MPSC 2021 Prelims Q95: 2021 Oscar award for actor in a leading role was won by

Q: What is the answer to MPSC 2021 Prelims Q95?

(3). Correct — option (3), Anthony Hopkins. The award for actor in a leading role at the 93rd Academy Awards, whose ceremony was held on 25 April 2021, went to Sir Anthony Hopkins for his performance in 'The Father', in which he plays a man losing his hold on his own memory and on the identity of the people around him. He was eighty-three at the time and became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award; it was his second Oscar, the first having come nearly three decades earlier for 'The Silence of the Lambs'. The construction of the option set is what makes this question worth studying, because every one of the four names was nominated at that same ceremony and three of them in categories other than the one asked about. Riz Ahmed was a fellow nominee for actor in a leading role, for 'Sound of Metal'; Paul Raci was nominated for actor in a supporting role for the same film; and Anders Hammer was nominated, with Charlotte Cook, for the documentary short subject 'Do Not Split'. So the paper is not testing whether a candidate can recognise an Oscar nominee — all four qualify — but whether he knows which category each was nominated in and which of them actually won. A candidate who remembers 'Sound of Metal' as the film of the year in the acting categories will be pulled towards two different wrong options. That is a deliberate design and it recurs throughout this paper's current-affairs block, where option sets are drawn from a single tight category so that partial recall gives no advantage. For completeness, the other principal awards of the same evening are worth carrying alongside this one: 'Nomadland' won best picture, its director Chloe Zhao won for directing, becoming only the second woman to do so, and Frances McDormand won for actress in a leading role in the same film.

MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 95 of 100

State Services Preliminary Examination 2021, held 23 January 2022. Transcribed from the commission's own booklet (संच A); answer as per the official MPSC final answer key.

2021 Oscar award for actor in a leading role was won by _________.

(1)Paul Raci
(2)Anders Hammer
(3)Anthony Hopkins
(4)Riz Ahmed

Answer

(3)

Why

Correct — option (3), Anthony Hopkins. The award for actor in a leading role at the 93rd Academy Awards, whose ceremony was held on 25 April 2021, went to Sir Anthony Hopkins for his performance in 'The Father', in which he plays a man losing his hold on his own memory and on the identity of the people around him. He was eighty-three at the time and became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award; it was his second Oscar, the first having come nearly three decades earlier for 'The Silence of the Lambs'. The construction of the option set is what makes this question worth studying, because every one of the four names was nominated at that same ceremony and three of them in categories other than the one asked about. Riz Ahmed was a fellow nominee for actor in a leading role, for 'Sound of Metal'; Paul Raci was nominated for actor in a supporting role for the same film; and Anders Hammer was nominated, with Charlotte Cook, for the documentary short subject 'Do Not Split'. So the paper is not testing whether a candidate can recognise an Oscar nominee — all four qualify — but whether he knows which category each was nominated in and which of them actually won. A candidate who remembers 'Sound of Metal' as the film of the year in the acting categories will be pulled towards two different wrong options. That is a deliberate design and it recurs throughout this paper's current-affairs block, where option sets are drawn from a single tight category so that partial recall gives no advantage. For completeness, the other principal awards of the same evening are worth carrying alongside this one: 'Nomadland' won best picture, its director Chloe Zhao won for directing, becoming only the second woman to do so, and Frances McDormand won for actress in a leading role in the same film.

