“La La Land” director Damien Chazelle and “Moonlight” helmer Barry Jenkins thought the goof-up that led to the wrong film being announced as the Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards, was a prank.
Actor-filmmaker Warren Beatty and actress Faye Dunaway presented the Best Picture award of the gala to “La La Land” instead of the real winner — “Moonlight”, at the award ceremony on February 26.
“Everything looked so energised. I, at first, thought there was some kind of prank going on,” Chazelle told variety.com.
Jenkins said: “It’s messy, but it’s kind of gorgeous. You have these two groups of people who came together for a second. There’s a picture with me hugging (‘La La Land’ producer) Jordan (Horowitz), and (‘Moonlight’ producer) Adele (Romanski) has her arm on his shoulder. That’s what the moment was.”
What was strange for Jenkins was that he quickly had to change his emotions and deliver an acceptance speech for an Oscar only minutes earlier.
“I had something that I had prepared to say, and that thing went completely out the window.
“I’ve been saying that (co-writer) Tarell (Alvin McCraney) and I are that kid in the film, and that kid does not grow up to make a piece of art that gets eight Academy Award nominations,” Jenkins said.
“It’s a dream I never allowed myself to have. When we were sitting there, and that dream of winning didn’t come true, I took it off the table. But then I had to very quickly get back into that place. And my first thought was to get to the stage to give Jordan a hug as quickly as possible,” he added.
The moment was handled gracefully.
“It’s weird to be friendly with someone, but to feel like there’s a mano-a-mano thing, which I guess is the nature of the Oscars,” Chazelle said.
“So it was nice to explode that myth a little bit on a big stage,” he added.
