her target. “So you were nominated a record-breaking eighteen times,
right?” Meryl Streep glanced up with a look of slight bewilderment.
“So I thought we would try to break another record right now with the
most retweets of a photo,” Ellen announced as she held up the phone. “So
right now, I’m gonna take a picture of us. And then we can see if we can
break the record for the most retweets.”
She dipped down slightly and extended the phone between herself and
the legendary actress. But Meryl wasn’t satisfied with a two-person shot.
She turned around to the woman behind her.
“Get her in,” Meryl insisted.
Seated behind her, with her orange-dyed hair and wearing a slim black
dress, was four-time Oscar nominee Julia Roberts. This year she was up for
Best Supporting Actress for August: Osage County. Roberts raised her hands
and made bunny ears, saying, “I can just do this!”
Bunny ears weren’t in the script. But Ellen played along.
“No, lean in,” said Ellen. “Channing, if you can get in also,” calling over
to Channing Tatum, the former male stripper who had broken out nine
years earlier in Coach Carter and had become a regular Oscars presenter.
“Bradley, would you come? I want you in it. Jennifer, I want you in
also!”
Down the row and next to each other, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley
Cooper, nominees for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor
in American Hustle, got out of their seats and gathered around Ellen. The
impromptu scrum of stars was getting messy.
Cooper, who towered over five-foot-six Ellen, reached for her phone.
“I’ll take it,” he said. “I’ll take it.”
Cooper, unbeknownst to the audience, was a White Glove member.
“No, I’m doing it. Brad, get in here!” said Ellen, keeping her Samsung
Galaxy away from Cooper.
She called for another Brad—Brangelina’s Brad, Brad Pitt, who
produced that year’s Best Picture front-runner 12 Years a Slave. Kevin
Spacey crept up from behind, smiled, and raised a thumb. “Angie! Lupita!”
Lupita Nyong’o, the Kenyan Mexican nominee for Best Supporting Actress
for 12 Years a Slave, scurried to the back of the group, her bright-blue
dress parting the sea of black tuxedos. She was followed by her younger
brother Peter, a college freshman who was hardly a celebrity, but hey, why