Beatty’s batty act

Line? Line? That’s all Warren Beatty had to say to defuse one of the most colossal Oscar screwups since “I Just Called to Say I Love You” won Best Original Song in 1984 (um, “Purple Rain” anybody? Hellooo).

The mistake is being blamed on the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant who handed Beatty the Best Actress envelope instead of the Best Picture envelope — and certainly that accountant needs to be sent to whatever white-collar prison that’s currently housing the thousands and thousands of Wall Streeters who caused the 2008 collapse and are paying their debt to society (just kidding!).

(Full disclosure: My brother is an accountant for Ernst & Young, so I am just loving this.) But the mistake was all Beatty’s — and it’s because he’s an actor.

Because of said affliction, Beatty has spent his entire adult life avoiding having to think at all. His job is to feel, not think. When actors think, it really does get in the way. Directors get upset. Writers grumble. Producers order costly reshoots.

So when presented with a card that said, “Emma Stone, La La Land,” Beatty didn’t know what to do.

He obviously couldn’t think — from years of disuse, Beatty’s brain has atrophied to the size of the box-office grosses for “Ishtar.”

And he didn’t know what to feel other than the fear that was so obvious on his face (still handsome, by the way, Warren!).

And that’s when he should have done what actors have always done in that situation: Call for help.

“Guys, the card says Emma Stone, but she’s already won her award, so what should I do?” That’s all he had to say. Instead, he panicked. He froze. And then he did the thing that no one should ever do. He asked Faye Dunaway for help. Don’t ever ask Faye Dunaway for help because, given her reputation in town, she’s going to offer it anyway (just ask Roman Polanski!). In this case, she did the opposite of Beatty. Where he froze, she threw Stanislavsky under the bus and just started babbling.

All in all, a horrific night for the acting profession. But Beatty could have prevented the whole thing with a simple call for help.