“Mickey Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler earned near-universal praise and single-handedly resurrected his career,” said Kat Angus in the Montreal Gazette. But, incredibly, the Best Actor Oscar went to Sean Penn for Milk! "Inconceivable!” It’s really hard to “shake the feeling that Rourke was robbed.” (Click here to see Rourke at the Oscars)
But Sean Penn reached “new emotional depths” in his role as slain gay politician Harvey Milk, said the Los Angeles Times. Penn took us all on “a transformative journey,” from “the grit of a subway hookup to the emerging idealism of the martyr” Milk was to become. This was the role of a lifetime for Penn, and he earned that Oscar. (Click here to watch Penn’s acceptance speech)
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