The Surprising Places Oscar Winners Keep Their Awards

Reese Witherspoon

Now that's a statement necklace. Though the Walk the Line lead flirted with the idea of turning her 2005 Best Actress Oscar into a piece of jewelry or a very showy door knocker, "Neither one of those options was very practical," the star, who nabbed a Golden Globe for the same role, admitted to People. "I just keep it in my living room." 

Goldie Hawn

Any time the actress needs to clear her head, she pays a visit to the statue she claimed in 1970 for her supporting role in Cactus Flower. "My award is in the room where I study and practice meditation," she explained to InStyle in 2005. "Sometimes it's on the mantel, sometimes I put it away."

Dustin Hoffman

Be he ever so humble, at first, the two-time Oscar winner didn't want to set out the statues he'd picked up in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer and 1989 for Rain Man. By the early aughts, though, he told InStyle that they'd earned a place on his study's mantle next to his six Golden Globes (including 1997's Cecil B. DeMille Award). "What made me change?" he asked. "Probably years of therapy! I am proud of them, but they are not what propels me in my work."

Jamie Foxx

Blame it on the vodka, blame it on the Henny, blame it on the blue top that got you feeling busy, but Foxx didn't feel entirely comfortable keeping his 2004 Oscar for Ray at his 40-acre California estate. "My manager holds the Oscar. He keeps it at his crib," the actor told InStyle. "I got too much traffic at my house!"

Jennifer Hudson

And she is telling you, she's not going...to stand for any touching of the trophy. "Where I come from, no one has ever seen an Oscar," the Chicago native told InStyle of her 2007 prize for Dreamgirls. "So I let people take pictures with it—but I do not allow them to touch it. Sorry, no touching the Oscar! It's the ultimate honor, and I need to protect it." Not to mention, give the hardware its proper due: The 13.5-inch piece sits atop its own pedestal, said Hudson, "that I keep lit."  

Kevin Costner

After Costner finally got over his fear that someone might walk off with the two Oscars he won for Dances With Wolves in 1991, he retrieved them from his underwear drawer and built them a home inside his screening room. Calling it the "perfect spot," he told InStyle, "As you go to my screening room, you pass posters of movies that have influenced me (Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai). And it feels appropriate that you have to see a movie to see them."

Timothy Hutton

Well, this certainly brings new meaning to "grab a cold one." When Hutton nabbed an Academy Award at age 20 for his work in 1980's Ordinary People his sister "thought that would be kind of funny to put the Oscar in the refrigerator when people would go grab a beer or something," he admitted. "It's still there."  

Jane Fonda

Somehow we missed this Jane Fonda's Workout video. Speaking to InStyle in 1998, the acting legend joked of her Academy Awards for 1972's Klute and 1979's Coming Home, "What's great about having won two Oscars is that I can do a workout with them!" Still wed to media magnate Ted Turner at the time, she told the mag that when they met "he showed me his wall-to-wall sailing trophies in an office big enough for a skating rink, I turned to him and said, 'Honey, I've won a few trophies too. Where am I going to put mine?' So we built a trophy case in Montana and keep them all together."

Ben Affleck & Matt Damon

How 'bout them trophies? Well, Damon reportedly misplaced his 1998 statue after a flood in his New York City apartment, while his Good Will Hunting cowriter took a more go-with-the-flow approach. "At first the award lived in my apartment in L.A.," Affleck told InStyle in 2004. "Then I gave it to my mother. I allowed her to hold it hostage in Boston in lieu of a grandson." After awhile, though, "I stole it back and it kicked around from office to office. I've kept it in pretty mundane locations, on desks or bookshelves."

Shirley MacLaine

After nabbing a Best Actress Oscar in 1984 for Terms of Endearment, the five-time Golden Globe winner put that little guy to work. "I live more simply now. I don't care about clothes, and many of my awards are in drawers or in storage," she explained years later to InStyle. Her Academy Award, though, lived in her den next to a statue of the Hindu God Siva that she got in India. "Oscar serves a very practical purpose," she continued of the eight-and-a-half-pound trophy. "When the winds blow through my New Mexico ranch, he keeps The New York Times from blowing away."

