RED CARPET ARRIVALS
 |
STAY TUNED!
Red carpet arrivals will be updated throughout the night.–>
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon arrived in Armani at the 70th Annual Academy Awards.
Fashion reporting by
Tom Julian.
|
 |
STAY TUNED!
Red carpet arrivals will be updated throughout the night.–>
Robin Williams
Robin Williams arrived at the 70th Annual Academy Awards dressed in a knee-length tuxedo by Armani.
Fashion reporting by
Tom Julian.
|
ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES
I JUST SAID TO MATT, LOSING WOULD SUCK AND WINNING WOULD BE REALLY SCARY, AND IT’S REALLY, REALLY SCARY. YOU KNOW, WE’RE JUST REALLY TWO YOUNG GUYS WHO WERE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO BE INVOLVED WITH A LOT OF GREAT PEOPLE WITH WHOM IT’S COMING UPON US THERE’S NO WAY WE’RE DOING THIS IN LESS THAN 20 SECONDS. IT’S INCUMBENT UPON US TO THANK. HARVEY WEINSTEIN WHO MADE THIS MOVIE, GUS VANCE SANT, AND ROBIN WILLIAMS, AND MINNIE DRIVER. MY BROTHER CASEY, WHO’S BRILLIANT IN THE MOVIE. COLE HAUSER, AND MY MOTHER AND MATT’S MOTHER. >> JACKSON, HI TO YOU. ALL RIGHT? >> JOHN GORDON FROM MIRAMAX. >> AND CHRIS MOORE. >> CHRIS MOORE. >> AND OUR BEST AGENT IN HOLLYWOOD. AND CUBA GOODING FOR SHOWING US HOW TO GIVE OUR ACCEPTANCE SPEECH >> ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND EVERYBODY BACK IN BOSTON WATCHING US TONIGHT. >> AND THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THE CITY OF BOSTON. GOD, I KNOW WE’RE FORGETTING SOMEBODY. >> WHOEVER WE FORGOT, WE LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU. >> THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
THANK YOU. OH, MAN. THIS MIGHT BE THE ONE TIME I’M SPEECHLESS. OH, THANK YOU SO MUCH. FOR THIS INCREDIBLE HONOR. THANK YOU FOR PUTTING ME IN A CATEGORY WITH THESE FOUR EXTRAORDINARY MEN. THANK YOU, BEN AND MATT. I STILL WANT TO SEE SOME I.D. THANK YOU, GUS VAN SANT FOR BEING SO SUBTLE YOU WERE ALMOST SULIMINAL. I WANT TO THANK THE CAST AND CREW, ESPECIAL THE PEOPLE IN SOUTH BOSTON. YOU’RE A CAN OF CORN. YOU’RE THE BEST. I WANT TO THANK THE WINESTEIN, MAZEL TOV. AND I WANT TO THANK MARCIA FOR BEING THE WOMAN WHO LIGHTS MY SOUL ON FIRE EVERY MORNING. GOD BLESS YOU. AND MOST OF ALL, I WANT TO THANK MY FATHER UP THERE, THE MAN WHO WHEN I SAID I WANTED TO BE AN ACTOR, HE SAID, WONDERFUL, JUST HAVE A BACKUP PROFESSION LIKE WELDING. THANK YOU. GOD BLESS YOU.
BACKSTAGE INTERVIEWS
Q. Matt, Ben –
A. Hey, Joyce, how you doing?
Q. This is so unbelievable. You have to know that in Boston there is the biggest party going on right now when your names were said. They were just going crazy. What do you have to say to Boston right now?
A. First of all, hello; and second of all, we’ve been following – in the Globe, we see all the stories. We heard everybody’s getting together at L’s. So this round’s on Matt at L. Street. Send me the bill.
Q. We love you. Congratulations.
A. Excellent.
Q. What is your secret of working together, if you plan on writing more screenplays?
A. Not only do we plan on it, we’re contracted to do it. So we have to. Have you ever worked with Harvey Weinstein, and then you somehow end up giving him – five bucks a piece. So, yeah, we’re going to be definitely writing some more. The secret to working together is abuse each other. If you can’t be honest with the guy – you work with him apropo of the point because actually we really don’t pull any punches when we critique each other.
Q. Matt, Ben, how was it having your moms as dates, and what did they say to you?
A. It was really good. Oh, no, my mom was just really happy. It was obviously – she just told me to try and enjoy the moment. It’s nice for our moms to see all this stuff, and my mom came to the rehearsal and took pictures. She went to Gil Cates and she’ like, “Gil, do you think it’s okay to take some pictures? Sure. Gil said it was okay.” She’s considering this her grandson, and she’s holding it for ransom until she gets her real one.
Q. You took the bull by the horns. You created your own big break. How important is that for a struggling actor to create their own big breaks?
