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Backstage at the 80th Oscars
by Jordan Riefe
After narrowly escaping a scaled back, taped version of this year's Academy Awards ceremony due to the now-settled writers' strike, the 2007 Oscar nominees turned up in fine fashion at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles for the red-carpet gala to collected the Oscar statues. Although there weren't many surprises or unexpected outbursts akin to Jack Palance's famous one-armed push-ups or Billy Crystal riding out on-stage atop a horse, fans were happy just to celebrate along with their favorite stars.
While viewers watched as the stars accepted their awards, there was also a lot of Oscar activity taking place behind the scenes immediately after all of the individual acceptance speeches. After receiving their awards, the stars stepped off-stage to greet the hordes of celeb-hungry press who were waiting for each winner to give their own Oscar press conference. One by one each winner gave their own press conference to share their excitement with the world and talk about what led to their nominations and how it feels to now be called an Oscar winner.
Here's a look at the backstage press conferences held for seven of the top winners at this year's Academy Awards:
Leading Actor Winner Daniel Day-Lewis
Leading Actress Winner Marion Cotillard
Best Directing Winners the Coen Brothers
Actor in a Supporting Role Winner Javier Bardem
Actress in a Supporting Role Winner Tilda Swinton
Original Screenplay Winner Diablo Cody
Animated Feature Film Winner Brad Bird
Leading Actor Winner Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will be Blood):
Daniel Day-Lewis on whether he's now receiving complimentary milkshakes in restaurants after his role:
I'm very much looking forward to all milkshakes I can drink for the next 25 years or so, yeah."
Day Lewis on what he thinks of the popularity of the milkshake scene and how it's growing on the Internet:
 "I think it's fantastic. I think it's fantastic, yeah. I mean, if people absorb something that you've done, or whatever your reasons are, it's not relevant, but that gets absorbed into the culture in such a way that people make something else - somebody can make something else out of it, that's delightful to me, I think. And I come from a culture, two cultures - England and Ireland - where there's a long tradition, in fact, it's an art form, and we call it 'slagging' in Ireland and taking a piss in England. But if you can offer up something that people will slag you for, they're always grateful for that."
On kissing George Clooney before he walked on stage to accept his Oscar:
"George Henry Clooney. Because George has been there for me. Because George is, well, apart from anything else, he was the nearest fellow nominee and, I have to say, and I didn't say it at the time, that I was very proud to be included in that group of actors on this occasion. In fact, I think there were quite a number of actors that weren't included in the nominations this year who gave wonderful performances: Emile Hirsch and Ryan Gosling and Frank Langella, Benicio Del Toro, who is always wonderful, so... But also, George is just - he's just so incredibly generous, you know, and the last few weeks people have kind of mentioned things that George has been saying and about this whole circus that we're involved in, and I've always felt it was far more indicative of George's generosity as a man more than anything else. He's just a great guy. I had to kiss someone. I kissed my wife, and in the interest of parity, I kissed George."
On the fact that four Europeans won the top acting awards:
"I don't know what to say, really. I don't know what to say except for the fact that, yes, you know, we have these beautiful things and so we're talking to you. But the roles of wonderful performances by American actors could equally as well have been recognized by nominations, some weren't recognized by the nominations. So I suppose it's a phenomenon, but I don't know if it kind of serves any purpose to focus on that, really."
Daniel Day-Lewis on how the Oscar matters and the opportunities it brings:
"Well, it'll take me to get over it for a while. I'm absolutely delighted and I'm thrilled about it. And I'm thrilled because if one ever can separate one experience from another and quantify the importance of that experience, it may be that this is just the most recent one; therefore, it's in the forefront of my thoughts and feelings. But it was a very important time in my life. And my working partnership with Paul [Thomas Anderson] is something that I will cherish for the rest of my life. In fact, I really miss the day, and we speak a lot on the phone, but we don't have any excuse to. It's just shooting the breeze. We don't have anything to say anymore, but I just miss working with him every day. So it's a lovely thing to have this. And it may just mean that we can - we have to begin to think about the fact that life goes on and we've been reluctant to acknowledge that."
Backstage at the 80th Oscars Page 2 - Cotillard and the Coen Brothers
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