Hilary Swank is Oscar Champ again in five years
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-28 13:31

In the rematch between Hilary Swank and Annette Bening, Swank was the winner and still champion, taking the best-actress Oscar for her portrayal of a feisty fighter in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby."

Winner - Best Actress Hillary Swank on the Oscar Red Carpet February 27, 2005. [AP]

"I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all this," Swank said while clutching the statuette, her voice trembling. "I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."

Toward the end of her lengthy acceptance speech, the orchestra began playing to prod her along, prompting her to cry out, "You can't do that because I haven't gotten to Clint yet! I saved him for the end!"

She then turned to her director and co-star sitting in the audience and said, "Clint Eastwood, thank you for allowing me to go on this journey with you. Thank you for believing in me."

"You're my Mo Cuishle," she added, a reference to the Gaelic nickname Eastwood's boxing-manager character gives her in the film. The name means "my darling, my blood."

Swank had been the favorite, having already won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. But many expected a tight race between the 30-year-old actress and Bening, who gave a dazzlingly showy performance as a vengeful London stage diva in "Being Julia."

Some Oscar forecasters picked Bening to win, figuring it was her turn this time after being upset in 2000 when she was nominated for her emotional roller coaster of a performance in "American Beauty," that year's best-picture winner.

A then-unknown Swank walked away with the prize for "Boys Don't Cry," based on the true story of murdered transgender teen Brandon Teena. Swank was devastatingly believable in the part, having lived for several weeks as a man to prepare before shooting.

This time, Swank hugged and kissed her husband, actor Chad Lowe, before taking the stage in a barebacked blue gown that hugged her toned physique.

"I am going to start by thanking my husband, because I like to think I've learned from past mistakes," she joked, referring to her previous Oscar acceptance speech. She also thanked her trainers at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, which she's made famous through the film.

Also in the running was Kate Winslet, earning her fourth Oscar nomination in the past decade for the wistful, wildly imaginative "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Winslet was lovably flighty as Jim Carrey's girlfriend, the woman who breaks his heart so badly, he hires a team to erase her from his memory.

Critical favorite Imelda Staunton had been nominated for her understated work in "Vera Drake," in which she played a kind housekeeper who secretly performs abortions in 1950s England. Staunton won best-actress honors at the British Academy Film Awards and the Evening Standard British Film Awards as well as kudos from critics groups in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C.

And the long shot in the category despite receiving unanimous critical adoration was Catalina Sandino Moreno for "Maria Full of Grace," in which she played a determined 17-year-old who works as a drug mule as a way out of her small Colombian town. It was Moreno's first film.

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