Sir Ian Mckellen (The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers)
Andy Serkis (The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers)
Jude Law (Road To Perdition)
Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People)

Hugh Grant:
"I'm genuinely very pleased because I don't win any prizes - least of all for acting - so er, it's really very, very nice of Empire and their readers - if it is of course the readers who vote - but I never believe that bullshit. Having said that, one of the very few prizes I ever got was from Empire about nine years ago and I'd just like to say how very much I have changed since then. In 1995 it was the Assistant Editor chasing me through the back gardens in Los Angeles and digging a really sad, broken piece of plastic out of an old Waitrose bag, so I think Empire's moved on and I've moved on and I'm very grateful. It's not in my nature to share the credit for anyone but I should mention Nick Hornby - very brilliant, very bald - um, I should mention Nicholas Holt. Ex superb child actor now scary giant with a beard. I should mention Working Title, Tribeca, especially Bob De Niro, my mate. I should mention the weird pervy, semi-alcoholic Weitz brothers who actually adapted this film and directed it - very talented and very kind to me. I should mention Meera Hide who created my haircut and thereby ninety nine per cent of my performance. And finally oddly I would like to point out what a great job the international marketing people did. It's the bit that never gets acknowledged and I would like to acknowledge it because one, it happens so rarely. The second, is that the head of Universal Pictures International is sitting on my table and I want to be nice to him - in fact, he's my bitch tonight, he came with me and thirdly, because I genuinely feel they did a great job. And thank you very much, Empire."

Listen to the acceptance speech.

Click here to find out who has won previous Empire Awards.