Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

Overture Films, Jo Jo Whilden
Richard Jenkins, left, and Hazz Sleimann in a scene from The Visitor, for which the 61-year-old Rhode Islander earned a best actor nomination.

No one expected Rhode Islander Richard Jenkins to win the best actor Academy Award, not even Jenkins himself. And he was right.

Past Oscar winner Adrien Brody praised Jenkins for his body of work, saying that he had appeared in 60 films in the past quarter century and his nominated performance in The Visitor was "born of the ease only experience can bring.''

But all along the best actor category was billed as a battle to the finish between Sean Penn as homosexual activist Harvey Milk and Mickey Rourke as a wrestler trying for one last win. Penn, at right, won and, in his eloquent speech thanked his director, Gus Van Sant, saying than there were "no finer hands'' to work under than Van Sant's. Van Sant is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Earlier, Kate Winslet won the best actress Oscar for her role in The Reader. It was a good year for Winslet, who also turned in a powerful performance in Revolutionary Road, something that probably helped sweep her to victory. In her acceptance speech, she said that she had practiced her speech since she was 8, standing in front of the bathroom mirror holding a shampoo bottle.

In the anticlimatic finale of the 81st annual Academy Awards, the best picture prize went to Slumdog Millionaire, which had taken the most awards during the evening, including best song, best original score and best sound editing. It seemed to be on a roll all evening and, when British director Danny Boyle won the best director award, the best picture award seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

Photos of Sean Penn and Kate Winslet arriving at the Academy Awards are by AP.

More from Projo.com's Oscars blog

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