its poor rating. Debose is specifically called out for her weak performance, with many suggesting that she stick to her stage-acting roots.
As someone who has seen “Love Hurts” in theaters, I am unfortunately inclined to agree. Most of my enjoyment while viewing came from watching Quan and co-star Marshawn Lynch do what they do best: be charismatic in front of a camera. The action scenes were fun, but many of the line deliveries and plot points had me shaking my head in confusion.
“Love Hurts” is proof that two Oscar winners alone do not make a good film. Though the Oscar curse seems to still be in effect currently, I have hope that Quan and Debose can break through and have thriving careers with their next projects.
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