Chasing the Gold

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the fate of civilization depends upon a gold ring. In Hollywood, fates are ruled by a gold statuette. And each quest can be epic.

Appropriately enough, the fantasy “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” received 13 Academy Award nominations Tuesday, including best picture, director and supporting actor--one short of the record of 14 held by “All About Eve” and “Titanic.”

“A Beautiful Mind,” the odyssey of schizophrenic math professor and Nobel laureate John Nash, and “Moulin Rouge,” a lavish, expressionistic musical, each received eight nominations, including best picture.

Also nominated for best picture were “Gosford Park,” a seriocomic tale of love, lust and murder at an English country estate, which collected seven nominations, and “In the Bedroom,” an intimate drama about a family tragedy, which garnered five nominations.

What has already been an expensive and vigorously waged Oscar campaign will culminate March 24 at the 74th annual Academy Awards, as the show returns for the first time in four decades to the heart of Hollywood and moves into its new home, the Kodak Theatre.

Like Tolkien’s literary masterpiece, this year’s Oscar race seems fraught with uncertainty and obstacles.

Will New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe, who was nominated Tuesday for best actor in “A Beautiful Mind,” win back-to-back Oscars, a feat only accomplished in this category by Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks?

Will Ron Howard, director of “A Beautiful Mind,” finally erase the curse of Richie Cunningham and Opie Taylor by grabbing his first Oscar?

Will Halle Berry be the first African American woman to win best actress, for her role in “Monster’s Ball”? Or will Denzel Washington or Will Smith become the first African American actor to win the best actor Academy Award since Sidney Poitier received the Oscar for 1963’s “Lilies of the Field”?

First-time nominee Smith--who is in Australia with his wife and “Ali” co-star, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, and their children--said they were asleep when his publicist phoned shortly before 1 a.m. to say he had been nominated for “Ali.” His wife became so excited she jumped out of bed and struck her head on the door.

“I got her some ice and aspirin and when we settled down she said, ‘Baby, we are going to the big dance,’” Smith said.

For the first time in its seven-decade history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has created a new category for animated films. All the inaugural nominees were spawned by computer: the fairy tale spoof “Shrek,” the comedy “Monsters, Inc.” and the offbeat “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.”

Like Frodo and his odd assortment of friends who go on an epic journey in Tolkien’s beloved novel, this year’s best actor nominees are an eclectic group of contenders.

There is the brooding Crowe, who won the Oscar last year as the Roman general-turned-slave in “Gladiator” and was nominated the previous year as the tormented cigarette industry whistle-blower in “The Insider.”

Then there is the usually hot-tempered Sean Penn, who plays a mentally challenged man fighting to retain custody of his young daughter in “I Am Sam”; the usually affable Smith, who portrays famed boxer Muhammad Ali in the biopic “Ali”; the usually heroic Washington, who goes against type by playing a crooked undercover narcotics cop in “Training Day”; and the usual supporting player Tom Wilkinson, who plays a grieving father seeking revenge in “In the Bedroom.”

The leading actress nominees are no less diverse.

Besides Berry’s turn as a widow of an executed convict who falls in love with a racist prison guard, this year’s nominees include former Oscar winner Judi Dench as the Alzheimer’s-stricken writer Iris Murdoch in “Iris,” Nicole Kidman as the ill-fated courtesan in “Moulin Rouge,” former Oscar winner Sissy Spacek as the anguished mother in “In the Bedroom” and Renee Zellweger as an lovelorn, overweight woman looking for Mr. Right in London in the comedy “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Reached in London, where she is filming the next James Bond movie, Berry commented on the fact that she is one of the handful of African American actresses to have been nominated in this category.

“Never in my life did I think I’d be nominated for an Oscar,” she said. “Women of color are rarely at these kinds of things.”

Spacek, who received her first Academy Award for 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” said this nomination “makes everything a little bit sweeter.”

“I am older now, and I realize how rare it is to find these magic projects,” the 52-year-old actress said from her home in Virginia. “When you are young, you think they are all going to be like that.”

One of the day’s surprises had to be Zellweger. The blond Texan, who is filming the musical “Chicago” in the Windy City, said she turned on the TV and was “overwhelmed” when she learned of her first nomination.

