The advantage of time and aging unfair?

First im not trying to take away her Oscar. She was great in Boyhood. It was a tough year for (choosing) supporting male and female actors. Tough year to pick best male actor also. (Everyone knew Juliane Moore would win for Still Alice so it was not tough).

Did Patricia's performance have an unfair advantage in that her character aged 12 years, authentically. No major makeup was used to age her face/body. Also Instead of a 35 year old playing a 35, 40, 45, 50 year old (as any conventional film would require her to do) the mentality of her respective age would be present in her personality/performance. She did not have to pretend to be those different ages. Was this an unfair advantage compared to the other nominees, who had to work with what they had in much smaller shooting time frame.