Why the others are wrong

(1)Paul Raci — Paul Raci was nominated at the same ceremony, but in a different category: actor in a supporting role, for 'Sound of Metal', in which he plays the head of a shelter for deaf recovering addicts. He did not win, and in any event the question asks about the leading role. He is placed first in the option list precisely because a candidate who has read that 'Sound of Metal' was heavily nominated in the acting categories may pick either of the two actors from that film without checking which category is being asked about. The general defence is to read the category in the stem as carefully as the year — leading role and supporting role are separate awards for men and for women, so an Academy Awards question always has at least four acting answers available for a single ceremony.
(2)Anders Hammer — Anders Hammer is not an actor at all. He is a journalist and film-maker who was nominated at the 93rd Academy Awards, together with Charlotte Cook, in the category of documentary short subject, for 'Do Not Split'. His presence in a list of actors is the sharpest form of the trick this question plays: the four names share nothing except a nomination at the same ceremony, so a candidate relying on the feeling that he has seen the name in the Oscars coverage will treat all four as equally plausible. Knowing what a nominee was nominated for, and not merely that he was nominated, is what separates a usable memory of an awards cycle from a useless one, and it costs one extra word per entry in a candidate's notes.
(4)Riz Ahmed — Riz Ahmed is the strongest of the three wrong options because he was nominated in the very category the question asks about — actor in a leading role, for his performance as a drummer losing his hearing in 'Sound of Metal'. He did not win; the award went to Anthony Hopkins. A candidate who recalls that the film was prominent in the acting categories of that year, and who does not remember the outcome, has a genuine reason to choose this name and will still lose the mark. The item therefore rewards the specific fact rather than the general impression, which is the standing rule of the awards section: a nomination is not a win, and MPSC asks about wins.

Concept

The Academy Awards are conferred annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the United States and are the most widely reported film honours in the world. The ceremony held on 25 April 2021 was the ninety-third, and it covered films of the preceding period; its principal awards went to 'Nomadland' for best picture, to Chloe Zhao for directing, to Frances McDormand for actress in a leading role and to Anthony Hopkins for actor in a leading role in 'The Father'. Zhao's win made her the second woman to receive the directing award. Hopkins, at eighty-three, became the oldest winner of an acting award, and his win was his second, after 'The Silence of the Lambs'. For an Indian candidate the useful frame is comparative: the Oscars are decided by the members of an industry academy by ballot, while India's National Film Awards are conferred by the Government of India on the recommendation of juries appointed for the purpose, and the two therefore differ in what they reward and in how a decision is reached. It is also worth keeping the year convention straight. An Academy Awards ceremony held in one calendar year honours films of the preceding period, so the '2021 Oscars' and 'the 2021 films' are not the same thing, and a question that names a year is nearly always naming the ceremony.

MPSC's current-affairs block reliably contains at least one question on a major award, and the Oscars appear regularly among them. The Commission's method with awards is to move up a ladder of specificity as the years pass: first the winner of the best-known category, then a second-tier category, then a fact about the ceremony or about a record set at it. This question sits on the second rung and is made difficult by the option set rather than by the fact itself. Note again the pattern used throughout this paper — four members of one homogeneous class, so that elimination is impossible and only exact recall answers. Against that construction, the preparation that works is a compact table per awards cycle: the ceremony, the date, the winners of the four acting categories plus best picture and best director, and any record or first attached to them. That table is short and it also answers the derived questions, which are the ones that catch the unprepared: who was the oldest winner, who was the second woman to win for directing, which film took the most awards. Finally, remember that this paper was written in January 2022, so the April 2021 ceremony was the most recent one at the time; the Commission draws current affairs from roughly the preceding eighteen months rather than only from the calendar year of the paper.

Key facts

The award for actor in a leading role at the 93rd Academy Awards, held on 25 April 2021, went to Anthony Hopkins for 'The Father'.
Hopkins was eighty-three and became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award; it was his second, the first having been for 'The Silence of the Lambs'.
All three wrong options were genuine nominees at the same ceremony — Riz Ahmed for actor in a leading role for 'Sound of Metal', Paul Raci for actor in a supporting role for the same film, and Anders Hammer, with Charlotte Cook, for the documentary short subject 'Do Not Split'.
At the same ceremony 'Nomadland' won best picture, Chloe Zhao won for directing and became the second woman to do so, and Frances McDormand won for actress in a leading role.
An Academy Awards ceremony held in one calendar year honours films of the preceding period, so a question naming a year is naming the ceremony rather than the films.

