In a race that pitted him against some of the best actors of his generation, 30 Seconds to Mars lead singer Jared Leto won the first Oscar of the night for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Rayon, an HIV-positive transgender woman, in Dallas Buyer's Club.

During his acceptance speech, Leto gave props to his mother, his brother, everyone in 30 Seconds to Mars, his colleagues, and everyone who suffers from HIV.

Leto beat out Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street), Barkad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), and Bradley Cooper (American Hustle).

Dallas Buyer's Club was based on a true story, where Matthew McConaghey stars as AIDS patient Ron Woodroof, who smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas when he found them effective at improving his symptoms, distributing them to fellow sufferers by establishing the eponymous "Dallas Buyers Club" while facing opposition from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Jared Leto played Rayon, a drug addicted transgender woman with AIDS who befriends McConaughey's character Ron Woodruff. In order to accurately portray his role, he lost 30 pounds, shaved his eyebrows and waxed his entire body. He claimed that his character was grounded in his meeting transgender people while researching the role. During filming, Leto refused to break character. Dallas Buyers Club received widespread critical acclaim and became a financial success, resulting in various accolades for Leto, who was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role and a variety of film critics' circle awards for the role. The film earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and tonight, he won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.


Congratulations, Jared! (But you will always be Jordan Catalano to me...)