Kieran Culkin wins best supporting actor Oscar
Kieran Culkin has beaten Australia’s Guy Pearce to win the best supporting actor Oscar for playing a motor-mouthed American tourist in A Real Pain.
Culkin beat Australia’s Guy Pearce, who was nominated for his performance in The Brutalist.
Culkin, star of the HBO program Succession, was a heavy favourite to win after sweeping BAFTA, Critic’s Choice, Golden Globe and SAG awards for the movie, which is about two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland.
The movie was also nominated for best original screenplay this year, but missed out on picture and director nods.
Culkin, 42, has also won a Golden Globe for playing Roman Roy on four seasons of Succession.
He played alongside his older brother Macaulay in Home Alone movies, and his younger brother Rory is also an actor.
Ariana Grande sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and Cynthia Erivo sang Diana Ross’ ‘Home’ to kick off the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday in a tribute to Los Angeles following wildfires that devastated the Southern California metropolis.
After a topsy-turvy Oscar season in which frontrunners were constantly shuffled, old tweets hobbled a top contender and space was held for Wicked, Sunday’s Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles brought to a close one of the most unpredictable Oscar races in recent memory.
Splashes of colour decorated the red carpet — Timothée Chalamet in yellow, Ariana Grande in pink, Colman Domingo in red — as stars streamed into the Dolby Theatre. Some attendees sported pins for Ukraine.
Though some rain had been in the forecast, sunny skies pervaded across a Los Angeles still recovering from wildfires that devastated the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighbourhoods earlier this year.
The fires affected many throughout the film industry and within the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Some even called for the cancellation of Hollywood’s awards season. While his Pacific Palisades house was spared, Oscar’s host Conan O’Brien has been living out of a hotel the last two months.
The lead nominee is Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, with 13 nominations, but that film has seen its chances crater following uproar over years-old offensive tweets by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly trans actor nominated for best actress.
The favourite is Sean Baker’s Anora, about a sex worker who weds the son of a Russian oligarch. The Neon release, the Cannes Palme d’Or winner, won with the producers, directors and writers guild. The only movie with the same resume to not win best picture is Brokeback Mountain.
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Its closest competition is Conclave, the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes.
It won at the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards, wins that came just as Pope Francis was hospitalised for double pneumonia. Oscar voting concluded before the pope fell ill.
Also in the mix are The Brutalist, nominated for 10 awards, and the musical hit Wicked, also with 10 nominations. Several of the early craft Oscars could be shared between Wicked and Dune: Part Two.
For the first time, an actor is nominated for playing the sitting US president. Sebastian Stan is nominated for best actor for his performance as a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice, as is his co-star, Jeremy Strong, for playing Roy Cohn. Trump has called those involved with the film “human scum.”
The political tenor of this year’s ceremony could be volatile, with the Oscars coming weeks into the second Trump administration and falling two days after the president’s dramatic rupture with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
Speaking earlier this week, O’Brien said he’ll strive to strike a delicate balance.
“I cannot ignore the moment we’re in,” he said.
“But I also have to remember it’s threading a needle. I also have to remember what we’re here to celebrate and infuse the show with positivity.”
The ceremony is also taking place days following the death of Gene Hackman. The 95-year-old two-time Oscar winner and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead Wednesday at their New Mexico home. Morgan Freeman is to honour him during the ceremony.
– Jake Coyle/Reuters
