87th Academy Awards Winners – BIRDMAN Wins 4 Including Best Picture And Director

Welcome to the 87th Oscars. Host Neil Patrick Harris opened the show with a musical number featuring “moving pictures” inserting himself into scenes from classic films. Anna Kendrick joined him in the opening number as well as Jack Black before an audience of Hollywood’s A-listers at the Dolby Theatre.

The awards season, filled with ups and downs, came to a close on Oscar Sunday with BIRDMAN winning four Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu), Best Original Screenplay (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo) and Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki).

Iñárritu said his good luck charm was wearing Michael Keaton’s tighty‑whities. When asked backstage about the making of the film he said, “this film was particularly scary to be making, you know.  It’s very difficult and that’s what BIRDMAN is about. As an artist some day or two hours, you feel like the greatest and you say, “This is amazing.  It’s fantastic.” And then two hours later, you feel like a dead jellyfish and an idiot. In this case, I was Riggan Thomson seeing the material, saying, “Oh, my God.  It’s going to be a disaster.” So I couldn’t really tell until the end.  I really felt that it was really special, for me. I will never in mind that this film will be something that will be touching so many people around the world, and I will be here. Never at all, you know.”

Eddie Redmayne won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal as scientist Stephen Hawking in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. When asked about the pressures of playing someone that is still alive and how did he change his approach to it, Redmayne said, “ I don’t know if it changed my approach, but what it did was there were various things of this job. In preparation, I met people living with ALS, they let me into their lives, they were incredibly kind to me.  It was essential to me that I was authentic to what that experience is like.  Then it’s about the science, getting the science right, you know, and then of course the main thing about Stephen, Jane, Jonathan and the kids is being true to them and then also making an entertaining film.  There were basically so many things that like terrified me about this film, but of course it galvanizes you, it makes you ‑‑ when the stakes are that high, it does force you to work harder and so that’s what I tried to do.  And yeah, it’s been amazing.”

Best Actress went to Julianne Moore for her portrayal of a woman diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease in STILL ALICE. When asked about her husband, who she acknowleged during her acceptance speech, Moore told the reporters backstage, “My husband has been amazing.  He has supported me ‑‑ now, he’s also the person who walked me up the steps.  I don’t know if anyone saw that.  But this is the first time I’ve told anybody this, and I’ll tell you guys in this room.  He was the first person to see the movie.  The first time I saw the cut, he came with me.  And I told the story about how I heard him crying, and I was like, What’s going on?  When we walked out of there, he said, You’re going to win an Oscar.  And I was like, Come on.  I swear to God, that’s what he said to me.  And I just couldn’t believe he said that.  But anyway, that’s how much he supported me from the very, very beginning.”

J.K. Simmons won Best Supporting Actor for WHIPLASH. On stage he thanked his wife and said, “Call your Mom and Dad and tell them that you love them.” On what it meant to win, backstage Simmons remarked, “For me, the lean times were a wonderful and beautiful part of my life, you know.  I was, you know, struggling, quote/unquote, for many years doing regional theatre for not much money all over the country and doing odd jobs in between, but I didn’t have a wife and kids to support.  So I had no responsibilities other than feeding myself and trying to be a decent human being and trying to get better at what I was wanting to do.  And I look back on those times with great fondness.”

The Best Supporting Actress Oscar went to Patricia Arquette for BOYHOOD. During her onstage speech, she said, “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” Arquette continued the sentiment backstage, “even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women.  And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”

Graham Moore won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay for THE IMITATION GAME. During his acceptance speech the screenwriter shared, “When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong. And now I’m standing here and, so, I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she’s weird or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you do. You do. Stay weird. Stay different. And then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message to the next person who comes along.”

BIG HERO 6 won for Best Animated Feature Film. Director Don Hall said, “Once upon a time, there was a freckle-faced little boy who told his mom and his dad that one day he was gonna work at Walt Disney Animation and they did something amazing: they supported him and they believed him, and from the bottom of his heart, he thanks them. Thank you.”

Best Live Short winner was THE PHONE CALL. The filmmakers Mat Kirkby and James Lucas told the press backstage, “Well, luckily, we were waiting so long to get Sally Hawkins, we waited a year, literally waited a year.  So, during that time, we kept busy, and we are both in Hollywood now with feature scripts under our arms touting for business.  So, if there’s any producers out there who would like to read a script by an Oscar winning short filmmaker who would like to make a feature film, then just get in contact with us.”

Best Animated Short: FEAST. Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed

Best Foreign Language: IDA. Poland. Pawel Pawlikowski

Best Original Song: “Glory” from SELMA. Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn.

Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat for THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Best Documentary Feature: CitizenFour

Best Documentary Short: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Best Film Editing: WHIPLASH

Best Production Design: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)

Best Visual Effects: INTERSTELLAR. Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher

Best Sound Mixing: WHIPLASH. Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Best Sound Editing: AMERICAN SNIPER. Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier

Best Costume Design: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Milena Canonero

Photos: ©A.M.P.A.S.