As the dust settles on the 77th Academy awards, Hollywood is asking just how much will an Oscar be worth to one of this year's winners.

The answer: it all depends on who you are.

The consensus among Hollywood insiders is that Oscar's hard-dollar value is potentially much higher for best-actor winner Jamie Foxx than for two-time best actress Hilary Swank, whose box office draw is regarded by many as less certain.

Foxx, crowned for his portrayal of soul music legend Ray Charles, could double his earning power -- by some estimates boosting his asking price to between $10 million (5.2 million pounds) and $15 million a picture.

Swank, too, is certain to make more money. But she'll likely trail Foxx by a several million dollars at the bargaining table, in part because some see her as pigeonholed by two gender-bending "butch" roles that have so far defined her career -- a cross-dressing youth in "Boys Don't Cry" and a female boxer with a heart of gold in "Million Dollar Baby".

By comparison, the worth of big-screen veteran Morgan Freeman's long-awaited statuette is mostly sentimental. As an established character actor, his asking price and the number of scripts that come his way probably won't change much.

Likewise, Cate Blanchett's Oscar-nominated breakout performance as the 16th-century British monarch in "Elizabeth" (1998) was by far more pivotal to her career than her Oscar-winning turn as Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator".

There is no question that winning an Oscar conveys immediate prestige, and in most cases, financial rewards.

"I'm now more of a commodity," actor Adrien Brody, the 2003 Oscar winner for "The Pianist", told. "I'm a safer bet on a business level. It does provide you more opportunities."

In the words of one leading talent agent: "If you win an Oscar, even if you get nominated for an Oscar, it is part of the language that helps sell you as an actor out there."