LOS ANGELES (AP) — Villainous roles snatched the supporting-acting prizes tonight at the Academy Awards: “Precious” co-star Mo’Nique as a contemptible mother and “Inglourious Basterds” co-star Christoph Waltz as a sociable Nazi fiend.

Both performers capped remarkable years, Mo’Nique startling fans with dramatic depths previously unsuspected in the actress known for lowbrow comedy and the Austrian-born Waltz leaping to fame with his first big Hollywood role.
“I would like to thank the academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics,” said Mo’Nique, who plays the heartless, abusive welfare mother of an illiterate teen (Gabourey Sidibe, a best-actress nominee in her screen debut) in the Harlem drama “Precious: Based on the Novel `Push’ by Sapphire.”
Mo’Nique added her gratitude to the first black actress to win an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel, the 1939 supporting-actress winner for “Gone With the Wind.”
“I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to,” she said, adding thanks to Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who signed on as executive producers to spread the word on “Precious” after it premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival.
“Precious” also won the adapted-screenplay Oscar for Geoffrey Fletcher.
“This is for everybody who works on a dream every day. Precious boys and girls everywhere,” Fletcher said.