Some 172 of this year’s Oscar nominees–among them Timothée Chalamet (best actor for A Complete Unknown), Demi Moore (best actress for The Substance), Denis Villeneuve (best adapted screenplay for Dune: Part Two) attended the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on Tuesday for a night of celebration.
My Oscar Book:
Absent were Kieran Culkin (best supporting actor for A Real Pain), Karla Sofía Gascón (best actress for Emilia Pérez) and Guy Pearce (best supporting actor for The Brutalist).
Upon arrival, nominees were ushered into a room just off of the museum’s Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby to take a photo with Academy president Janet Yang and then pose for media outlets.
Rhey strolled over to a section of the lobby with a series of long tables at which they would later have dinner, where they mingled over cocktails with one another, as well as Academy CEO Bill Kramer, Academy Museum director Amy Homma and members of the Academy’s board of governors.
Others were newbies, including 4 of the five best supporting actress nominees, Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez), Ariana Grande (Wicked) and Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown).
Most of the nominees are based locally, but quite a few traveled long distances to be in town for this gathering and a series of other pre-Oscars events and the Oscars itself. Among them: Ralph Fiennes (best actor for Conclave) from the U.K., Fernanda Torres (best actress for I’m Still Here) from Brazil and Slava Leontyev (best documentary for Porcelain War) from Ukraine, where he has been serving in the Ukrainian military during its war with Russia.
The Academy mandates that only one person can speak on behalf of a group of nominees who win together, so those decisions are being made at the moment. The trio of best makeup-hairstyling nominees from The Substance, Pierre-Oliver Persin, Stéphanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli, who are the odds-on favorites to win, had designated Persin to speak.
A few nominees are preparing acceptance speeches just in case things work out for them. “I feel like an idiot,” Conclave producer Michael A. Jackman said, “but I don’t want to look like an idiot!”
The nominees then went into the David Geffen Theatre. There, they sat in the theater’s plush-red seats and – following brief remarks by Yang reminding them to make the most of their 45 seconds on stage–posed for this year’s “class photo” (which has historically been taken on bleachers in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton).
Best original screenplay nominee RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys) stood up in the back row just before each photo was snapped. Best actress nominee Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) – seated beside Grande- encouragingly shouted before one shot, “Everyone say ‘Oscar nominee!'” And then they did it again after director and adapted screenplay nominee James Mangold (A Completed Unknown) arrived late.
