Jared Leto was the first winner of the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday. Since he was the first to accept his award, he had no problem with sharing the wealth by passing around his Oscar to anyone who wanted to touch it.
After accepting his award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as transgendered AIDS victim Rayon, Leto stopped by the press room to answer a few questions about his Dallas Buyers Club role and his win. For the first time in Oscars history, Leto decided to share his award with members of the press by passing it around. The decision happened when Leto asked if anyone wanted to see the Oscar up close.
Of course, a few members of the press couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold Jared Leto’s gold, so Leto handed the award off to the woman who was transcribing interviews. The golden statue made the rounds in the room, and was touched by a few people that were sitting in front of Leto before it was returned back to the actor/30 Seconds to Mars frontman.
As the award was passed around, Leto made sure to crack a joke. “But if you have swine flu, please don’t touch it.” At one point, the Dallas Buyers Club actor told the journalists to take a “selfie” with the award before it was returned to the Academy Award winner. “You guys want to get media, let the media do what they do!”
Many people were touched by Jared Leto’s words when he stepped up to the podium to accept his award. Much of the focus was on his mother’s plight to give Leto and his older brother Shannon a better life than one could imagine. While in the press room, Leto opened up about the conscious decision he made about his speech.
“I thanked my mother because she is everything. She’s inspired me in ways that I could talk about for days. You have an opportunity when you stand on the stage — you can make it about yourself or you can hold up a mirror and shine a light. And that’s what I chose to do tonight.”
Before he scored the role of Rayon, Leto was mostly focusing on his wildly successful rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. When he entered the industry, Leto was a teen heartthrob on the short-lived series My So Called Life . After that, he went on to give performances in The Thin Red Line , Fight Club , Girl Interrupted , American Psycho , Requiem For A Dream , and Panic Room .
[Image credit: Focus Features]