Oscars 2015: Patricia Arquette wins supporting actress for ‘Boyhood’

She beat Meryl!

Patricia Arquette has won the Academy Award for supporting actress in her role as a mother struggling to raise her children while cycling through different husbands in “Boyhood.”

Arquette has been a favorite in the category all season, picking up prizes at the Screen Actors Guild awards, the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. This is the first Oscar for the 46-year-old, who filmed her part in Richard Linklater’s film over the span of 12 years.

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Accepting her award, Arquette thanked her “beautiful, powerful” fellow nominees, her “Boyhood” collaborators and her family.

Arquette also used her moment on stage to give a shout-out to her charity GiveLove.org, which provides sanitation in the developing world, and to call for “wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

If Meryl Streep had won the award for her role in “Into the Woods,” she would have tied Katharine Hepburn for the most acting wins -- four -- for any performer. Arquette also beat out Laura Dern (“Wild”), Emma Stone (“Birdman”) and Keira Knightley (“The Imitation Game.”)

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Arquette is starring on CBS’ police procedural “CSI: Cyber” and had a long run on TV with NBC’s supernatural “Medium” from 2005 to 2011. One of her most memorable film roles was in 1993’s “True Romance,” in which she played a hooker caught up in a drug deal with Christian Slater.

The 87th Academy Awards are taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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