Oscar awards for best actor, actress go to Eddie Redmayne, Julianne Moore

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore won the Oscar Awards for Best Actor and Actress on Sunday night at the 87th annual Academy Awards ceremony held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

For his wonderful performance in "The Theory of Everything" as Stephen Hawking, Redmayne won also the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Moore won the Oscar for starring a woman dealing with Alzheimer's disease in "Still Alice." In order to prepare for her role as a Alzheimer's disease patient, Moore trained herself for four months by watching documentaries and interacting with patients at the Alzheimer's Association.

The four other nominees for best actor are Steve Carell for "Foxcatcher," Bradley Cooper for "American Sniper," Benedict Cumberbatch for "The Imitation Game" and Michale Keaton for "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)."

The other candidates for best actress are Rosamund Pike for "Gone Girl," Reese Witherspoon for "Wild," Marion Cotillard for "Two Days, One Night," and Felicity Jones for "The Theory of Everything."

J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette won Oscar awards for their supporting actor and actress roles in "Whiplash" and "Boyhood." Simmons and Arquette essentially swept most of the pre-Oscar ceremony awards, including winning Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards.

This year's Academy Awards was criticized for that the nominees in acting categories were dominated by white performers. For the third time since 1995, the 20 Academy Award acting nominations were only for white actors and actresses. The first was in 1998 and the second in 2011.

Furthermore, every nominated best director, screenwriter, screenplay adapter and original score composer is a white man and no female writers or directors were included in the Oscar race.

More than 6,000 academy members voted for the winners of the Academy Awards in 24 categories. About 94 percent of the members are white, 77 percent are men and 86 percent are over the age of 50.

Host of the show, Neil Patrick Harris, even joked on the stage that "Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest, sorry I mean brightest."

Fifty Oscar statuettes were given to winners in the 24 categories of awards. Several hundred million viewers in more than 200 countries and regions are expected to watch the award ceremony on TV.