This week sees Dublin let loose its rainbow flag as we celebrate Gay Pride, and in honour of this, we've looked back over these ten roles in cinema and on television that represented the wide spectrum and varied history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered characters that went on to win the Best Actor/Actress Awards at the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
TOM HANKS - PHILADELPHIA
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 1994
Playing a man with AIDS who gets fired from his job due to his condition, who goes on to hire a homophobic lawyer (Denzel Washington) to help him sue for wrongful dismissal, Hanks thoroughly deserved this award for his thoughtful, emotive performance.
SEAN PENN - MILK
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 2009
Penn played Harvey Milk, the real life gay activist who fought for gay rights and went on to become California's first openly gay government elective official. But perhaps the biggest surprise was to see evidence that Sean Penn was actually capable of smiling every now and again!
CHARLIZE THERON - MONSTER
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 2004
Based on the true life story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute from Florida who became a serial killer, murdering her clients and taking their money so she wouldn't have to have sex with them, while engaged in a relationship with Selby, played by Christina Ricci.
HILARY SWANK - BOYS DON'T CRY
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 2000
The first of Swank's two Oscars came to her for playing the role of Brandon Teena, a transgendered teenager who identified himself as a male. The movie deals with the discovery that he was in fact born a female.
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN - CAPOTE
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 2006
Hoffman plays Truman Capote in the period of his life as he was researching his latest novel In Cold Blood, detailing the real life murder of a Kansas family. But while investigating, he develops a relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers.
FELICITY HUFFMAN - TRANSAMERICA
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama, Golden Globes, 2006
Desperate Housewives star Huffman plays this pre-op male-to-female transsexual who discovers that she fathered a son, who is now a teenage hustler on the streets of New York.
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - BEGINNERS
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Academy Awards, 2012
Plummer is fantastic in the role of an elderly man who rocks his son's (Ewan McGregor) world with two announcements; he has terminal cancer, and he is gay with a young male lover.
WILLIAM HURT - KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Academy Awards, 1986
By all accounts, the first Oscar given for a LGBT role went to Hurt playing a Luis Molina, a man placed in a South American prison for immoral behaviour, who invents fantastical romantic movies in his mind to help him deal with his situation.
KIM CATTRALL - SEX & THE CITY
Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for TV, Golden Globes, 2003
While she may not have received the award specifically for her character's portrayal of sexuality, Cattrall was a cultural icon of the 90's for her role as Samantha Jones. Having engaged in a lesbian relationship for a time, Jones was a sex-loving pansexual, willing to give anything a go once.
CHRIS COLFER - GLEE
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for TV, Golden Globes, 2011
Playing the character Kurt Hummell, Colfer dealt with some of the more testing issues of being an out-and-proud teen in today's society, including social exclusion, bullying and first loves, and many of his storylines proved to be hugely inspirational for the LGBT fans of the show.