“I am elated,” said Zellweger who gained 20 pounds for the part of Bridget, laughing that she did it the old-fashioned way. “I used my fingers and ate pizza and doughnuts.”

In one of the more hotly contested categories, the best supporting actor nominations went to Jim Broadbent for “Iris,” Ethan Hawke for “Training Day,” Ben Kingsley for “Sexy Beast,” Ian McKellen for “The Lord of the Rings” and Jon Voight for “Ali.”

Reached in London, McKellen said he was “riding high” after getting the good news. “One of 13 [nominations] is a lucky number this morning,” he said.

Vying for supporting actress were two stage and screen veterans: Helen Mirren and two-time Oscar-winner Maggie Smith. In “Gosford Park,” Mirren plays the steely head of the downstairs staff at a sumptuous British mansion and Smith the snobby eccentric upstairs matron.

Going up against them are three relatively younger actresses who have worked for years in the business: Jennifer Connelly in “A Beautiful Mind,” former Oscar winner Marisa Tomei in “In the Bedroom” and Kate Winslet in “Iris.” Winslet, who has been nominated twice before, is playing the younger version of Dench’s character, Iris Murdoch.

Tomei, who won best supporting actress for the 1992 comedy “My Cousin Vinny,” said her feelings regarding her nomination for her dramatic role in “In the Bedroom” are “pretty raw and pretty pure. I feel pretty happy. There is a mix of joy and being grateful and stunned and proud of Sissy and Tom and [director] Todd [Field] and just grateful.”

In a town obsessed with youth, Robert Altman, who turns 77 next week, was nominated for “Gosford Park,” his fifth nomination in this category in a lengthy career.

Other directors named Tuesday include three-time nominees Ridley Scott, the director of last year’s best film, “Gladiator,” for “Black Hawk Down,” and David Lynch, for “Mulholland Drive,” and first-timers Ron Howard for “A Beautiful Mind” and Peter Jackson for “The Lord of the Rings.”

Jackson, speaking by phone from his home in Wellington, New Zealand, where he had gathered with his co-writers and other members of his creative team, said he learned he was nominated while playing the board game “Risk” and watching a tape of his Oscar rival, Lynch’s film “Mulholland Drive.”

“I think the biggest challenge for us was the script,” said Jackson, who’s deep in post-production on the second of three films based on the Tolkien novels. “It was the most fiendishly difficult book to adapt.”

Lynch, who was shunned by the Directors Guild of America for “Mulholland Drive,” said he was surprised at receiving his third Oscar nomination. “I didn’t think it was going to happen,” he said, noting that “Mulholland Drive” began as an unsold TV pilot. “It has had a very strange path. It’s just like Mulholland Drive itself. It is a long, very winding, narrow path, and it ended up in a pretty good gosh-darn place.”

Howard, who is in Germany, where “A Beautiful Mind” is being shown at the Berlin Film Festival, noted that twice before in his career he failed to receive recognition from the academy although he had been nominated by the DGA for “Cocoon” (1985) and won the guild’s top prize for “Apollo 13” in 1995.

“I certainly didn’t know what to expect here today,” Howard said. “It’s gratifying and it means a lot to me. On the other hand, my heart goes out to some people who were anticipating the possibility that they could be nominated today. Their names weren’t called. I understand how that feels.”

Though his film “In the Bedroom” is nominated for best picture and he is nominated for best adapted screenplay, Field did not receive a directing nomination.

The outspoken Zwigoff said he was surprised by his nomination because “I don’t agree with most of the [academy’s] choices.” He added: “I was happy for David Lynch. I thought he well deserved it.” Asked if he would be attending the awards, he replied, “My wife really wants to go, so I guess I’m going. Maybe they will give me a free suit. I need a new suit.”

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Times staff writer Lorenza Munoz contributed to this story.

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THE BIG NIGHT

Sunday, March 24

Kodak Theatre at

Hollywood & Highland

5 p.m. * ABC

Whoopi Goldberg, Host

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OSCARS ON THE WEB

Find updated Oscar coverage at www.latimes.com/oscars

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Oscar Scorecard

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