A. I think more than anything that it was an exercise in frustration, because whether or not it actually comes to fruiting, I think the act of sitting down and kind of taking control of your own life – the problem of being an actor, most of the time you’re not going to be working and it’s really, really difficult to feel like you own your own life, and so just the act of sitting down, writing was something we could kind of go on our own time and feel like there was an outlet for this kind of creativity that we felt like we had. And we never would have thought really that it was possible. Even 15 years ago you didn’t think independent movies was something that you could do. So Matt and I thought that we could really do the movie by raising a little bit of money, like Kevin Smith and Spike Lee and all these – and Quentin Tarantino and all these great inventors, the Cohens and then you thought oh, well, you can make a movie because we never thought that anyone would buy it, go through the Hollywood channels. And certainly end up wining an Academy Award for God’s sake.
Q. To Mr. Damon, which one did you want to win more?
A. Are you kidding me, man? I’ve never even been here before. I didn’t care. He just wanted a job, sir. Thank you.
Robin Williams
A. We will pick 229, 2929. What, do I have to pick the numbers? Who won the Volvo? 1523, yes. We’re having a good time here.
Q. Congratulations.
A. Thank you.
Q. If you had to pick, is this the nomination you would have given yourself the Oscar for?
A. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, this one, yes. The other ones were just foreplay. This is wild night. It’s insane. I’m still like this. I was in there taking photos, I was like yeah, nice to meet you. I have to change pants but you’ll understand that. No, it is, it’s extraordinary. I’m very proud. I feel proud of the boys out there too. I feel like I left the boys in the back. Are they all right? Are Matt and Ben okay? It’s an extraordinary piece and thank you. 229, your car is here.
Q. Good evening and congratulations.
A. Hello good evening and congratulations.
Q. In doing this movie, it seems like there were some challenges. Just in terms of what we know you to be, so humorous and light-hearted and funny, there were some very intense, deep moments in your dialogue in this movie.
A. Right.
Q. What kind of a challenge were you faced with being the kind of character that you are?
A. You see, I was trained as an actor so its not like they have to medicate me. I think people think they put me on and say “Sit, good, good. Good take.”
Basically it was to find a very painful aspect of the character who had lost his physical wife, who basically shuts down for a couple of years and by working with this boy, he’s able to come out of himself. And it’s beyond a therapeutic relationship – once you throttle someone, it’s not usually therapy unless it’s in the WWF. It’s to find that painful part, to find the barriers, the defenses, all of those things that – he is just as defended as the boy, and that’s what made it hard. Wonderful. The words were there – the first time I read it I wanted to do it. That scene by the pond, that’s why I wanted to do it. You have a phone call, line two. How much money have we raised?
Q. Hey Robin, congratulations. You’re cool, you’re cool.
A. Bless you, baby. All of a sudden I turned into jazz, yeah, baby, it’s cool, it’s all cool. Baby right now, yeah.
Q. Tell me in your own way, in your own style, what does this thing mean to you now? What does the Oscar mean in 1998?
A. It’s extraordinary. It’s like – it’s the golden dude. I mean, holding it, I’ve managed – I’ve been here three times before and lost and it’s always — you asked about my odds before. Basically my odds before were the same as a Jamaican bobsled team winning. And tonight it was kind of interesting, because I didn’t think I had a chance, but when they said it, it was truly a shock, and it’s a great honor. If the sad one is a great honor, it’s extraordinary. You don’t know what it’s like. I’m sailing. Much cheaper than prozac. 119, you’ve won.
Q. Kim Basinger – how do you pronounce it? Basinger?
A. Alec’s outside. Please don’t piss him off. He’s hit a photographer, remember that.
Q. Anyways, she also thanked her dad and said it was because he used to watch old movies together and felt he was a big part of why she became an actress. Was there something along those lines for your thinking of thanking your dad?
A. My father’s a very elegant man and he seriously said that to me. When I said I wanted to be an actor, he said “Have a back up profession like welding,” and I went to my first welding class and the teacher had on an eye and I said “I have to go.” But he was very supportive and I understood. He had a dream, I don’t know what it was, that he had to give up and work like crazy to support his family so when had he saw that I had found something I loved, he really helped me and stood by it and it was really wonderful and I miss him and that’s why this is really great for him.
Q. Robin, can you talk about what winning the Oscar means to you, considering it came from a background as a comedian and now you’re being validated as an actor?
A. Right, a lot of times – it’s strange because we talk about Oscar and the Academy with the comics. One of the people I admire most is Peter Sellers. He never got one for – he did the most extraordinary comic thing in Dr. Strangelove. Maybe now people say what’s next. I say maybe now – I’ll concentrate on comedy for the next ten years. It’s always strange. While you’re a comic sometimes you feel like this slightly damaged person. “Oh, you’re a comedian. This way, park over here.” It’s like you have to kind of – I don’t know. Joan Cusack is out there. She’s extraordinary. One of the funniest people on the planet. I don’t know what it is with comedy in the Academy but it’s changing. There’s great comics out here. One of the greatest performances of the year was Billy Connolly. He’s one of the funniest people on the planet and was doing a dramatic part. But comedy in the Academy – I don’t know why it is sometimes. Maybe because we’re unusual people, we scare you. He’s going to touch himself. I didn’t, I swear
Cruise for Fun
The Academy Awards are one big networking party for the stars involved and one meeting in particular may lead to a Tom Cruise-Matt Damon movie.
