Here’s one thing the media misses on these Oscars parties. At Vanity Fair, every picture is on the red carpet, on the same little circle. Then the celebs disperse to other parties. It’s one of the best PR hoaxes in town.
The real winners — the Oppenheimer people — plus no less than Steven Spielberg actually made a beeline from the Oscars to the Universal Pictures gala at Soho House. (The Barbie folks went to the Warners party. The Killers of the Flower Moon gang went to the Apple thing. And so on.)
At Soho House, jubilation was in the air for the 7 Oscar wins. Best Actor Cillian Murphy and Director Chris Nolan were knee deep in congratulations, while nominee Emily Blunt and husband John Krasinski were surrounded by fans and friends like Charlize Theron and Ludacris. Oscar winning cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Oscar in hand, arrived at the top of the steep Soho House stairs to thunderous applause from the guests.
I asked Spielberg — the biggest name in Hollywood — why he didn’t give out the Best Picture award? Al Pacino made a mess of it, as we all know.
“There’s a rule,” Spielberg said. “You can’t give the award to your own picture. I was the producer on Maestro. So if it had won…”
After talking to Krasinski about his upcoming movie, “If,” I moseyed on over to talk to “Holdovers” director Alexander Payne. He held court on the opposite side of the room, far away from the meathead security guards who roped off Nolan at the request of publicists. (Da’Vine Joy Randolph wandered around with her own team.)
Payne said he didn’t realize how popular Randolph would be when he was shooting the film. He told me, “It wasn’t until I started showing to a few people that we got that reaction. Then I saw it!”
Payne told me his next project is to meet with his frequent collaborator Jim Taylor about writing a sequel to their original hit, “Election.” It would star Reese Witherspoon as a grown up Tracy Flick, and Witherspoon would produce it. My own guess is that Tracy Flick would now be a Marjorie Taylor Greene type, although there was a sequel novel to the original, by author Tom Perrotta, so they have that work from.
As for Spielberg, 2024 will be a rare year when he has nothing in production. He said, “We’re in the discovery phase, trying to figure out what’s next.” I asked him about “Ready Player Two,” but he confirmed he would just be producing that one.
