Amy Madigan has won the best supporting actress Oscar for Weapons at the 98th Academy Awards, currently under way in Los Angeles.
Madigan defeated a strong field to take the prize, including Elle Fanning for Sentimental Value, Wunmi Mosaku for Sinners and Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another. In doing so she set a new record for the longest gap between nominations before a win; she was previously nominated in the same category 40 years ago, in 1986, for Twice in a Lifetime.
In Weapons, a supernatural horror film written and directed by Zach Cregger, Madigan plays the malevolent Aunt Gladys, whose heavy makeup and large glasses became a popular internet meme.
Madigan has had a strong awards season, gaining best supporting actress nominations from the Golden Globes and Bafta awards, and winning the Actor award earlier this month, yet her victory was far from certain, with Mosaku perceived to present especially strong competition.
Madigan and her husband, Ed Harris, went down in the annals of Academy Award history in 1999, when they conspicuously failed to applaud the awarding of an honorary Oscar to On the Waterfront’s Elia Kazan, who testified at the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
