Match the Best Supporting Actress - 1990s Quiz

Answer: Whoopi Goldberg

With her second Academy Award nomination, Whoopi Goldberg won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as psychic Oda Mae Brown in "Ghost". She had previously been nominated in the Best Actress category for "The Color Purple" in 1986. Goldberg was the first black actress to receive two Academy Award acting nominations, and was the second black actress to win in the Best Supporting Actress category; Hattie McDaniel was the first way back in 1940.

In "Ghost", the fraudster Brown discovered that she was a real psychic when she was contacted by the recently murdered Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) to help save his girlfriend Molly Jensen (Demi Moore) from suffering the same fate.

The other nominees in the category were Annette Bening ("The Grifters"), Lorraine Bracco ("GoodFellas"), Diane Ladd ("Wild at Heart"), and Mary McDonnell ("Dances with Wolves").

Answer: Mercedes Ruehl

With her first Academy Award nomination, Mercedes Ruehl picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as acerbic Anne Napolitano in "The Fisher King". In the film, Napolitano was the feisty girlfriend of shock jock Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) whose on-air comments caused a man to shoot up a restaurant.

After suffering a breakdown, Lucas befriended one of the victims of the shooting (Robin Williams) who had become a delusional street person on a mission to find the Holy Grail. The other contenders for the award were Diane Ladd ("Rambling Rose"), Juliette Lewis ("Cape Fear"), Kate Nelligan ("The Prince of Tides"), and Jessica Tandy ("Fried Green Tomatoes").

Answer: Marisa Tomei

At the 65th Academy Awards ceremony, Marisa Tomei joined the ranks of actresses who won an Oscar with their first nomination when she snagged the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as brassy Mona Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny". In the film, Vito was the fiancée of newly licensed lawyer Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) who went to court in Alabama to defend his two cousins who were charged with murdering a store clerk. Strong circumstantial evidence and Vinny's lack of courtroom experience seemed to doom the cousins until Vito was brought in to testify as an expert witness.

The other nominees for Best Supporting Actress were Judy Davis ("Husbands and Wives"), Joan Plowright ("Enchanted April"), Vanessa Redgrave ("Howards End"), and Miranda Richardson ("Damage").

Answer: Anna Paquin

With her feature film debut, Anna Paquin won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as precocious Flora McGrath in "The Piano". At eleven years of age, she was the second youngest winner (behind Tatum O'Neal) of an acting Academy Award at that date.

In "The Piano", McGrath was the daughter of a mute woman Ada (Holly Hunter) who had arrived in colonial New Zealand as a mail-order bride, only to find that the man she married (Sam Neill) was frigid. When a fellow settler (Harvey Keitel) asked Ada to give him piano lessons, she found that he shared her passions.

The other contenders in the category were Holly Hunter ("The Firm"), Rosie Perez ("Fearless"), Winona Ryder ("The Age of Innocence"), and Emma Thompson ("In the Name of the Father").

Answer: Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest picked up her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar when she won the award for her role as diva actress Helen Sinclair in "Bullets over Broadway". She had previously won the award for "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1987 and was nominated in the same category for "Parenthood" in 1990. Wiest became only the second actress to win two Best Supporting Actress Oscars; Shelley Winters was the first.

In Woody Allen's "Bullets over Broadway", when playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) made a deal with a mobster (Joe Viterelli) to finance his play, Sinclair was forced to act with a mobster's untalented girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly) who was cast in the play as part of the deal.

The other Best Supporting Actress nominees were Rosemary Harris ("Tom & Viv"), Helen Mirren ("The Madness of King George"), Uma Thurman ("Pulp Fiction"), and Jennifer Tilly ("Bullets over Broadway").

Answer: Mira Sorvino

With her first Academy Award nomination, Mira Sorvino picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as ditsy prostitute Linda Ash in "Mighty Aphrodite". The daughter of "GoodFellas" and "Law and Order" actor Paul Sorvino, Mira brought him to tears during her acceptance speech when she said, "when you give me this award, you honor my father, Paul Sorvino, who has taught me everything I know about acting. I love you Dad".

In the Woody Allen film, Lenny Weinrib (Allen) tried to improve Ash's life after discovering that she was the birth mother of his gifted adopted son, but his obsession with Ash threatened his marriage.

The other contenders for the award were Joan Allen ("Nixon"), Kathleen Quinlan ("Apollo 13"), Mare Winningham ("Georgia"), and Kate Winslet ("Sense and Sensibility").

Answer: Juliette Binoche

Another winner with her first Academy Award nomination, Juliette Binoche won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as dedicated WWII nurse Hana in "The English Patient". In the film, Hana was a Canadian nurse who left her unit to care for a badly burned and amnesiac dying man (Ralph Fiennes) in the remains of an Italian monastery.

A Canadian intelligence operative (Willem Dafoe) was able to help the man regain his memory and tell his tragic story through a series of flashbacks. The other Best Supporting Actress nominees were Joan Allen ("The Crucible"), Lauren Bacall ("The Mirror Has Two Faces"), Barbara Hershey ("The Portrait of a Lady"), and Marianne Jean-Baptiste ("Secrets & Lies").

Answer: Kim Basinger

At the 70th Academy Awards ceremony, Kim Basinger won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Veronica Lake-lookalike Lynn Bracken in "L.A. Confidential". It was her first Academy Award nomination, and when she accepted the award, the ecstatic Basinger said, "I just want to thank everybody I've ever met in my entire life".

The convoluted "L.A. Confidential" followed police corruption in the 1950s with Bracken being a prostitute who worked for a service that offered women who were surgically modified to resemble film stars.

The other nominees in the category were Joan Cusack ("In & Out"), Minnie Driver ("Good Will Hunting"), Julianne Moore ("Boogie Nights"), and Gloria Stuart ("Titanic").

Answer: Judi Dench

With her second Academy Award nomination, Judi Dench won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love". She had been nominated the previous year in the Best Actress category for "Mrs. Brown". It was a popular year for the Tudor queen, something that Oscar host Whoopi Goldberg noted by making her entrance as Queen Elizabeth I and introducing herself as the African Queen. Cate Blanchett was also nominated that year in the Best Actress category for her QEI portrayal in "Elizabeth", but lost to Gwenyth Paltrow.

At about eight minutes of screen time, Dench's performance was one of the shortest to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, something she alluded to when she accepted the Oscar: "I feel for eight minutes on screen, I should only get a little bit of him". "Shakespeare in Love" was a fictional account of Shakespeare's (Joseph Fiennes) inspiration for his play "Romeo and Juliet".

The other Best Supporting Actress nominees were Kathy Bates ("Primary Colors"), Brenda Blethyn ("Little Voice"), Rachel Griffiths ("Hilary and Jackie"), and Lynn Redgrave ("Gods and Monsters").

Answer: Angelina Jolie

With her first Academy Award nomination, Angelina Jolie won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role as sociopath Lisa Rowe in "Girl, Interrupted". Based on a true story, the film followed mentally unstable Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) and the people she met while committed to a psychiatric institution.

She fell under the spell of the charismatic Rowe who convinced her to escape with disastrous consequences. The other nominees in the category were Toni Collette ("The Sixth Sense"), Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich"), Samantha Morton ('Sweet and Lowdown"), and Chloe Sevigny ("Boys Don't Cry").