Winning an Oscar can have a profound effect on a person. Sometimes, it inspires you to shift your career to more serious, meaningful projects. Sometimes, however, things can go a bit more tumultuously. Opportunities are at their highest immediately after an Oscar win, so the projects you take on immediately after your victory (especially your first victory) have a lot of weight to them.

This year’s major Oscar winners are split pretty evenly between Hollywood veterans and showbiz newbies. Headlining the former category are esteemed players like Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer and Woody Allen, all of whose wins last night all followed many years without due recognition (this is Streep’s third win among seventeen nominations, and Plummer’s first win altogether). The Iron Lady star is going a little lighter in her next project, Great Hope Springs, which will pit her as part of a troubled married couple seeking therapy from a doubtlessly eccentric Steve Carell. But don't worry, she's still in the roles-that-guarentee-her-an-Oscar-nomination business; Streep is set to join Julia Roberts in an adaptation of the Tony-winning play August: Osage County for release in 2013. Plummer will continue his long and varied career with a major role in the historical drama, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight. And Woody Allen will continue being Woody Allen with Nero Fiddled.

Although no one is expecting any of these choices to significantly change the careers of the above-mentioned icons, there is a much shakier situation in regards to last night’s greenhorn winners. Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin, director and star of The Artist, might seem like a pair of niche players. It is natural to wonder if either of the duo will contribute to another major Hollywood picture—and this time, one with some words in it. Fears of this nature are hardly quelled by the next movie being undertaken by Hazanavicus and Dujardin: The Players, a French-language comedy that compiles a set of short films, all on the theme of infidelity. Although no one doubts the quality or comedic power of the duo’s next movie, it does brand them as genre-types who might not find a place in the Hollywood mainstream. But then again, maybe that’s the way they want it. Sounds like Uggie's planning on retiring anyway.

The winner with the most on the horizon is indubitably Octavia Spencer, whose magnetic The Help performance has earned her spots in a handful of features. Since The Help became a national phenomenon, Spencer’s name has been mentioned in accordance with titles like Smashed, Lost on Purpose, The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife and Snow Piercer. She is also attached to a developing Diablo Cody film. The nature of these movies varies, encompassing comedy, drama and thriller—which is probably the greatest course of action the rising star can take at this point.

Oscars do indeed change your career—often for the better, but sometimes for the worst. They can leading to slumps, jinxes, pigeonholing, extended hiatuses, and lounge albums called Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You. But as long as you take the appropriate course of action, an Oscar can set you on a path of glory.

In other words, no Catwoman-in for this year's winners.