Famed veteran character actor JK Simmons, 60, finally got his first Academy Award trophy. Simmons has won the best supporting Oscar for his role in the film "Whiplash" as an intensely sadistic music instructor who pushes his students to the extreme.
Filmed mostly within both Newhall and the Valencia Industrial Center, the movie is the story of a 19-year-old music student who is mentored by intense music teacher Terrence Fletcher.
Fletcher employs humiliation and fear to further push the protagonist, Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller, to succeed.
This was Simmon's first Oscar nomination.
Also vying for the prestigious supporting role award nominations are industry's bigwig stars Edward Norton for "Birdman", Mark Ruffalo for "Foxcatcher", Ethan Hawke for "Boyhood", and Robert Duvall for "The Judge".
Simmons prevailed which also echoed the expectations of some of industry experts predicting him take home the award.
Popular prediction sites like Oddsmakers and PredictWise, as Deadline Awards Line reported, gave Simmons a 99.2 percent chance of winning to favor.
In his acceptance speech, Simmons evoked little tell-tale signs of his Fletcher persona as he thanked his family and called out people to "call your Mom...call your Dad", Guardian UK reported.
"If you're lucky to have a person alive on this planet, call them. Listen to them, talk to them, for as long as they want to talk to you. Thank you, Mom and Dad."
"Whiplash" is penned and directed by the up and coming Damien Chazelle. Completed within the measly budget of $3.3 million, the film went on to become among the most critically acclaimed films for 2014.
The movie also took home the Oscars for Tom Cross' state of the art film editing.
