OUR DAZZLING NEW OSCAR YOUNG ONES
...and oh how different their life stories are
SHORN of much of its normal glitz and glamour but retaining the rambling speeches, it was criticised by some as a snooze-fest
And for one of the five British winners, Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony really was. Sir Anthony Hopkins, 83, was fast asleep at home in Wales by the time he was announced as the oldest-ever winner of the best actor award for his portrayal of a dementia sufferer in The Father.
As it was the final award, his non-appearance to collect a statuette was an anticlimactic end to an evening already muted because of Covid. His agent Jeremy Barber said: ‘Tony was in Wales and he was asleep at four in the morning when I woke him up to tell him the news.’
Fellow Britons Emerald Fennell and Daniel Kaluuya were on hand to pick up their awards at the makeshift venue, Union Station in Los Angeles.
Sir Anthony admitted he had expected the best actor Oscar to go to the late Chadwick Boseman, who was favourite to win for his final role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
The Welshman, who won his first statuette 30 years ago for playing serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs, posted a video on Instagram yesterday morning, saying: ‘At 83 years of age, I did not expect to get this award.’
He paid tribute to Boseman, then added: ‘ I really didn’t expect this and I feel privileged and honoured.’
The Father also won best adapted screenplay for British writer Sir Christopher Hampton and his French collaborator Florian Zeller – they wrote the original stage version. Best original screenplay went to Miss Fennell, for Promising Young Woman, the MeToo revenge thriller which she also directed.
Londoner Kaluuya created one of the ceremony’s most talked about moments as he accepted his best supporting actor Oscar for Judas And The Black Messiah – an off-the-cuff comment about his parents’ sex life brought an embarrassed ‘What did he say?’ reaction from his mother watching in London.
Saying he felt great to be alive, Kaluuya casually noted: ‘I think it’s pretty obvious that my parents had sex’. Cut to shocked look on Damalie Namusoke’s face as she watched her son from the Oscars London hub at the British Film Institute. Later, Kaluuya joked that his mum ‘has a sense of humour’ but that he would be dodging her texts.
The fifth British winner was Stafford-born Andrew Lockley, who shared the visual effects Oscar for the blockbuster Tenet.
That was one of the few films nominated that made it into cinemas rather than being available only via streaming services. With cinemas closed, there has been little collective engagement in the films in such a diverse year. Frances McDormand, who took best actress for big winner Nomadland, paid tribute to the late sound mixer Michael Wolf Snyder by howling like a wolf, then reminded us to go out and see the nominated films in a cinema ‘on the largest screen possible’.
For all the pre-show promises, the ceremony still ran for a plodding three hours with acceptance speeches that were allowed to ramble. It was hostless for the second year running, as if there needed to be a sense of reverence and solemnity because of the pandemic. But people at home were craving glamour. They got it in fits and starts on the reduced Union Station red carpet. A ‘fashion feed’ showed guests removing their masks to pose for photographs. They’d replace them immediately afterwards. The show’s producers, led by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, elevated the best actor category to pride of place as the final award, expecting Boseman’s name would be called by presenter Joaquin Phoenix, making for an emotional finale.
The move backfired spectacularly. It is understood that Sir Anthony’s team told the organisers he would not be attending, but no contingency plans were made.
Psst!
American TV viewing figures for the Oscars were catastrophic, plunging to 9.85million, a 58.3 per cent or 13.75million drop-off from last year’s numbers