Alicia Vikander won best supporting actress for her performance in “The Danish Girl” at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday night.
Vikander played an artist married to a man (Eddie Redmayne) who begins more closely identifying with being a woman.
“Mad Mad: Fury Road” dominated technical categories, winning six Oscars in the show’s first 90 minutes: costume design, production design, makeup, film editing, sound editing and sound mixing.
Vikander’s honor was the first of the major acting categories handed out Sunday, but the show had already gotten off to a brisk start thanks to host Chris Rock’s no-holds-barred monologue.
Rock wasted no time in taking on #OscarsSoWhite and diversity issues that had been in the news since the nominations were announced in mid-January.
After the obligatory montage of the year’s movies, Rock came out and said he’d counted at least 15 black people in the video — and, just like that, he was off.
“If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job,” he said. “You’d be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.”
Noting the lack of black nominees through most of Oscar history, he pointed out that in the ’60s, “Black people did not protest because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to worry about best cinematography.”
And “In Memoriam,” the yearly film of people who had passed away in the previous year, would get an addition, Rock said.
“In the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black people shot by the cops on the way to the movies.”
The routine was followed with a video bit in which black actors took roles in films that had been nominated for Oscars, including Whoopi Goldberg in “Joy” and Rock in “The Martian,” as well as a bizarre appearance by actress Stacey Dash, who had called for the elimination of Black History Month.
Common: ‘I know we’re going to make this change’
In the wake of #OscarsSoWhite, in which — for the second straight year — not a single acting nominee was a person of color, Motion Picture Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said she expected Rock to make a splash.
“We want him to (go there), obviously, because way before this, our selection of Chris was to bring some edge and some fun and some funny — intelligent funny — to the telecast,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “So we know he’s going to do that.”
Lou Gossett Jr., an Oscar winner for “An Officer and a Gentleman,” said on the red carpet that often Hollywood is ahead of society, but in the case of diversity, “society is ahead of us.”
Common, who won an Oscar last year for his song “Glory,” said the film community is aware there’s a problem, but now it’s time “to work toward a solution.”
“I know we’re going to make this change,” he said on the red carpet.
Some celebrities were attending an event in Flint, Michigan, #JusticeForFlint. The concert was organized by directors Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) and Ryan Coogler (“Creed”) and is calling attention to the water crisis in the Michigan city.
‘Revenant’ considered front-runner
Rock’s hosting is only one of the big stories going into Sunday’s show.
“The Revenant” leads all films with 12 nominations and is considered the front-runner for best picture.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s 0-fer as an acting nominee, is expected to finally take home a trophy for his performance in that film, in which he played an 1820s trapper, Hugh Glass. The film’s Emmanuel Lubezki won for cinematography. It’s his third straight Oscar in the category.
But the film, directed by last year’s Oscar-winning director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, may fall short of best picture to other favorites, including “Spotlight” and “The Big Short.”
And Sylvester Stallone may finally win an Oscar for playing Rocky Balboa — 39 years after he first did the role.
DiCaprio told ABC that he’s nervous about his chances but proud of the film.
“I feel blessed to be able to do movies like this,” he said. “Here I am, representing a movie I feel so particularly proud of.”
The first awards of the evening went to “Spotlight” for original screenplay and “The Big Short” for adapted screenplay.
The 88th Academy Awards are airing from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.