Complex roles sweep Oscars

LOS ANGELES -- Tim Robbins won the supporting actor Academy Award Sunday for his performance as an emotionally crippled murder suspect in "Mystic River," and Renee Zellweger took supporting actress as a hardy Confederate survivor in "Cold Mountain."\nSofia Coppola won best original screenplay for her dazzling work on "Lost in Translation."\n"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," which led the field with 11 nominations, went five-for-five in its first categories midway through the show, winning for visual effects, makeup, art direction, costume design and sound mixing. The film also won best score, competing with such films as "Finding Nemo," "Cold Mountain" and "House of Sand and Fog". Later in the night, "The Return of the King" also won an Oscar for best editing. \nZellweger won for playing a character in frumpy clothes and a layer of dirt from working the fields one year after "Cold Mountain" co-star Nicole Kidman received the lead actress Oscar after wearing a fake nose to simulate Virginia Woolf's plain-Jane features in "The Hours." This year's lead actress front-runner, Charlize Theron of "Monster," gained 30 pounds and was disguised behind dark contact lenses, false teeth and splotchy makeup.\n"I hope it's a trend, meaning interesting parts playing women who are multifaceted and really rich in their journeys. It's what interests me most," Zellweger said backstage. "The more you can change yourself, the more removed the character is from your own experiences, the more rewarding it is."\nRobbins won with his first-ever acting nomination, though he had been nominated as best director for 1995's "Dead Man Walking."\n"In this movie, I play a victim of abuse and violence," Robbins said. "If you are out there and are a person who has had that tragedy befall you, there is no shame in seeking help and counseling."\nThe $340 million blockbuster "Finding Nemo," the story of a clownfish on a mission to rescue his wayward son from a dentist's aquarium, earned the Oscar for animated feature.\n"I'm going to be forever grateful to the cast and crew of 'Finding Nemo' for giving their incomparable talents to this little fish story I had," said Andrew Stanton, director of "Finding Nemo," the latest film from Pixar, the makers of "Monsters, Inc." and the "Toy Story" flicks.\nBilly Crystal, returning as host for the first time in four years, opened with his usual montage of nominees, having himself inserted into spoofs of key Oscar contenders, including Diane Keaton's screeching nude scene in "Something's Gotta Give."\n"Gentlemen, start your egos," Crystal quipped.\nHe joked that, for the first time, the show was being simulcast in Aramaic, a poke at "The Passion of the Christ," Mel Gibson's divisive religious film that took in $117.5 million in its first five days. The movie was done in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles.\nCrystal said that the first time he hosted the Oscars 13 years ago, things were different from today: "Bush was president, the economy was tanking and we'd just finished a war with Iraq."\nThe Oscars returned to full-glamour mode after two years in which Hollywood's prom night was muted by world events -- the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2002 and the Iraq war in 2003.\nCelebrities strutted the red carpet again after Oscar organizers scrapped its glitzy arrivals area last year in deference to the U.S.-led war effort in Iraq. With the passage of time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences figured it was safe to make merry again for the 76th Annual Academy Awards.\n"Hollywood was hiding for a couple of years," said Owen Wilson, who was strolling the red carpet with Ben Stiller, his co-star in the big-screen version of "Starsky & Hutch," opening Friday. "Hollywood's back. I think that's the story."\n"The Return of the King" was viewed as a near-certain best-picture winner. The closing chapter of Peter Jackson's epic adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth saga, "The Return of the King" has dominated earlier Hollywood awards.\n"It's not a good place to be because every Oscars there are surprises," Jackson said of the front-runner status before the show. "I'm as curious as anybody else about what's going to happen."\nA best-picture win would be the first ever for the fantasy genre, generally overlooked by Oscar voters who favor heavy drama over otherworldly stories. Only a handful of fantasy or science-fiction tales have earned best-picture nominations, among them "The Wizard of Oz," "Star Wars," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and the first two "The Lord of the Rings" installments, "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers."\nWhile "The Return of the King" scooped up technical awards, it was shut out in the acting categories, which the film's Oscar-winning costume designers lamented backstage.\n"It's a sad day they haven't been recognized, but they do know themselves they have done a beautiful performance that people will cherish for generations potentially," said Richard Taylor, who shared the costume-design Oscar with Ngila Dickson.\nAlso competing for best picture: "Lost in Translation," a comic drama of oddball friendship between Americans in Tokyo; "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," a rousing Napoleonic naval adventure; "Mystic River," a brooding thriller about three childhood friends reunited as adults by a murder investigation; and "Seabiscuit," the uplifting story of the underdog Depression-era racehorse.