Jackie Earle Haley: A Bad News Bear Makes Good
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On Tuesday, however, he got the phone call: He'd been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as a pedophile in Little Children.
"As you can imagine, last night was not a total restful night. Sleep was not happening – I was a little curious about what was happening this morning," the San Antonio, Texas, resident, now 45, tells PEOPLE. "I was still in bed, and my wife was getting ready for work. She tuned into the nominations and came running into the room, screaming and crying hysterically: 'You got it! You got it!' I sat up, and I was just absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. We hugged each other and cried for a full five minutes.
"Dude," he added, "talk about just an amazing moment with your wife. It was just, it was just the most amazing thing to share, this moment in time, so overwhelming."
It was a dramatic turnaround for Haley. "I left acting about 15 years ago because stuff just slowed down," he says. "It was time to move on, and I decided to give up and put my focus elsewhere. I went out and struggled for awhile, then got it together doing television commercials."
Without an agent or manager, he tried out for (and landed) a role in All the Kings Men, which led to Little Children. "This is the type of good that doesn't seem to get any better," he says. "And then it gets better."
