Allison Janney Wins Best Supporting Actress

HOLLYWOOD, CA — The Best Supporting Actress honor at the 2018 Academy Awards went to Allison Janney for her singularly brutal and darkly humorous performance as Tonya Harding's abusive mother in ``I, Tonya.''

Janney said Sunday evening she is grateful she will be back to work Monday morning on the set of her sitcom "Mom," because it will help ensure that her supporting-actress Oscar win for "I, Tonya" doesn't go to her head.

"I have to be at a table read at 10 a.m. for `Mom' tomorrow, so I'm going right back to work," Janney said when asked backstage at the Dolby Theatre how the award will change her life. "I am so happy that I have a job to go to after something like this because it can go to your head, and then tomorrow to wake up and have nothing to do, and the whole journey be over."

Janney's role as the abusive mother of figure skater Tonya Harding, who was famously embroiled in a scandal to have her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, attacked and injured before the 1994 Winter Olympics, won her acclaim from audiences and critics alike.

Janney said she never dreamed she would win an Oscar, even after becoming a highly decorated actress with multiple Emmy wins for her roles on "The West Wing" and "Mom."

"I kind of didn't dare to dream of things like this because I didn't want to be disapointed," she said. "At a certain point I had given up that this would happen for me. I just wasn't getting the kinds of roles in films that would give me attention like this, and that's what my very good friend (screenwriter) Steven Rogers did for me. He says he did it, he wrote this for me."

City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.

Allison Janney in "I, Tonya" (Photo Courtesy of Neon)