HOLLYWOOD: Whether it’s the low-budget Slumdog Millionaire vying for the top award or little-known performers like Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins earning acting nominations, the 81st Academy Awards is the year of the underdog.

Of all the against-the-odds stories to be found at this year’s Oscars, the rise of Slumdog Millionaire to best picture front-runner is arguably the most improbable, mirroring the rags-to-riches plot of its central character. Made for a relatively meagre $15 million — best picture rival The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was made for 150 million — the film came close to being dead in the water last year.

When US distributor Warner Independent Pictures was closed the movie was left in limbo. At one stage Warners’ considered releasing the film straight to DVD before eventually partnering with Fox to give the film a theatrical release.

The rest is history, with the film scoring a virtual clean sweep of the awards season honours heading into this weekend’s Oscars. Director Danny Boyle believes destiny may now be on Slumdog’s side.

“It’s been very strange,” Boyle said in an interview. “Working in India where they believe in the concept of destiny as one of the movers of life, they saw many parallels going on which I became slowly aware of. Certainly some of the things that’s happened to the journey of the film have made me a bit more respectful of what they believe. There were a number of people who said ‘This has got Oscar written all over it’. And I remember feeling very cynical and thinking ‘You know nothing.’ Now they look back at me and say ‘You knew nothing!’”

While Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire are dreaming of victory, best actress nominee Leo is just glad to be involved. The 48-year-old joins a stellar list of nominees which include Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway.

Leo admits the glamour of the Oscars red carpet was the last thing on her mind when she was shivering through production of the low budget independent movie Frozen River. “There was no trailer, we used the car as the wardrobe and we also changed in garages, offices, and kind people’s bedrooms,” she said, saying she had never given the Oscars a second thought.

Similarly, career character actor Jenkins, 61, nominated alongside the likes of Brad Pitt, Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn in the best actor category for The Visitor, is unaccustomed to his role in the limelight. “It has been crazy — good crazy, not bad crazy — and one of the great things is I hear from people I haven’t heard from in a long while.”

Meanwhile, Viola Davis, 43, a best supporting actress nominee for her role in Doubt, admits she is still getting used to recognition.

“I even Googled myself,” she told reporters at the Oscar nominees luncheon. “Ninety-five per cent of the people in this business face unemployment at any given time and I have absolutely been there,” she said. “... I’ve seen it all. I truly truly feel like I wanted to find a way out of my life when I was younger — poverty, living in a small town — and I didn’t know if I could do it. But this is everything I could have hoped for.”