You’ve heard the speeches onstage at the Academy Awards, but the winners kept on talking once they got backstage. Hollywood.com picked up all of the idle chatter from the Oscar elite.
Morgan Freeman on the Oscar experience:
“After Driving Miss Daisy, I became philosophical about the Oscar. It occurred to me that winning the nomination is probably the height of it. It’s about as far as you can really reasonably go. And after that, it’s pretty arbitrary, you know, because, I mean, how can any of us be best? Who can? But when they call your name, all of that goes out the window…I think it’s kind of total acceptance. It’s the best way I can explain an Oscar. Because so many people vote for you when you get it, you know you’re part of a very small group of people.”
Clint Eastwood on his directorial “competition” with Martin Scorsese:
I was a little bit disappointed when they started building a competition between Marty and myself, because I have the greatest respect for him. He produced a series on the Blues. I did a segment on that. And all of the work he does for motion picture preservation, I have the greatest respect for him and for the films he’s done over the years and right up through The Aviator.”
The Incredibles Edna Mode (channeled by animation director Brad Bird) on the red carpet runway:
“Some people look fabulous on the red carpet, and some people would be better off wearing the red carpet.”
Cate Blanchett on what she would have liked to ask Katharine Hepburn:
“I probably would have asked her about the moment in Woman of the Year, which I found one of the most intimate films of any of the Spencer Tracy ones, where they were getting a little bit inebriated. And the whole texture of her performance changed in that moment. So I probably would have wanted to ask about that, how she approached each role. She was an athlete. I was very interested in trying to capture just her athleticism. She would throw herself–she was a very brave woman so I would probably asked about her approach.”
Sideways co-writer Alexander Payne on his storytelling style:
“I want to use film as the wonderful, magic carpet that it is and shoot around the world. And I’ll follow a story anywhere. I mean, like, I never want to make a high school movie. We wound up making Election. And I couldn’t be less interested in making road movies, but we’ve made two of them. So, you just go where a good story takes you.”
Jamie Foxx on who really anchored his film Ray:
“I was the supporting actor, and Ray Charles was really the leading actor. A lot of the Academy members that came up to me when I was at the nomination lunch and out at the different functions would say, ‘That was my era; that was my music, and thank you for bringing that back. Thank you for giving Ray Charles another life. He will go down in history now. Thank you for the change.’ A little bit of culture. Because Ray Charles now is being played in the Escalades as you drive by, you know, on the street. You’re thinking they must be playing–what are they playing? And you hear, “I Got a Woman.” Young kids are getting into it, and it’s great. I’ll tell you a story. I was at my house the other night, and there were people from 18 all the way to 50. And we put on the Ray Charles CD, and we danced to all of those songs. And nobody even tripped that there’s not any rap lyrics; not any foul things going on. It was beautiful.”
Makeup artist Valli O’Reilly on creating characters for Lemony Snicket‘s star:
“I share this with Jim Carey because he and I spent a good year playing around with different ideas and different looks. If he could do his own make-up he certainly would. He is an amazingly talented guy. One of the most amazing talented man I have ever met in my entire life.”
Hilary Swank on the moment her name was announced:
“My heart was pounding so fast out of my chest, I didn’t know if words were coming out of my mouth. It’s really one of the most surreal things, and even standing here right now and talking, I think I may be dreaming. I might wake up tomorrow and it’s the 27th of February and it’s not all happening.”
Host Chris Rock on not needing the ten-second delay:
“Put it this way, I don’t curse in front of my mother. And my mother was front and center, you know, right in my view. So I could never curse in front of Rose Rock, so why would I do it on television?”
The Incredibles director Brad Bird on why Pixar’s success isn’t solely based on CGI trickery:
“I think the heart of movie-making has been the same for 80 years. And I think Pixar’s success is due to the fact that technology is not at the heart of it. They believe that the most important thing is characters you can connect with and a story that is surprising and logical and exciting to watch. So I think that the technique is something temporary and ever-changing. The heart of the film is the characters and story.”
Million Dollar Baby producer Al Ruddy on when Clint Eastwood announced Ruddy’s Oscar win for The Godfather in 1972:
“I heard Clint was going to present the award, and being a producer, I wanted to cover the downside. And I said ‘Clint, in case it’s not me, when you open the envelope, no one else knows. Just tear it up, swallow it and say “Al won it!”‘ So now, that night did not go well. It went well for a lot of other people and not for us…And when he finally got up there and Clint said ‘The winner is Al Ruddy, The Godfather,’ I said ‘Jesus, what a friend! I can’t believe it!’ He had to show me that my name was on it.”
Cate Blanchett on the personal importance of the Academy honoring her performance as Hepburn:
“A lot of people in the Academy worked with her or knew her, and–having tried to pay an homage to her work but knew her sort of as a human being–to have that recognized, the impossible nature of the task. And you can’t please everyone when you’re playing everyone’s favorite actress. It means an enormous amount coming from the Academy.”
