On Sunday night, the impossible happened: Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Academy Award. The past few weeks have been a who's who of Hollywood pledging undying loyalty to the shrine of Leonardo DiCaprio. Kate Winslet even told a reporter that she was so focused on Leo winning that she was blindsided by her own Golden Globe victory. But was his win really that surprising? And at this point, more than 20 years since Leonardo DiCaprio’s first Oscar nomination, does tonight’s win really make a difference for his career?

According to an article from the Hollywood Reporter, DiCaprio gets $25 million per picture. If you added up the box office for every movie DiCaprio has appeared in, the dollar amount climbs past $2 billion. In terms of dollars and cents, not having an Oscar win has done next to nothing to inhibit DiCaprio’s career -- though you could say this about a variety of actors. For example, Adam Sandler has managed to make a pretty penny without ever coming close to winning that coveted gold statue.

If you want to look at it at a different angle, DiCaprio has managed to star in a number of critically acclaimed movies throughout his career despite his Oscar-less status. He’s managed to usurp Robert DeNiro as acclaimed director Martin Scorsese’s repeated collaborator, and in the past few years, he has starred in critically acclaimed film after critically acclaimed film. If anything, his losses at the Academy stage have only provided more motivation for DiCaprio to continue producing and acting in Oscar-caliber movies.

A gold statue isn’t going to change DiCaprio’s career. It’s not going to define his legacy. For an actor as accomplished and universally respected as Leonardo DiCaprio, the only thing an Academy Award will change is every internet meme from the past six weeks.