Janet Yang, president of the Academy, apologized to the crowd for the slap that was rumored to have occurred between Will Smith and Chris Rock. She didn’t have to explain the slap or mention their names for the audience to understand what she was talking about.
The slap was the main attraction at Monday’s luncheon for Oscar nominees. Janet Yang, president of the Motion Picture Academy, expressed her sorrow to the crowd, and they knew exactly what she was talking about without her having to define it or mention names like Will Smith or Chris Rock.
Speaking to an audience that included Tom Cruise, Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett, and Steven Spielberg, Yang remarked, “I’m sure you all recall we witnessed an unusual incident at the Oscars.” It’s abhorrent what happened on stage, and our organization’s response to it was insufficient.
After Smith stormed the stage and slapped Rock at last year’s Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did little to address the situation.
It took the Academy’s board of governors over two weeks to vote to prohibit Smith from attending the Oscars or any other Academy-related events for a period of 10 years. Smith had resigned from the academy early out of precaution.
Especially in times of crisis, you must act immediately, compassionately, and decisively for ourselves and for our business,” Yang said, reflecting on the incident. “We learned from this that the academy must be totally open and accountable in its activities.” In the future, you can and should expect nothing less from us.
Because he was not the president at the time, Yang was cut off by polite applause and moved on to more cheerful subjects without more explanation. When she informed the nominees that all categories will be shown live on ABC’s program on March 12, she was hailed with thunderous cheers.
Several awards were presented at a pre-telecast ceremony last year, and modified copies of winners’ remarks were crammed into the main program, which caused a scandal that was mainly overshadowed by the slap.
Each nominee is given the same amount of respect at the luncheon; a complete unknown nominated for best animated short may be seated next to a Hollywood A-lister nominated for best actor. Of course, some people are more interesting than others and won’t need to wear the name tags distributed to everyone else.
As a producer nominee for “Top Gun: Maverick,” Tom Cruise temporarily blended in with the crowd in a Beverly Hilton ballroom before drawing attention from onlookers.
Pressing their foreheads together and giggling, he and Jamie Lee Curtis, nominated for best supporting actress for “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” collided.
Steven Spielberg, nominated for best director for “The Fabelmans,” and Michelle Yeoh, nominated for best actress for “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” the year’s most nominated film, posed for photographs with him, and he grinned brightly the whole time.
Odessa Rae, producer of the nominated documentary film “Navalny,” sat next to best actor candidate Colin Farrell during lunch, an unlikely coupling that reflected the seemingly random seating arrangement.
Next to us, Jenny Slate, voice star of the animated feature nomination “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” was chatting with Brian Tyree Henry, the best-supporting actor candidate for “Causeway.”
The luncheon’s highlight is the class photo, which is staged to evoke a senior picture taken in a high school. A governor of the academy called aloud the names of 182 applicants, and their peers cheered as they stepped up to the risers to take their places.
“Jamie Lee Curtis,” producer DeVon Franklin said into the microphone. Curtis jumped up and climbed the stairs to the balcony by herself, where she received a standing ovation. First-time nominee Henry sprang up from his seat, threw up an arm, and yelped when his name was announced.
Ke Huy Quan, another first-timer, raced up to his seat in front and clenched his hands in excitement as he was announced as the winner of the best supporting actor award for “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.” When “Babylon” composer Justin Hurwitz was paired with him, he gave him a bear hug.
When her name was revealed, Bassett, who was nominated for best supporting actress for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” received one of the loudest screams of the afternoon and embraced Cruise at their seats.
In addition to being a delightful event, the luncheon serves as a primer for Oscar nominees and winners. At the event next month, Yang reiterated, acceptance speeches may only be 45 seconds long.
She then instructed the crowd to recite the phrase for 45 seconds.
They all echoed her words back to her, but once they had the statue in their possession, at least a couple of them would have forgotten or ignored her.