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Clint Eastwood on staying at the top of his game in his 70s:
“We’re taking over. The AARP and me, we’re coming in there. No. I think there is room for everybody. I love seeing new people. I love to see young directors come along. I happen to be a big fan of Alexander Payne who was nominated here tonight his film. Election was one of the great movies of the last five, six, seven years. And I also liked Sideways very much. So there are a lot of young guys coming along. But I would like to say to the various financiers, that don’t forget the senior guys, because the senior guys and gals are both there ready to do their best work for you. And Sidney Lumet is still out there working. And you saw the newsreel of him tonight: he was bouncing around like he was 25 years old, so you don’t want to write off the guy who did 12 Angry Men–ever.”
Spider-Man 2 visual effects supervisor John Dykstra on avoiding overwhelming a film with special effects:
“We have to keep the effects from driving the story. The story has to drive the effects. And I think that’s the key. We’ve been put in the position, because of the tools, the power of those tools, of letting those effects be formed by the story, as opposed to the story being formed by the effects.”
Morgan Freeman on receiving a standing ovation from the Academy:
“It’s kind of humbling that so many people are so happy that I have been named for this award. A lot of people say, ‘Well, you know, you’re overdue.’ Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, but that’s an accolade.”
Cate Blanchett on the camaraderie amongst the nominees:
“I don’t have a sense of entitlement and I don’t feel that I deserve this anymore that any of the other people in my category. I’ve never thought about it. I think this can turn into a kind of Olympic event. I think it’s fun to go through it with all these girls. You would be surprised about the lack of competition. I think that’s all made up by the press.”
Costume Designer Sandy Powell on the inspiration behind her fashions for The Aviator:
“Watching old movies; hundreds of old movies. And then–I didn’t actually copy any dresses that I saw, but I would take inspiration from the dresses in the old movies and then design my own versions of them.”
The Aviator editor Thelma Schoonmaker on the dedication of leading man Leonardo DiCaprio:
“He was completely committed to the role. He would have done 150 takes if Marty wanted him to. Marty didn’t, but he was so hard working. He was in every shot. He had to spend hours and hours in makeup. He was completely committed, so there was never any moment of him saying ‘I don’t want to do anything.'”
Hilary Swank on finding the next, great, risky role:
“I joke around with Clint because his next movie doesn’t have a woman. And I said, “I’ve played a boy before!’ And I think I’ve gotten closer to my way of shaving my hair off and letting me be in his movie. I think it’s always going to be a challenge and I certainly see a lot of actresses talking about that…We’ll see what the future brings”.
Clint Eastwood on stretching beyond his signature tough guys roles, possibly even playing a gay character:
“I’ll try anything. I don’t care. One good thing about getting into your seventh decade of life, is what the hell can they do to you? Nothing. The further you get–when I get to Lumet’s age–if that all works out nicely, he must really be smug.”
Chris Rock on his backstage response to Sean Penn taking public exception to the host’s Jude Law jokes:
“I just hugged Sean. He said that because he’s working with Jude Law in a movie right now, so that’s why…It was kind of funny. I thought, “Oh boy, I got another joke, this is good.” I was happy…I like [my] Sean Penn comeback. Any time you can get something funny that, you know, we didn’t have coming into the show, I take a little more pride in that.”
Honorary Oscar recipient Sidney Lumet on the secret to a film’s box office success:
“I don’t know. And I’ll tell you something else; I don’t think anybody else does. And anybody who says they do is faking. As far as I know, the only man who was consistently able to make pictures that made money was Walt Disney. I’m not exaggerating. And even he ran into a bad time where the studio almost collapsed, which is the reason he went into television for a long while. But I don’t think there’s a person in the business who could say to you ‘This picture will make money when it’s finished’ when they see it after it’s all completed, much less trying to pick it in advance. I think it’s unfathomable.”
Jamie Foxx on what Charlize Theron whispered into his ear:
“She said ‘Can we get together, talk about Oscar?’ No. Actually, to be honest with you, when you see people like Charlize, when you see people like Halle Berry, immediately the first thing you think of is how beautiful they are, but you really do connect on a different level, when we’re talking about art. That’s the greatest thing about this is that they’ve shared the same feeling. So they were basically giving you an insight on what was going to happen. Halle was tapping me on my shoulder before: ‘Are you ready? Are you ready for this?’ So, it’s great just to be in that league. It’s beautiful.”
Jamie Foxx on sharing Oscar night with his daughter Corrine:
“She said, ‘Dad, okay, after this, can we go to the big awards?’ Which is the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. She just turned eleven. You would expect that. Now, she may not know everything–she may not know the significance of everything that’s going on tonight, but years from now, she will be talking to her friends and say ‘Me and my dad, one night had a great time.'”
Morgan Freeman on the meaning of two African-American men winning the top acting awards for the first time:
“It means that Hollywood is continuing to make history. Life goes on. Things change. They never stay the same. So we’re evolving with the rest of the world. That’s what it means.”
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind screenwriter Charlie Kaufman on, well, anything:
” —————— ”
[The famously recalcitrant Kaufman, played by Nicolas Cage in Adaptation, left his co-winners on the podium early, without commenting on his win. There was no word from his brother Donald, either]
