Names and faces
Dwayne Johnson posed for a solo photo on the stage of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. Taraji P. Henson pretended to run off with the wooden prop Oscar. And a makeup-free, casually clad Halle Berry made a rehearsal actor’s day when she kissed him on the cheek as he went onstage to accept an award. “That’s Halle Berry!” the actor said, eyes wide. Saturday was rehearsal day for the Academy Awards. A parade of superstar presenters passed through the Dolby Theatre to practice their lines — another famous face every 15 minutes. It was also casual day at the Dolby, as most stars arrived dressed down — except for the women’s feet: Many actresses wore their show-day shoes to try them out on the Oscar stage. Salma Hayek, however, was not dressed down. Wearing all black, from her blazer and blouse down to her stiletto-heeled boots, she looked like she just walked out of a magazine spread. “OK, let’s do this,” she said from center stage. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone had fun with a microphone sound-check. Stone asked the stage manager whether they should begin reading their lines and was surprised to hear her voice amplified to the room. “Hot mike,” Gosling said, putting his mouth on the microphone. “Sibilance,” Stone responded, invoking an old Wayne’s World sketch as she leaned into the microphone. “Sibilance,” Gosling replied.
Moonlight collected six awards, Molly Shannon pulled her signature “superstar” move, and Andy Samberg sang Alive, dressed as Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, in an in-memoriam spoof celebrating actors and filmmakers who are still with us. It was the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the annual Santa Monica, Calif., event where films made for $20 million or less are celebrated. As expected, Moonlight, the drama about a gay black boy growing up in an impoverished Miami neighborhood, was the big winner Saturday, taking home prizes for best feature, director, screenplay, cinematography and editing. Casey Affleck won best actor, for Manchester by the Sea; Isabelle Huppert, best actress for Elle; and Ben Foster, best supporting actor for Hell or High Water. An ebullient Shannon landed best supporting actress for Other People, delivering a speech that ended with her plunging into the pose she made popular as her awkward Catholic high school character, Mary Katherine Gallagher, on Saturday Night Live years ago. Hosts Nick Kroll and John Mulaney delivered the expected quips about politics. “Conservatives, we are not in a bubble,” Kroll said. “We are in a tent, filled with fringe artists on a California beach. If this room leaned any further to the left, we would literally topple into the Pacific Ocean.”