My top five actors who won Oscar's portraying real people after the year 2000.

Hugh Glass portrayed by Leonardo Dicaprio. The Reverant 2015. An American Western film that described Hugh's experiences in 1823. "I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do,” the actor tells Yahoo. “Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly.”

Ron Woodroof portrayed by Matthew McConaughey. Dallas Buyers Club 2013. The film tells the story of  Mr Woodroof, an AIDS patient diagnosed in the mid 1980s when HIV/AIDS treatments were under-researched, while the disease was not understood and highly stigmatized. As part of the experimental AIDS treatment movement, he smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas for treating his symptoms, and distributed them to fellow people with AIDS by establishing the "Dallas Buyers Club" while facing opposition from the FDA

Aileen Wuornos portrayed by Charlize Theron. Monster 2003. Monster is a 2003 crime drama film about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for killing six men in the late 1980s and early 1990's. For her Oscar-winning role as Aileen Wuornos in Monster, Theron gained 30 pounds and wore prosthetic teeth to portray the real-life serial killer. 

Truman Capote portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Capote 2005. Diminutive author  Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. "When you're playing  someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate. But it's one that you have to let go of ultimately. Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction. So, ultimately you have to think about the story you're telling. You want somehow to be able to create the character in such a way that people actually stop thinking about the fact that they're watching a real person—that they're watching "Truman Capote." If you can get them to be more invested in the story they're watching than in the character, then you've succeeded."-PSH

Wladyslaw Szpilman portrayed by Adrien Brody. The Pianist 2002. This is a historical drama film based on the autobiographical book  based on the World War II memoir by Polish Jewish pianist composer Wladyslaw. During the eight months he spent preparing for and shooting "The Pianist" in Europe -- "I gave up my New York apartment, sold my car and turned off my cell phone" He also starved himself to a 130 pounds to portray Wladyslaw.