From: www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/
Mail
My account
Oscar glory for British stars25/02/2008
Daniel Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton swept Britain to glory at the 80th Academy Awards while No Country For Old Men was the biggest film of the ceremony.
Daniel, 50, as predicted, won his second best actor Oscar for his towering performance as a ruthless, malevolent oilman in There Will Be Blood.
Tilda, 47, landed the best supporting actress gong for her role as a ruthless corporate lawyer in the George Clooney movie Michael Clayton.
The 80th Academy Awards named French actress Marion Cotillard as best actress for her role as singer Edith Piaf in the biopic La Vie En Rose.
The 32-year-old beat Julie Christie to the title just weeks after her surprise victory over the British veteran at the Baftas.
The film that dominated the night at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre was No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers' violent neo-western.
It won four of its eight nominations, beating British film Atonement to best picture, and scooping best director.
It also took the prize for best supporting actor for Spanish actor Javier Bardem, and adapted screenplay.
London-born Tilda provided one of the most amusing speeches of the ceremony when she thanked her agent, but not in the usual fashion, saying as she held up her statuette: "I have an American agent who is the spitting image of this.
"Really, truly, the same shaped head and it has to be said the buttocks.
"I'm going to give this to him because there's no way I'd be in America, even on a plane, if it wasn't for him."
She also dedicated her award to Clooney, the film's producer and star, joking: "Seeing you climb into that rubber batsuit from Batman And Robin, the one with the nipples, every morning under your costume, on the set, off the set, hanging upside-down at lunch, you rock, man.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Daniel, who holds joint Irish and British citizenship, and received his first Oscar for My Left Foot in 1990, picked up his second Academy Award from Dame Helen Mirren, recipient of last year's best actress gong.
"That's the closest I'll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you," he joked.
Perhaps drawing inspiration from his violent character Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, he thanked "the members of the academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town.
"I'm looking at this gorgeous thing you've given me and I'm thinking back to the first devilish whisper of an idea that came to him and everything since and it seems to me that this sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of (director and writer) Paul Thomas Anderson," he said.
© 2008 The Press Association Limited
HOLLYWOOD - FEBRUARY 24: Actor Mickey Rooney and his wife Jan Rooney arrive at the 80th Annual... 
Print now
Send to a friend
Related articles
Related products