Real (Reel) People win Oscars

• In 2006 Helen Mirren played Queen Elizabeth II and won the Oscar for Best Actress.
• In 2006 Forrest Whitaker played Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and won the Oscar for Best Actor
• In 2005 Reese Witherspoon played country music celeb June Carter and won the Oscar for Best Actress.
• In 2005 Philip Seymour Hoffman played author Truman Capote and won the Oscar for Best Actor.
• In 2004 Jamie Foxx played musician Ray Charles and won the Oscar for Best Actor.
• In 2003 Charlize Theron played prostitute/serial killer Aileen Wuornos and won the Best Actress oscar.
• In 2002 Adrien Brody played Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman and won the Best Actor oscar.
• In 2002 Nicole Kidman played author Virginia Woolf and won the Best Actress oscar.
• In 2000 Julia Roberts plays the unlikely activist Erin Brokovich and won the Best Actress oscar.

The exceptions, Hillary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Sean Penn (Mystic River), Denzel Washington (Training Day), Halle Berry (Monster's Ball), Russell Crowe (Gladiator).

So, of the 14 winners of the best actor/actress so far in the 2000's 9 of them (60%) have won for playing real people.

Biographical films and the lead actors and actresses who find them self in central roles in 2007 films:

• Reel People: Denzel Washington is Frank Lucas
• Reel People: Tom Hanks is Charles Wilson
• Reel People: Anne Hathaway is Jane Austen
• Reel People: Jared Leto is Mark David Chapman
• Reel People: Catherine Keener is Gertrude Baniszewski
• Reel People: Adrien Brody is Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez
• Reel People: Cate Blanchett is Queen Elizabeth I (again)
• Reel People: Clive Owens is Sir Walter Raleigh
• Reel People: Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Fanklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, & Ben Whishaw are Bob Dylan
• Reel People: Richard Gere is Clifford Irving
• Reel People: Jared Padalecki is Thomas Kinkade
• Reel People: Brad Pitt is Jesse James
• Reel People: Angelina Jolie is Mariane Pearl
• Reel People: Guy Pearce is Harry Houdini
• Reel People: Marion Cottilard is Edith Piaf
• Reel People: Emile Hirsch is Christopher McCandless
• Reel People: Mathieu Amalric is Jean-Dominique Bauby
• Reel People: Julianne Moore is Barbara Daly Baekeland
• Reel People: Denzel Washington is Melvin B. Tolson

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