Quentin Tarantino and Chris Terrio will be the lucky writers walking out of the Dolby Theatre tonight with Oscars in hand. The two men won their prizes for “Django Unchained” (Best Original Screenplay) and “Argo” (Best Adapted Screenplay) respectively.
“Ben, 15 years ago you were up here for the first screenplay you ever made and now you’ve brought me here,” he said to director Ben Affleck from the stage of the Dolby Theatre. “I want to dedicate this to everyone who uses creativity to solve problems non-violently.”
Terrio held off competition from the likes of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner (“Lincoln”) and “Silver Linings Playbook” writer/director David O. Russell.
“The national conversation about Iran is always about nukes, about a crazy speech that Ahmadinejad makes at the U.N.,” Terrio told HitFix about his broader ideas for the story in December. “There isn”t a more considered discussion of the fact that we’re still in the same place that we were, diplomatically speaking, in 1980.”
Meanwhile, it was Quentin Tarantino who took the Best Original Screenplay prize, his film’s second award of the evening.
“That’s cool, Charlize is my neighbor,” Tarantino said upon receiving the prize from actors Charlize Theron and Dustin Hoffman. “I would like to say that it’s such an honor to get it this year, because I have to say in both the adapted and the original categories, the writing was great. This was a writer’s year.”
This is his second Oscar to date. He previously won in 1994 for “Pulp Fiction.”
Both and “Argo” and “Django Unchained” are nominated in the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards.