It feels like backstage, but technically it isn’t — the interview room at the Oscars, where Consequence had a seat for the 96th edition of the Academy Awards, is located in a building adjacent to the Dolby Theater, where journalists from all around the world pack around tables to ask questions of winners fresh from their latest victory. Holding their brand new trophy (or two, in the case of Christopher Nolan), the happiest people in a five-block radius told press all about the importance of this night for them, the significance of their win, and a whole lot more as the ceremony progressed.
If you see someone missing below (::cough cough:: Robert Downey Jr.), it’s because they chose to skip the interview room, which — fair enough! Oscars night is a party, after all, and not everyone’s idea of a party includes a quick stop at a press conference. But plenty of winners did make an appearance, and below are some of their best quotes.
Best Picture: Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer (Universal)
With the conflict in Gaza on many peoples’ minds this evening, Christopher Nolan and the producers of Oppenheimer were asked about what kind of message people might find in the Oscar-winning film.
“I don’t like to speak too specific about messages of films I make because I feel that if cinema is didactic, it tends not to work dramatically so well,” Nolan replied. “As far as any kind of broader message, the thing that I would like to point out is, the film ends on what I consider a dramatically necessary moment of despair, but in reality I don’t think despair is the answer to the nuclear question… It’s very important that rather than despair, in reality, people are looking at advocacy, they’re looking at organizations who are working to pressure politicians and leaders to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on our planet and make the world safer.”
Recollecting their most memorable moments making the film, producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven both mentioned their “profound” reactions to watching the first cut. For Nolan, though, he called out “the first hair and makeup tests. There was something about seeing Cillian put that hat on and Robert Downey Jr. with his head shaved back and Emily Blunt in old-age makeup.”
Added Nolan, “We did all that on the first test. We shot it on the very first black-and-white IMAX film that had ever been made, and we projected it on an IMAX screen over at the Citywalk at Universal, and that was a very special moment, special to realize what the actors were going to do, and that the thing was going to work, and to see that technical side of things that Hoyte [van Hoytema] was bringing to the table with photography. It was remarkable and that will always stay with me.”
