Melissa Leo implored Academy voters to consider her as a nominee. But she may not have needed to ask.

Admit it, you would have dropped the f-bomb too.

After winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at Sunday’s Academy Awards, Melissa Leo blurted out the expletive, along with a slew of more G-rated words of gratitude.

Yet no one can seem to let Leo off the hook for last month’s self-promotional “Consider” ads she personally paid for in Hollywood trade mags.

At the time, 50-year-old Leo blamed ageism for the need to toot her own horn.

“I did hear a lot of very positive comments, particularly from women of a certain age who happen to act for a living and happen to understand full well the great dilemma and mystery of getting a cover of a magazine,” she said.

So did Leo really need to hype herself up with a faux-fur-filled photo shoot? Jezebel’s Irin Carmon doesn’t think so. “Leo was already a frontrunner for her performance in The Fighter,” she wrote. ”And the ads just made people mock her.”

Regardless, Leo went home a winner, and seemed to prove to movie-goers (and maybe to herself), that age ain’t nothing but a number when it comes to talent.

Weight, on the other hand, still seems to be an equal-opportunity issue. Continue reading →