Oscar Nominees’ Luncheon Energizes Lengthy Awards Season
Oprah Winfrey and Clint Eastwood mingled with documaker Rory Kennedy and songwriter Gregg Alexander as more than 150 contenders gathered for the 34th annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton hotel, where the emphasis was on creative democracy — and maintaining energy.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences likes to emphasize that all categories are equal, so seating intentionally mixes it up, with actors, writers, directors and actors eating with short-docu contenders, sound mixers, animators and journalists.
Oscarcast producer Craig Zadan, who along with Neil Meron had jumped into Oscar duty after completing NBC’s “Peter Pan Live!,” joked with Variety about the advantage of hard work by the time showtime arrives on Feb. 22: “When you’re that tired, you’re not scared.”
The crazed awards season tempo is especially exhausting for those who are working. Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone flew in for the event from their respective Broadway roles. Producer Jason Blum will be heading to Berlin after the luncheon, while many of the contenders are going to London for the BAFTA Awards Sunday.
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Also flying in from New York for Monday’s gathering was Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris and the team from “The Imitation Game,” who had attended a Human Rights Commission event. It was “meaningful and emotional,” said the nominated film’s director, Morten Tyldum. While his movie shines a spotlight on the wrongs against Alan Turing, there are still 15,000 living individuals who have not been pardoned for their “crime” of homosexuality. So the Human Rights event was hoping to raise awareness of them as well.
Nine of the 10 lead actor and actresses were at the Beverly Hilton including Steve Carell, Cooper, Marion Cotillard, Felicity Jones, Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, Rosamund Pike, Eddie Redmayne and Reese Witherspoon. The only absentee was Benedict Cumberbatch, who is working in the U.K.
Supporting actor-actress nominees present included six of the 10, with Patricia Arquette, Laura Dern, Robert Duvall, Edward Norton, J.K. Simmons and Emma Stone. Weather and work KO’d Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke, Keira Knightley and Meryl Streep.
Three of the five nominated directors were on hand — Richard Linklater, Bennett Miller and Tyldum. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Wes Anderson are out of the country.
After nominees socialized and ate, they gathered for the Class of 2014 photo. Each was called to the riser, with applause especially heavy for Keaton, Redmayne and Duvall.
Also on the guest list were Academy branch governors, AMPAS honchos, ABC execs and Walt Disney Co. chief Bob Iger, plus a cross-section of media members. Academy leaders Dawn Hudson and Cheryl Boone Isaacs were also in attendance.
The event is one of the key stops in the six-month campaign trail, since there are so many Oscar voters in the room. But once the doors have closed, the mood is more collegial than competitive. There are no envelopes being opened, no winners or shutouts, so the emphasis is on the year’s best work.
Nobody wanted to talk on the record about the hot-button subject of the lack of diversity in Hollywood, though many agreed that the industry as a whole needs to increase its push. And a few questioned whether the media-fueled outrage is helping or hurting the effort to bring change and underscore the seriousness of the issue.
In general, the mood was energetic and upbeat. As writer Simon Carmody said in admiration, “The mood here is like being on a film set, with everybody working together.”
After the all-important schmoozing session, lunch was accompanied by a few speeches, such as reminders from the producers that acceptance addresses should offer more than a laundry list of thanked individuals. Zadan’s warning of the 45-second time rule was met with multiple groans; when he said that group winners must be limited to one designated spokesperson, someone shouted, “No!”
The 87th Oscars will be televised live on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 22, from the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center.
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