High-profile Wins for Brits at Oscars

Rachel Weisz spearheaded a night of limited yet high-profile British success at the 78th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, winning the best supporting actress award for her role as a doomed activist in The Constant Gardener.

Aardman Animations’ Nick Park and Steve Box picked up the Oscar for best animated feature for their acclaimed claymation adventure Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

And Six Shooter, a 27-minute film produced by BBC executive Kenton Allen and written and directed by Martin McDonagh, was named best live-action short.

Speaking from the Vanity Fair after-show party, Mr. Allen told Guardian Unlimited of his "huge surprise" at becoming an Oscar winner.

"We’re now reaping the joy of that surprise, wandering around Hollywood with an Oscar, getting into all sorts of places," he said. "It’s amazing the power a small statuette can have."

Weisz had entered the Kodak Theatre as one of a trio of British actors in contention for Oscar glory.

Dame Judi Dench and Keira Knightley were both nominated for the best actress award, for their roles in Mrs. Henderson Presents and Pride and Prejudice respectively. In the event they lost out to the bookies’ favorite, Reese Witherspoon, who won for her performance in Walk the Line.

In her acceptance speech, Weisz paid tribute to her "luminous" co-star, Ralph Fiennes, and also thanked author John Le Carr é, who wrote the novel on which the film was based.

"John Le Carr é wrote this unflinching, angry story and he really paid tribute to the people who are willing to risk their own lives to fight for justice," she said. "They are greater men and women than I."

Weisz beat competition from the likes of Capote’s Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams, who played a deceived wife in Brokeback Mountain.

The Oscar given to Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was the fourth Academy Award for creator Mr. Park: he has previously won twice for Wallace and Gromit short films and once for Creature Comforts. But it was the first time Mr Box, his co-animator had even been nominated.

Receiving the prize, Mr. Park paid tribute to two of the actors who provided voices for the Wallace and Gromit film, which taken £115m at box offices worldwide.

"Just want to give a great big thank you to Helena Bonham Carter [who provided the voice for Lady Tottingham], and particularly to Peter Sallis," Mr Park said.

"He’s here tonight, ladies and gentlemen, at the Oscars. He’s been the voice of Wallace for the past 23 years and you’ve been an absolute gem, Peter, and you’ve sparkled all the way."

Mr. Park and Mr. Box beat some stiff competition from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Howl’s Moving Castle, the work of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Six Shooter, a short film about a man who meets a strange and possibly dangerous youth on a train on the day his wife has died, was funded by Film Four and the Irish Film Board.

Mr. Allen took two weeks’ leave in the spring of 2004 to produce the film. He even ended up helping to finance the project with his own credit card after a cash crisis on the first day of production in the Republic of Ireland.

He paid tribute to the film’s writer and director, Mr. McDonagh. "Martin’s a brilliant writer - we made the film to find out whether Martin being a brilliant writer would make it a success and he’s won an Academy award with the first thing he has directed. It’s rather scary and fantastic - scary for him and fantastic for us."

Six Shooter will be shown on Channel 4 on Wednesday and is also available for download from iTunes for £1.99. It is being given a limited theatrical release as part of a package of other Oscar-nominated films.

Mr. Allen, the BBC’s head of comedy talent, said it was going to be a memorable night.

He said he had enjoyed rubbing shoulders with stars such as the "delightful" Knightley and Robert Altman, the veteran director who picked up a special lifetime achievement award.

And he said the night’s winners - such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was judged best actor for his part in Capote, and the surprise choice of Crash as best film - had reflected a "more cerebral" Oscars.

"There’s a likeminded group of people you wouldn’t expect to find at the Oscars," he said. "It’s more cerebral, rather than franchisable. There’s a general spirit of rewarding creative endeavor rather than box office hits."