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• Sean Penn won the Oscar for Best Actor at the Academy Awards Ceremony on February 22, 2009, for his portrayal of gay rights activist Harvey Milk in the biopic Milk.

  The other nominees: Richard Jenkins was nominated for his work as a professor yearning for more out of life in the film The Visitor; Frank Langella reprized his stage role as ousted president Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon; Brad Pitt starred in the F. Scott FItzgerald novella adaption of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; and Mickey Rourke was nominated for his role as a down-and-out wrestler trying to make a comeback in The Wrestler.

• Fast Facts

  1. Winner: Sean Penn
  2. Presenters: Michael Douglas, Robert DeNiro, Adrien Brody, Anthony Hopkins, and Ben Kingsley
  3. Nominations announced: January 22, 2009
  4. Host: Hugh Jackman
  5. Voted on by members of the Academy Film and Television Arts and Sciences
  6. Winner in 2008: Daniel Day-Lewis
  7. First Winner in 1928: Emil Jannings
  8. Youngest Best Actor Winner: Adrien Brody (29 at the time)
  9. Oldest Best Actor Winner: Henry Fonda (76 at the time)

• Past Winners

  • Year indicates the year of award presentation.
  • 2008: Daniel Day-Lews in There Will Be Blood
  • 2007: Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland
  • 2006: Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote
  • 2005: Jamie Foxx in Ray
  • 2004: Sean Penn in Mystic River
  • 2003: Adrien Brody in The Pianist
  • 2002: Denzel Washington in Training Day
  • 2001: Russell Crowe in Gladiator
  • 2000: Kevin Spacey in American Beauty
  • 1999: Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful
  • 1998: Geoffrey Rush in Shine

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