Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight - Best Supporting Actor - 2009
I didn't expect to take a more receint winner, but I couldn't help myself with Heath.
As per wikipedia:
In his penultimate film performance, Ledger plays the
Joker in
The Dark Knight, directed by
Christopher Nolan, the sequel to the 2005 film
Batman Begins, first released, in Australia, on 16 July 2008, nearly six months after his death. While still working on the film, in
London, Ledger told Sarah Lyall, in their interview published in the
New York Times on 4 November 2007, that he viewed
The Dark Knight's
Joker as a "
psychopathic,
mass murdering,
schizophrenic clown with zero
empathy."
[65] To prepare for the role, Ledger told
Empire, "I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath — someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts"; after reiterating his view of the character as "just an absolute
sociopath, a cold-blooded, mass-murdering clown," he added that Nolan had given him "free rein" to create the role, which he found "fun, because there are no real boundaries to what the Joker would say or do. Nothing intimidates him, and everything is a big joke."
[66][67][68] For his work in
The Dark Knight, Ledger won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, his family accepting it on his behalf, as well as numerous other posthumous awards including the
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, which
Christopher Nolan accepted for him.