British stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Daniel Kaluuya have scooped acting awards while Film drama Nomadland has won three Oscars including best picture.
Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao is the first woman of color and the second woman to win the best director in history.
Sir Anthony, 83, is the oldest winner of the best actor, while Kaluuya is the first black British actor to achieve an Oscar in the supporting role category.
Frances McDormand won the best actress for her role in Nomadland, and veteran South Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn won best supporting actress for Minari
The trophies were given out in one of the grand halls at Los Angeles’s stylish Union Station to permit for a Covid-safe ceremony, while many UK-based nominees were at a venue in London and Sir Anthony was at neither.
Absent Sir Anthony Beats Boseman
Sir Anthony won his first Oscar for his role in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and now 29 years later he has won the best actor for his masterful performance as a man suffering from dementia in ‘The Father’. Sir Anthony who was not able to make it to the ceremony stated that he had not expected it.
This award was the greatest surprise of the night. Late Chadwick Boseman, who died aged 43 last August, was also nominated for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the award was later tipped to go to him.
Sir Anthony was neither able to make it to the ceremony in LA nor at the British Film Institute in London which the ceremony’s UK venue, so instead he posted a video filmed in his “homeland” of Wales on Monday morning on Instagram in which he expressed that:
At the age of 83, He did not expect to get this award, he really didn’t. He further added that he is very grateful to the Academy, and thank them for it.
Sir Anthony further went on to pay tribute to Late Chadwick Boseman, stating that Boseman was taken away from us far too early and also stated that he felt ‘very honored and privileged.
The drama film “The Father” is said to be released on 11 June in the UK. The film also won the award for the best-adapted screenplay for Sir Christopher Hampton and director Florian Zeller, who called Sir Anthony “the greatest living actor”.
Big Night For Nomadland
The film is a slow-burning drama regarding a woman who lives in her van in the American West after the financial crash. It won the top award for the best film, along with the best director and best actress.
McDormand now has won three best actress Oscars. She is one of the only professional performers in the film. Most of the rest of the cast is composed up of real people playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
Zhao in her acceptance speech thanked the real-life nomads for teaching them the power of resilience and hope.
Before Zhao, Kathryn Bigelow was the only woman to have won the directing prize for The Hurt Locker in 2010 in the Oscars’ 92-year history.
McDormand expressed her hopes for the revival of big-screen cinema, asking viewers to take everyone they know into a theatre soon, and sit shoulder to shoulder in that dark space, and watch every film that represented there tonight.
After stating “We give this one to our Wolf,” she howled like a wolf in order to pay a tribute to the film’s sound mixer Michael Wolf Snyder, who passed away at the age of 35 last month.
Victorious Kaluuya ‘Happy To Be Alive’
The 32-year-old Londoner, Victorious Kaluuya, won the best-supporting actor award for his great performance as Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.
The actor expressed that he was humbled to be nominated for portraying a man whose principles he deeply respects and for guiding him to walk in his footsteps.
Kaluuya also paid a tribute to his mother, who was watching at the BFI, who he said gave him his factory settings so that he could stand at his fullest height.
The excited son told the global audience of millions that it’s amazing and he is here. He further added that he is so happy to be alive so he’s going to celebrate that tonight.
Veteran South Korean Actress Yuh-Jung Youn
Yuh-Jung Youn won the award for her role as the grandmother in the Korean-American family drama Minari. She became the first South Korean actress to win an Oscar.
She beat Glenn Close and many other actors to the prize for best-supporting actress. It was Close’s eighth nomination without a win. Youn expressed to the crowd that she doesn’t believe in competition and paid tribute to her fellow nominee Glenn Close.
The Big Winners
The list of the big winners of the Oscar 2021 are:
Nomadland – best director, best picture, best actress
The Father – best actor, best-adapted screenplay
Judas and the Black Messiah – best-supporting actor, best original song
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – best costume design, best makeup, and hair-styling
Mank – best cinematography, best production design
Soul – best-animated feature, best original score
Sound of Metal – best film editing, best sound
