The Oscars do not take place until February and the nominees are not announced until the New Year. But the Hollywood machine was already in full gear on Saturday night at its Governors awards ceremony in the ballroom of the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
Oscar hopefuls, including Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal, schmoozed with studio executives in a black-tie kickoff to awards season. “It’s an opportunity to see and be seen,” said film editor Mark Helfrich, one of the more than 5,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote on the Oscars. “Almost anyone who’s on the (nominee) list is here.”
Officially this was the Academy’s Board of Governors’ night to give its awards for lifetime achievement in film and philanthropy. This year they honoured Maureen O’Hara, 94, the Irish-born actor who often starred opposite John Wayne; Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki; screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, who worked with Luis Buñuel and singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte. The 87-year-old was travelling to Ferguson, Missouri, the next day, where the 9 August shooting of a black man by a white police officer sparked weeks of unrest. .
But the ceremony, footage of which is edited into the Oscar’s night broadcast, is also a lavish backdrop for a night of Hollywood power-brokering and networking. Cumberbatch would appear to have a good shot at getting a golden statue for his role as world war two code-breaker Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, as he spent much of the evening flanked by mega-producer Harvey Weinstein.
Weinstein’s company backed The King’s Speech, which won an Oscar for its star Colin Firth. He reportedly paid a record $7m for the US rights to The Imitation Game, whose screenplay was written by Chicago-born Graham Moore.
“We haven’t sold any tickets yet,” said Moore, a self-proclaimed tech-nerd who has been obsessed with Turing for years. Cumberbatch, who was flanked by his co-star Keira Knightley, was starstruck by fellow thespians Michael Keaton and Edward Norton.“I just felt out of my body when I met Michael (Keaton) and Ed (Norton),” Cumberbatch told the Guardian, slicing into his filet mignon steak. “It was so great to talk with them about the craft [of acting].”
Since its inception six years ago, the event has ingrained itself into the Hollywood calendar. Between the awards, which saw Liam Neeson introducing O’Hara along with Clint Eastwood, many guests left dinner untouched as they mingled and chatted. Actor Ethan Hawke, who plays the father in Boyhood, whose cast and crew were there in force, was more cynical. “This is business, baby. Business.”
Judging by the buzz on the night, other strong Oscar contenders include JK Simmons, who plays a fearsome musical professor in a Julliard-esque school in Whiplash, and Robert Downey Jr, who was seated next to Robert Duvall, his co-star in The Judge. Timothy Spall, star of Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner, who had flown in from London hours earlier for the event, sat unnoticed at his table. “There is so much talent in this room,” said Spall, who appeared unaware that he was there because of his.
Helfrich noted a poor showing from the cast and crew of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi adventure Interstellar, although Jessica Chastain was on hand. Comedian Steve Carell, who turns serious for his role as John du Pont, a schizophrenic millionaire turned murderer in Foxcatcher, chatted away to Jake Gyllenhaal for much of the evening.
Ever grounded, Cumberbatch mused about the unfolding scene and the dangerous allure of Tinseltown. “You have to know your cutoff point,” he murmured, before adding “You can’t walk away from any of this weirdness unscathed.”