Gwyneth Paltrow

A regular Shakespearean tragedy. Though the actress emerged victorious at the 1999 Oscars thanks to her lead part in Shakespeare in Love, she never truly felt great about her win, telling Contact Music she stashed the trophy "at the back of the bookshelf in my bedroom because it weirds me out." For whatever reason, she continued, "I haven't been able to feel really good about it. I just feel sort of embarrassed and it brings up weird, traumatic feelings. It's associated with a tough time in my life."

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Life's a beach for the Academy Award the Chicago star picked up a month before giving birth to daughter Carys in 2003. "He's in our home in Bermuda," she revealed to InStyle of the island spread she shares with husband Michael Douglas. "I figured that not many Oscars have lived there. Of course, everyone who visits wants a photograph with him."

Alicia Vikander

Someone turn this into a movie. With the Swedish actress not settled into a permanent pad at the time, she left her 2016 Best Actress trophy for The Danish Girl with a friend in L.A., prompting her pal's daughter to turn the experience into an adventure. The little girl "has been sending me photos to prove she's taking good care of him," Vikander told People. "I love my little updates from her!"

Tom Hanks

Sounds like Hanks and wife Rita Wilson's trophy shelf is a bit like a box of chocolates. You never quite know what you're going to get. At one point, the actor said his two Oscars (for 1993's Philadelphia and 1994's Forrest Gump) were holding court with some soccer awards. Added Hanks, "I think the World's Greatest Mom trophy from Mother's Day is up there as well."

Stone has got her little man covered thanks to an assist from pal Jimmy Kimmel. After hosting the ceremony 2017 when the actress won for La La Land, Kimmel "sent underwear for [my Oscar], like rubber underwear, so he's wearing tighty-whities," she revealed to People. "Jimmy said, 'I'd like to bring some decency into your home.'" Well, her mother's home, really, Stone sharing that mom Krista "holds on to it."

Ridin' solo: "It's just on a shelf on its own," the 12 Years a Slave star told Variety of her 2014 Best Supporting Actress Oscar. But she doesn't mind sharing the wealth. Asked if friends try to hold the hardware, she replied, "Yeah, and they're allowed to." 

Anna Paquin

As a teen, The Piano actress didn't want to make a whole song and dance about the Academy Award she won at age 11. "I keep it next to my boots at the back of my closet," she told InStyle five years after her 1994 victory. "I don't display it because friends would think they had to comment and I don't want that kind of attention."

Cuba Gooding Jr.

In the two-plus decades since his 1997 win, the Jerry Maguire actor's Oscar has aged like a fine wine. For the first six years, the statue sat on a shelf in his temperature-controlled wine cabinet, remaining like new. "Now that I keep it out in the open in my screening room," he told InStyle, "it has become tarnished—which is kind of cool. It's starting to age and get character. Like me."

Viola Davis

The Oscar winner has her a man who doesn't miss an opportunity to pump her up. The Fences lead says husband and producing partner Julius Tennon urged her to keep her 2017 trophy in their office, next to the Emmy she won for How to Get Away With Murder and her two Tonys. "If it were up to me," she admitted, "I'd keep it in my garage to keep me humble."

Julia Roberts

Cross-examined by Ellen DeGeneres about the "parlor" where she houses her 2009 Oscar, the Erin Brockovich actress testified, "It's in a room that has a piano in it, that my daughter plays, that we call the piano room. I thought it might sound pretentious, so I said 'parlor." Responded the talk show host, "So you thought 'parlor' sounded less pretentious?" 

Emma Thompson

As Henry Golding discovered, there's a perk to answering nature's call while at Thompson's pad. With his Last Christmas costar keeping her two Oscars in the bathroom ("They look far too outré anywhere else. They're great big, gold, shiny things," she explained), he happened upon them during a Sunday get-together with the cast. "I'm conducting business," he shared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, "and then suddenly my eyes just reach these two golden statues in the toilets, and they are the Oscars." So naturally he took a pic to prove it happened. "I had to," he exclaimed. "Look how amazing that is!" Even better: She's placed a mirror just to the side so guests can snap selfies.