best actor – motion picture drama robin williams nominated grammy awards february 25, 1992 best instrumental composition written for a motion picture or for television randy newman nominated national board of review awards march 4, 1991 best actor robert de niro,robin williams (tie) won top ten films awakenings won new york film critics circle awards january 13, 1991 best actor robert de niro won writers guild of america award march 20, 1991 best adapted screenplay steven zaillian nominated notes neither as printed in the following 1990 premiere excerpt nor as recounted by winters herself six years later does this anecdote identify by name the casting director in question. as regards gender, however (and notwithstanding subsequent versions to the contrary), winters' own account clearly cites a "casting lady," and bonnie timmerman is indeed the credited casting director on the finished film. at this point, a red flag regarding this story's accuracy should have been raised by any truly well-versed winters fan, given the fact that roughly fifteen years earlier (as was widely reported, both at the time and subsequently), she had famously donated the first of her two oscars to the anne frank museum in amsterdam. indeed, winters' own version of events, as recounted to tom snyder in 1996, while failing to inform viewers that she did not in fact land the role in question, is accurate as regards both number of oscars involved and gender—i.e. female—of both the film's unnamed "casting lady" and director penny marshall, towards whom, at least in retrospect, winters displays a markedly greater degree of deference: "if penny marshall, who was the director, was going to ask me to read, that was okay with me."