All four names were nominated at the SAME ceremony — so write the category and the outcome against each, because recognising a nominee proves nothing

Anthony Hopkins→WON — actor in a leading role, for 'The Father', in which he plays a man losing his hold on his own memory and on the identity of the people around him. He was eighty-three and became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award; it was his second, the first having come nearly three decades earlier for 'The Silence of the Lambs'

Riz Ahmed→NOMINATED, did not win — and nominated in the very category the stem asks about, actor in a leading role, for his performance as a drummer losing his hearing in 'Sound of Metal'. This is the strongest wrong option, because a candidate who recalls that the film was prominent in the acting categories that year has a genuine reason to choose it and still loses the mark

Paul Raci→NOMINATED, and in a DIFFERENT category — actor in a supporting role, for the same film 'Sound of Metal', in which he plays the head of a shelter for deaf recovering addicts. He is placed first in the option list precisely so that a candidate who remembers the film without remembering the categories can pick either of its two actors

Anders Hammer→NOT AN ACTOR AT ALL — a journalist and film-maker, nominated with Charlotte Cook in the documentary short subject category for 'Do Not Split'. His presence in a list of actors is the sharpest form of the trick: the four names share nothing except a nomination at the same ceremony

The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony was held on 25 April 2021, and the award for actor in a leading role went to Anthony Hopkins — option (3). Carry the rest of that evening with it: 'Nomadland' won best picture, its director Chloe Zhao won for directing and became the second woman to do so, and Frances McDormand won for actress in a leading role in the same film. Keep the year convention straight, too — a ceremony held in one calendar year honours films of the preceding period, so a question naming a year is naming the ceremony.

Study next

The Academy Awards of the examination year — best picture, best director and the four acting categories, with any record or first attached to eachIndian films, artists and technicians at the Academy Awards, and the difference between an Indian entry, a nomination and a winIndia's National Film Awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award — who confers them, how they are decided, and the recipients of the examination yearThe major international film festivals — Cannes, Berlin, Venice — and the International Film Festival of India at Goa, with their principal prizesHow the Oscars differ institutionally from a government-conferred award, and why that difference affects what each rewards

Common traps

Confusing a nomination with a win. Every option in this question was a nominee at the same ceremony, and only one of them took the award
Ignoring the category named in the stem. Leading role and supporting role are separate awards, and one of the wrong options here belongs to the documentary categories altogether
Assuming that the year in the question refers to the films. A ceremony held in one year honours the films of the preceding period
Preparing only the current year's awards. This paper was written in January 2022 and asks about the ceremony of April 2021

Awards questions are the most mechanical part of the current-affairs section and therefore the most worth systematising. MPSC asks them in three forms — who won a named award in a named year, what award a named person won, and a derived fact about the ceremony such as a record, a first or the film with the most wins. The distractors are drawn from the same cycle, which is why recognition alone fails; on this paper, all four names appear in the nominations of one ceremony. Expect at least one award question in every MPSC current-affairs block, expect the Oscars, the Nobel Prizes, the Booker and India's own literary and film honours to rotate through that slot, and expect the Commission to prefer a category one step away from the most famous one. A single page per year, listing prize, date, winner, work and one distinguishing fact, covers the whole family.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
At the 93rd Academy Awards held in April 2021, which film won the award for best picture ?
- (a)The Father
- (b)Sound of Metal
- (c)Nomadland
- (d)Do Not Split
Answer(c) Nomadland. It won best picture, and its director Chloe Zhao won the award for directing, becoming the second woman to do so, while Frances McDormand won for actress in a leading role in the same film. 'The Father' brought Anthony Hopkins the award for actor in a leading role; 'Sound of Metal' brought nominations for Riz Ahmed in the leading category and Paul Raci in the supporting one; and 'Do Not Split' was a nominee in the documentary short subject category.
practice — not a real PYQ
Anthony Hopkins, who won the Academy Award for actor in a leading role in 2021, set which of the following records with that win ?
- (a)He became the first British actor to win the award
- (b)He became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award
- (c)He became the first actor to win the award for a debut performance
- (d)He became the first actor to win in two categories in the same year
Answer(b) He became the oldest winner of an acting Academy Award. He was eighty-three when he won for 'The Father' at the ceremony held on 25 April 2021, and it was his second Academy Award, the earlier one having come for 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Records of this kind — oldest, youngest, first of a nationality, first woman in a category — are the derived facts that awards questions most often turn on once the plain winner has been asked in an earlier year.