At the Governors Ball after the Oscars on Sunday evening, the writer-director Christopher Nolan and the producer Emma Thomas stepped off a raised dais after having their multiple Oscars engraved and were greeted by the party’s chef, Wolfgang Puck. In honor of the night’s biggest prizewinners, Puckwas serving a selection of British food: Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and fish and chips were presented to the couple, who were both delighted by a taste of home.
Onstage at the ceremony, Thomassaid she had dreamed her whole life about winning an Oscar. When Nolan was asked at the party if he had held the same dream, he exclaimed, “Absolutely.”
The normally reserved Nolan said he had felt emotional up on that stage, even though he maintained his composure. “The people that know me know when I get emotional,” he said. “Just ask Emma.”
Christopher Nolan with two of the seven statuettes awarded for “Oppenheimer” on Sunday.
True to form, Thomas added, “If he didn’t leave right when he did he would have started ugly crying.”
“And we will leave it there,” said Nolan, before he was whisked away to greet more well-wishers.
America Ferrera was still vibrating from Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” performance and Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell’s rendition of “What Was I Made For.” Both of those performances “were just simply stunning,” she said. “I think Ryan is so brilliant and really created something so unique and special with his performance.”
Simu Liu, who took part in the number, said: “It was an incredible, surreal moment to be onstage. And also, this came together extremely quickly.” When he got the call from the interlude’s choreographer, Mandy Moore, he said, he and his fellow performers Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans and Kingsley Ben-Adir hit the group chats, “and were like, ‘Oh my God, are you doing this? We have to do this.’”
On the night, Liu added, “we were so nervous. Doing any sort of live TV is nerve-wracking, and then to do it in that room? There’s not many rooms that are more intimidating.”
“There was such a moment of elation when we were done,” Liu said. “I think we pulled it off.”
Anita Hill, for one, won’t forget the movie that inspired it anytime soon. Hill stopped Greta Gerwig on Gerwig’s way to find her husband, Noah Baumbach, to tell her how important “Barbie” was to her. Gerwig, embarrassed by the attention, said with a smile, “We are just making movies over here.”
Yet Hill had more to say on the subject. “Clearly she has done an outstanding job and I hope that’ll be an indication to the industry to open up more opportunity to women and people of color,” she said, also mentioning the screenplay win for “American Fiction.” “There’s still not enough,” she said, “but I think this is an important time.”