“Tom really liked meeting you last night,” top CAA agent Kevin Huvane told Damon on the eve of the Oscars.
“Really?!” gushed Damon, who’d gotten to hang with the man he and co-star/writing partner Ben Affleck call “the King” at a party the Creative Artists Agency threw.
“Seriously,” said Huvane. “He called me twice and mentioned it. I have to find something for the two of you to work on.”
“Tell him . . . ” Damon half-stuttered, ” . . . tell him to call me up with any idea. I’ll try to write it.”
Slick as he and Affleck had to be to win two Oscar nods, they’re still pinching themselves about their luck.
Partying Till They Flop
Affleck wasn’t above donning a dress to entertain his fellow actors in a spoof of “Wings of the Dove” Sunday.
All the stars of Miramax films reversed roles and performed scenes from one another’s flicks at a party at the Beverly Wilshire.
Dolled up in a flouncy gown, feathery bonnet and multi-colored coat, Affleck played Helena Bonham Carter‘s character and Damon his lover. But it wasn’t period costume: The coat, he explained from the stage, was loaned by Madonna.
“It’s Dolce and Gabbana,” Affleck stage-whispered.
“It’s [Jean-Paul] Gaultier!” Madonna shot back from the crowd. “And would you please get it off the floor?”
After Affleck’s routine, Madonna, in a deeply scooped red dress, could be seen whispering in his ear, her cheek pressed against his. Affleck’s girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow, is way off in England, shooting a movie.
Robin Williams closed the party by doing a takeoff of Judi Dench‘s Queen Victoria in her presence, and then concluding with rabbinical gravity, “Thank you all for coming to the [Miramax honchos Harvey and Bob] Weinstein bar mitzvah.” He then launched into a mock-Hebrew blessing, “which means, ‘You’ll never get [profit] points in my lifetime!”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — For once, the hyperactive Robin Williams was
almost at a loss for words.
“Ah, man!” he said Monday after winning an Academy Award for
supporting actor. “This might be the one time I’m speechless.”
Williams won for his role as a therapist and grieving widower
who counsels a troubled genius in “Good Will Hunting.”
It was the first Oscar for the comedian. He was nominated
previously for leading performances in “Good Morning, Vietnam,”
“Dead Poets Society” and “The Fisher King.”
Williams, a stand-up comic turned actor, beat out Burt Reynolds
in his comeback role as a porn movie director in “Boogie Nights,”
as well as Robert Forster, Anthony Hopkins and Greg Kinnear.
He hugged his wife, Marsha, and got hugs and pats on the back
from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, co-stars and screenwriters of
“Good Will Hunting.” Many in the orchestra section of the
audience gave him a standing ovation.
When Williams finally made his way to the podium, he was his
usual zany self, blowing kisses to the audience and cracking jokes
about his co-stars and director.
“Thank you Ben and Matt. I still want to see some ID,”
Williams quipped. “Thank you (director) Gus Van Sant, you’re so
subtle you’re almost subliminal.”
He saved his final thanks for his wife, “the woman who lights
my soul on fire every morning,” and his late father, who told him
to “have a backup profession like welding” when he learned
Williams wanted to be an actor.
After giving a big hug to close friend and Oscar host Billy
Crystal, Williams finally duck-walked off the stage like Groucho
Marx, smiling from ear-to-ear.
© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press
Robin $upports himself
THE really big winner involved in last night's Oscars was Robin Williams, who has just become the highest-paid supporting actor in movie history.
Williams stands to make more than $30 million for his role in "Good Will Hunting." The deal he struck with Miramax's Harvey Weinstein was for little up-front money but a share – some say 15 percent – of the film's gross.
"Hunting" has taken in more than $115 million domestically, and has a projected worldwide gross of $300 million. Interestingly, "Hunting" will end up making about three times the money that another Miramax sleeper hit, "Pulp Fiction," brought in.
It was fun watching Williams at the Miramax pre-Oscar party. Harvey Weinstein, who didn't get rich by paying actors a lot of money, didn't know whether to laugh or cry as Williams kidded him about the grosses. Ben Affleck rubbed it in by climbing onstage and playing Harvey at the contract signing.
Then Williams got up and did a hilariously dirty rap in honor of his idol, Scottish scatological comedian Billy Connelly.
Everyone let their hair down at this party, which is what the Oscars must have been like before the show became a major television event.
Madonna was there, laughing along with the crowd as hunky star Matt Damon came on in drag to do a "Mrs. Brown" skit with his "Hunting" co-writer and co-star Affleck.
At one point, Affleck returned his borrowed cape to Madonna. "It's a Donna Karan," he said. "No, it's Jean Paul Gaultier," she shouted from the audience.
Dame Judi Dench and Helena Bonham Carter dropped any hint of British reserve to appear as hard-hats from "Hunting," while that movie's producer, Lawrence Bender, brought the house down playing the Pam Grier role in "Jackie Brown." Grier almost fell out of her chair laughing.
