Lawrence won for her role in "Silver Linings Playbook." Also nominated in the category were Emmanuelle Riva ("Amour"), Jessica Chastain ("Zero Dark Thirty"), Quvenzhane Wallis ("Beasts of the Southern Wild") and Naomi Watts ("The Impossible").
Many observers believed the Best Actress race was down to Lawrence and Riva going into Sunday, with Chastain a distant third. Lawrence won Best Actress at the Screen Actors' Guild Awards and the Golden Globes, but Riva won at the BAFTAs. Riva, 86, and Wallis, 9, are the oldest and youngest Oscar nominees in the category's history, respectively.
"You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell, " said Lawrence, when accepting the award from Jean Dujardin, who presented.
Meryl Streep won the 2012 Best Actress award for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in "Iron Lady."
The Oscars are voted on by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which separates the Academy Awards from other award shows, which are either voted on by the press (Critic's Choice Awards, the Golden Globes) or members of a specific profession (Screen Actors Guild Awards, Directors Guild Awards and Writers Guild Awards).
Seth MacFarlane hosted this year's telecast. James Bond, a "Chicago" reunion, a "Les Miserables" medley, performances by Adele and Barbra Streisand and even Ted were all a part of this year's program and reflected the producers' plan to "trim the fat" from what has been sometimes been criticized as a painfully long and slow ritual.
More information about winners, performances and more can be found in the live blog below the following gallery.
AP
Good Night, And Good Luck
That's all from the Oscars 2013 live blog here at HuffPost Entertainment! Hope you enjoyed the show. This is Christopher Rosen, signing off.
Ben Affleck Is Not Into Oscar Punditry
From backstage at the Oscars:
When did you feel a tipping point in your favor for this film?
Clooney: Michelle Obama.
Ben: When they gave us the trophies I was confident that we would win. I don’t get too much into the Oscar-ology and the pontificating. It doesn’t help me to read up on that stuff.
Daniel Day-Lewis' Facial Hair
Backstage at the Oscars with Daniel Day-Lewis:
Was it uncomfortable wearing the beard?
What do you mean? No it's just a beard. Do you wear your hair? It was my very own beard.
What Jennifer Lawrence Thought When She Fell
From HuffPost Los Angeles correspondent Sasha Bronner:
"A bad word. That starts with F."
How Movies Change During Oscar Season
Here's Awards Daily blogger Sasha Stone just after "Argo" won Best Picture.
See, I told you Argo was Crash incarnate. Won the same amount of awards even. |
Have you ever seen a movie where you walk out saying, “That was just a great f-king movie”? That’s Ben Affleck’s Argo. Inexplicably, a film that draws its strength from humor and suspense, winds up being more moving the second time through. Perhaps because once you have been through the suspense part of it you get to know the characters better and therefore care about their outcomes more.
Ben Affleck's Arc
Affleck: Oscar winner to laughingstock to Oscar winner. You can't make these things up. |
At Least Someone Liked It
Tommy Lee Jones told me Seth MacFarlane was "hilarious." His favorite part? "I Saw Your Boobs." #notkidding |
Daniel Day-Lewis' Meryl Streep Joke
“It’s a strange thing, because three years ago, before we decided to do a straight swap, I had actually been committed to play Margaret Thatcher, um...” he joked. “And Meryl was, was Steven’s first choice for ‘Lincoln.’ And I’d like to see that version. And Steven didn’t have to persuade me to play Lincoln, but I had to persuade him that, perhaps, if I was going to do it, that Lincoln shouldn’t be a musical.”