And the Oscar for the best actor goes to Leonardo DiCaprio. These were the words the 41-year-old actor wanted to hear on his four previous nominations, but finally he heard the magical lines on 28 February. DiCaprio received the Best Actor Academy Award for his exceptional performance as fur trapper Hugh Glass in The Revenant, a survival drama directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

DiCaprio had already won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild trophies for the role, which transformed the heartthrob from movies like Titanic and Romeo + Juliet into a greasy-haired 1820s fur trapper.

The actor was emotional after the announcement and thanked the movies director and his favourite Martin Scorsese for his achievements as an actor. He also used the stage to advocate his support for the cause of climate change.

Here is his Oscar acceptance speech:

Thank you all so very much. Thank you to the Academy, to all of you in this room, to the other nominees for their incredible performances, the cast and crew, my brother in this endeavour Tom Hardy... to Mr Alejandro Inarritu, what an unbelievable talent you are. Making The Revenant was about mans relationship to the natural world in 2015, the hottest year in history.

Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to stop procrastinating, we need to support leaders around the world who speak for all of humanity, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people, for our childrens children, and for those whose voices who have been drowned out by the politics of greed. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take this award for granted.

The Revenant director Iñárritu received the award for the best director and thanked Dicaprio and Tom Hardy in his acceptance speech: I cant believe this is happening. Its amazing to receive this award tonight, but its much more beautiful for me to share it with all the talented and crazy cast and colleagues and crew members along the continent that made this film possible.

There is a line in the film that [Glass says] to his mixed-race son: They dont listen to you, they just see the colour of your skin. So what a great opportunity to our generation to really liberate ourselves from all prejudice and, you know, this tribal thinking, and make sure for once and forever that the colour of the skin become as irrelevant as the length of our hair.

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