Mo'Nique, Waltz win supporting-acting Oscars

Villainous roles snatched the supporting-acting prizes Sunday 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.

Waltz's award was presented by last season's supporting-actress winner, Penelope Cruz, who gave Waltz a kiss as he took the stage.

"Oscar and Penelope. That's an uber-bingo," Waltz said.

Though a veteran stage and TV actor in Europe, Waltz had been a virtual unknown in Hollywood before Quentin Tarantino cast him as the prattling, ruthless Jew-hunter Hans Landa in his World War II saga.

"Quentin with his unorthodox methods of navigation, this fearless explorer, took this ship across and brought it in with flying colors, and that's why I'm here," Waltz said. "This is your welcoming embrace, and there's no way I can ever thank you enough."

The Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker won its first category of the night, original screenplay for Mark Boal, who spun a story about the perils and pressures of a U.S. bomb unit in Iraq. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner won the adapted-screenplay award for George Clooney's recession-era tale Up in the Air, which Reitman also directed.