The Academy Awards are supposed to be the pinnacle of the movie industry, but not every Hollywood superstar dreams of winning an Oscar. Katharine Hepburn holds the all-time record for most acting wins at the Oscars, having received the Best Actress trophy four times. However, the Hollywood icon never once showed up to collect her Oscar statuette in person. (Hepburn's one and only appearance at the Oscars occurred in 1974 to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer Lawrence Weingarten.) "Prizes are nothing. My prize is my work," Hepburn famously said. While the entertainment industry continues to be enamored with awards season, some prominent modern stars - including Bradley Cooper and Amanda Seyfried - have publicly complained about the hoopla surrounding the Academy Awards. 2026 Oscars Nominations Snubs: 'Wicked' Sequel and More Shut Out Keep scrolling for a look at stars who have shunned the Oscars and other awards shows. Amanda Seyfried For the star of The Testament of Ann Lee, an Oscar nomination is seemingly far more important than actually winning. (Amand Seyfried received her sole Oscar nomination in 2021 for Mank. She lost the Best Supporting Actress Award to Minari's Yuh-jung Youn that year.) Asked if winning an Oscar was important to her, Seyfried told The New Yorker in January 2026: "No. Do you remember who won in the past 10 years? It's not the win that's important. It's the nomination. It does thrust you forward. That's a fact. Now, do I need one in a week or two or whenever? No, of course, I don't." Seyfried conceded that an Oscar win could be beneficial for "every reason," though she still felt it was not a "necessity." She went on to compare her critically acclaimed 2025 religious drama, The Testament of Ann Lee, to her more conventional blockbuster The Housemaid. "Every single choice I made in [The Housemaid] was as artful as the choices I made in Ann Lee," she said. "I finally was able to marry the two in my heart and in my head, and I realized that is what I want for the rest of my career. I'm going to jump between genres as much as I can, and jump between indies and studios. So I've gotten this far without an Oscar. Why would I need one now?" Bradley Cooper Bradley Cooper is one of the most nominated performers in Oscar history to never actually win a statuette. (Cooper has earned 12 total nominations as an actor and filmmaker, as of January 2026.) Back in 2020, he called awards season "utterly meaningless" while chatting with Hamilton's Anthony Ramos for Interview Magazine. "That awards season stuff is a real test," he said. "It's quite a thing to work through, and it's completely devoid of artistic creation. It's not why you sacrifice everything to create art, and yet you spend so much time being a part of it if you're, in quotes, 'lucky enough to be a part of it.' It's ultimately a great thing because it really does make you face ego, vanity, and insecurity. It's very interesting and utterly meaningless." During a subsequent appearance on SuperSoul Conversation, Cooper suggested that the Oscars and other awards shows "play into things that have nothing to do with creative art." "It's a whole other element of the business," Cooper added. "So, it's really reconciling its effect on you. That's the thing I have to deal with." Anthony Hopkins Anthony Hopkins is one of very few actors to have won two Best Actor Oscars throughout his career - first for The Silence of the Lambs in 1992 and then again for The Father in 2021. However, Hopkins once dismissed award season as "kind of disgusting" when he was getting Oscar buzz for his 2012 biopic, Hitchcock. "You know, kissing the backside of the authorities that can make or break it; I can't stand all that," he complained to HuffPost at the time. "I find it nauseating to watch and I think it's disgusting to behold." Anthony Hopkins speaks onstage during the 94th Annual Academy Awards in March 2022. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Hopkins admitted he was embarrassed to see colleagues "groveling around and kissing the backsides of famous producers." "It makes me want to throw up, it really does. It's sick-making," he declared. "I've seen it so many times. I saw it fairly recently, last year. Some great producer-mogul and everyone kisses this guy's backside. I think, 'What are they doing? Don't they have any self respect?' I wanted to say, 'F*** off.'" Glenda Jackson Two-time Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson joked to Entertainment Weekly in 2016 that the Oscars were more about "frocks and the whole shebang of nonsense" than artistry. The British actress did not attend the Oscars ceremony any of the four times she was nominated. "Nowadays, it seems like the real competition is between the different award shows," Jackson pointed out. "The Golden Globes, back in my day, if you won you were lucky to get a notice in the next day's Los Angeles Times. Now the coverage is ludicrous." Pressed on whether she was underselling the importance of