Leonardo DiCaprio received the Best Actor award for One Battle After Another at the National Board of Review gala in New York, delivering an emotional speech that credited his mother and celebrated cinema as 'our most definitive art form.'
DiCaprio recalled his first film experience at age four, watching the original King Kong at the historic Vista cinema near his home. 'I was crying hysterically at the end,' he said, but added that over time, 'something shifted in me. It was a place to escape my neighbourhood, a place where something larger than my own life seemed possible.'
The actor praised director Paul Thomas Anderson, with whom he collaborated on the crime thriller. 'I waited 25 years to make a film like this. So topical, so pertinent about extremism and divisiveness,' DiCaprio said. Anderson won Best Director and Best Film at the event.
DiCaprio also thanked his mother, Irmelin Indenbirkin, who was in the audience. 'She believed in me long before there was any reason to, driving me to auditions every day after school, supporting the dream that started in the theatres. This moment only exists because of you.'
Other winners included Benicio Del Toro for Best Supporting Actor and Chase Infiniti for Breakthrough Performance. The NBR, a century-old organisation of film enthusiasts and professionals, announced the awards last month ahead of Tuesday's gala at Cipriani 42nd Street.
