BUSY PHILIPPS, Actress, guest of
nominee Michelle Williams We a l most
missed it. Michelle and I almost
left early because we really had to
pee — because we’re veteran Oscar
attendees, we know that the line
right after the ceremony is insane
for the women’s room. But we
stayed. Thank God!
MARA BUXBAUM, Publicist, guest of
Casey Affleck We were sit t i ng r ig ht
in front of Matt Damon and his
wife. She moved because Jimmy
was going to close the show doing
a comedy bit with Matt.
KIMMEL Matt said, “What are you
gonna say?” I hadn’t quite figured
that out, but I was just going to
recap the fact that he didn’t win
any awards.
BUXBAUM Because Jimmy was
seated behind us, there was a stage
manager with a headset standing
right next to Casey on the aisle.Beatty and Dunaway walk out.
JORDAN HOROWITZ, Producer, La La Land
We [the La La Land producers]
had drawn straws very early on
[to determine the order in
which we would speak if we won].
JOHN LEGEND, Actor/songwriter, La La
Land I had a good feeling about our
chances to win.Beatty opens the envelope, sees
the card and hesitates.
KIMMEL I thought, “Oh, maybe
they can’t see. Maybe that’s
the problem.”
HOROWITZ I remember there
being a really long pause and
thinking it was a gag.
SIEGAL I thought, “Oh my God. He’s
milking it. What is he doing?!”
WEISS It really didn’t occur to me
that anything was out of order.Beatty squints, looks flustered,
briefly peers offstage and hands
the card to Dunaway.
WARREN BEATTY, Actor and presenter
I thought, “Well, maybe this
is a misprint.” And then,
“I shouldn’t foul up the show
just because someone made
a little error.”*HUDSON I thought he was being
chivalrous and he was show-
ing the card to let Faye read
the winner.Dunaway takes the card and
exclaims, “La La Land!”
MELIDONIAN I sipped my cham-
pagne. We felt the evening had
been so successful.
HOROWITZ I remember being
really excited and cheering, and
then looking at my wife. She
gave me a kiss and said, “Just
take a breath.”
CHRISSY TEIGEN, Model and Legend’s
wife John stood up. I gave him a
kiss. I was so excited and
proud. I immediately grabbed my
phone and took to tweeting.PwC’s balloting leaders are
required to memorize the win-
ners and spring into action
if a wrong name is announced.
Cullinan quietly tells a stage
manager, John Esposito, that he
thinks the wrong winner has
been announced, but does noth-
ing further. Esposito then
shares this information over
his headset, prompting head
stage manager Gary Natoli,
crouched beside Kimmel, to
instruct another stage man-
ager to have PwC’s Ruiz (who has
not reacted to the incorrect
announcement) open the second
best picture envelope and con-
firm which film won.
WEISS I hear on the headset, “The
accountant says he thinks the
wrong winner was announced.”
BUXBAUM All of a sudden,
the stage manager next
to Casey [Natoli] was say-
ing, “Get them off the stage!
Moonlight won!” The stage
manager left and went up there.
PHILIPPS I could hear him say,
“Moonlight is the winner!” We
clearly heard him say, “Moonlight
is the winner! Moonlight is
the winner!”Meanwhile the three La La
Land producers take the stage
and begin giving their accep-
tance speeches. Horowitz goes
first. Then while Marc Platt isspeaking, Horowitz and Fred
Berger notice Natoli, wearing
a headset, rushing toward them.
GARY NATOLI, Head stage manager
John [Esposito] was trying to
get Brian to go onstage, and he
wouldn’t go. And Martha
wouldn’t go. We had to push
them onstage, which was just
shocking to me.
HOROWITZ As I stepped back,
I noticed that somebody with
a headset was running onto
the stage, and you could just feel
something starting to turn.
KEVIN O’CONNELL, Sound rerecording
mixer, Hacksaw Ridge There’s a
guy who stands in front of the
teleprompter, wearing white
gloves, who tells everybody when
to wrap it up after 45 seconds.
And this guy was trying to stop
everything.
TA BAC K I thought there was a police
action or something, maybe a ter-
rorist attack happening.
RYAN GOSLING, Actor, La La Land I felt
like someone had been hurt. I
thought there was some kind of
medical situation.
PHILIPPS Then I’m like, “I’m sit-
ting next to Ben Affleck — he can
stop the show because he’s fuck-
ing Batman!” I kind of grabbed
his arm — we’re not friends, but I
was like, “You have to do some-
thing! Do something!”
JUSTIN HURWITZ, Composer/songwriter,
La La Land A stage manager came9:06 P.M. Beatty, flustered by the discovery of the words “Emma Stone, La La Land” on the
card inside the envelope that he was handed, shows it to Dunaway, ostensibly to get her take
on the situation, but she sees the words “La La Land” and reads them aloud (1). Inset: The
envelope reads, “Actress in a Leading Role.” The small gold type may have been hard to read
— but no one could have imagined that the presenters would be handed the wrong envelope.
9:05 P.M. Cullinan tucks his envelopes under his arm (2) to take and tweet several photos
despite prior instructions not to use social media backstage. 9:05 P.M. Stone backstage after
winning best actress (3). Cullinan tweeted a similar photo of her just before the fiasco.
9:09 P.M. This now-iconic photo (previous page), snapped by the L.A. Times’ Al Seib, captures
the audience’s shock as Horowitz reveals that the wrong winner was announced.23The Final Award
- 3 –
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 153 FEBRUARY 28, 2018
PREVIOUS SPREAD: AUDIENCE: AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES/POLARIS. KIMMEL: ABC/EDDY CHEN. THIS SPREAD: TODD, HUDSON: STEVE GRANITZ/W
IREIMAGE. BEATTY:
KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES. ENVELOPE: EDDY CHEN/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES. STONE: ADAM ROSE/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES. CULLINAN: MATT SAYLES/INVISION/AP.DAWN HUDSON,
Academy CEO
“I was just thinking, ‘How could this
possibly happen?’ It would be as crazy
as if everyone were suddenly floating.”