Ariana DeBose wins Best Supporting Actress at 2022 Oscars

DeBose played Anita in the 2021 West Side Story remake.

Anita got her kicks tonight! Tony-nominated Broadway actress Ariana DeBose won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. She follows in the footsteps of stage and screen icon Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for playing the same role in the original 1961 film and became the first Latin Americna woman to do so.

DeBose's nomination was one of seven for West Side Story, including Best Picture; hers was the film's only win. DeBose previously won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, among others, for her West Side Story performance.

DeBose made her Broadway debut in Bring It On The Musical in 2012, but she rose to fame in the theatre community for playing the Bullet in the original ensemble of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. She received a Best Leading Actress in a Musical Tony nomination for starring as Disco Donna in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.

She's since gone on to appear in multiple theatrical screen projects, including the film adaptation of The Prom and the musical-inspired Apple TV+ series Schmigadoon!

In addition to DeBose, stage and screen actor Andrew Garfield was also an Oscar nominee this year, for Best Leading Actor in Miranda's tick, tick... BOOM! film adaptation; the movie was also nominated for Best Film Editing. Miranda himself was a Best Original Song nominee for the musical Pixar film Encanto's "Dos Orugitas." Had he won, he would have achieved the rare EGOT status, for those who win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.

AppleTV+'s CODA won Best Picture at the ceremony; the film is set to be adapted into a musical. CODA actor Troy Kotsur, who became the first deaf man to win an Oscar when he won Best Supporting Actor, nodded to his theatrical background in his speech, saying, "I want to thank all of the wonderful deaf theatre stages where I was allowed and given the opportunity to develop my craft as an actor." Kotsur performed on Broadway in the Tony-winning play Big River and has appeared in Deaf West Theater's productions of Cyrano, Our Town, and A Streetcar Named Desire in Los Angeles.