A month before his death Heath Ledger sat down with his sister Kate in Perth and showed her some top secret photos and film clips.
Yet to be made public, they were from his performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, a film that would not be released in theatres for another eight months.
Kate was stunned.
"I said to him, 'I have a feeling this is it for you. You are going to get a nomination'," said Kate, recalling the Christmas 2007 conversation.
"He just looked at me and smiled.
"He knew."
As expected, Ledger won the best supporting actor Oscar for his scene-stealing performance as the Batman villain.
The achievement made him only the second actor to claim an Academy Award posthumously. The other was also an Australian, Peter Finch, the best actor for Network in 1977.
Ledger's father Kim Ledger, mother Sally Bell and Kate made the nerve-wracking walk from the A-List audience inside Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, up the steps and onto the podium to collect the gold statuette.
With many moist eyes looking on, each took turns to speak.
"This award tonight would've humbly validated Heath's quiet determination to be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, within an industry he so loved," Kim Ledger said.
Backstage, the trio admitted they were shaking when they heard their son and brother had won Hollywood's highest honour.
Bookmakers may have had him as the shortest priced favourite in Oscar history with odds as slim as 1/250, but they were not convinced his win was a fait accompli.
"We were a little bit overwhelmed actually because nothing is a sure thing," Ms Bell said.
"As much as we thought it was a pretty amazing job, you just don't know do you?"
Ledger, who died aged 28 on January 22, 2008 in his New York apartment from an accidental overdose of painkillers and sleeping pills, was the sole Australian winner at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony.
Six other Aussies - costume designer Catherine Martin (Australia), art director Michael Carlin (The Duchess), visual effects wizard Ben Snow (Iron Man), film editors Kirk Baxter (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Lee Smith (The Dark Knight) and Tamara Anghie, producer of short live action film New Boy - all went home empty-handed.
While Ledger's win was the emotional high of the ceremony, Hugh Jackman energised the event as host, combining singing, dancing and plenty of hilarious one liners that had the audience in hysterics.
"As you know this is my first year as host, but that is not the only thing that is different," Jackman, who starred in last year's Baz Luhrmann epic, Australia, said in the opening sequence.
"Everything is being downsized because of the recession.
"Next year I will be starring in a movie called New Zealand."
Slumdog Millionaire, a film shot in Mumbai with a cast of first-time actors, including young children plucked from the city's slums, dominated the ceremony.
The movie won eight Oscars, more than any other, including best picture and director for Britain's Danny Boyle.
Another Brit, actress Kate Winslet, finally broke through with her first Academy Award after five previous nominations for her performance in The Reader, a role set in post-World War II Germany.
Nicole Kidman may be wondering what might have been.
Kidman was originally cast in the role, but when she fell pregnant with daughter Sunday Rose decided to withdraw, handing it to Winslet.
In the shock of the night, Mickey Rourke was the favourite for best actor for his performance in The Wrestler, but another bad boy, Sean Penn, playing San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, was the victor.
Outside the ceremony, religious protesters held anti-gay placards, including one that said "Heath is in hell".
It was in protest of Ledger's 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, where he played a gay cowboy.
Penn angrily branded the protest as "meaningless gibberish".
Spain's Penelope Cruz was the favourite in the best supporting actress category and lived up to the hype, claiming her first Oscar for the Woody Allen-directed Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
The Ledger family also confirmed the late actor's three-year-old daughter Matilda will eventually have his Oscar. Under Academy rules, when Matilda turns 18 she will sign for it.
"Matilda will be the recipient," Kim Ledger said.
"She can't sign for it until she turns 18 so it stays in trust here or in Australia until she turns 18."
Ledger's former fiancee and mother of Matilda, Michelle Williams, flew with the toddler to Los Angeles a few hours before the ceremony and it is believed they will be meeting up with the Ledgers after the ceremony.
The family dismissed rumours there was a rift with Williams and praised the way she is raising Matilda.
"We are very close with Michelle," Kate said.
"She is doing an amazing job with Matilda. We speak to her all the time."
Matilda was almost a clone of her father, the family said.
"I think you just have to look at her," Ledger's mother said.
"She is totally like her daddy.
"She has the same mannerisms.
"I really feel he is in her.
"That is a delight to be watching her, that she has the same enthusiasm and energy."
The nomination for The Dark Knight was the second of Ledger's career after being acknowledged for Brokeback Mountain.
That year Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote and the shy Ledger confided to friends and family he was relieved he did not win.
The actor's family said he would have been proud of The Dark Knight win.
"Heath was never one to be over the top with anything, but I think he would be quietly pleased that he has been recognised by his peers," his mother said.
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