Everything Everywhere stars win supporting actor Oscars
Lisa Richwine |
Ke Huy Quan, a one-time child star who gave up acting for two decades, has been named best supporting actor at the Academy Awards for his role as a metaverse-hopping husband in offbeat adventure Everything Everywhere All at Once.
His co-star, Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, also won her first Oscar for best supporting actress for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
A weeping Quan, who was born in Vietnam, kissed his Oscar trophy as he held it on stage.
“My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. Somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage,” Quan said.
“They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This is the American dream.”
Curtis won for her role as the imperious IRS auditor bearing down on a Chinese American laundromat owner in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
“My mother and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories. I just won an Oscar,” Curtis said while crying.
Curtis also thanked all the people who supported the films that she made over the years.
“We just won an Oscar together,” she said.
Quan and Curtis were among the ceremony’s early winners.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was named best-animated feature while the film Navalny, about the poisoning that nearly killed Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, and his detention upon his 2021 return to Moscow, won the Oscar for best feature documentary.
A crisis response team was on hand at the ceremony in case of an unexpected twist.
The group was formed after Will Smith smacked Chris Rock on stage last year, tarnishing the film industry’s most prestigious ceremony.
Host Jimmy Kimmel, who landed on the Dolby Theatre stage by parachute in a tribute to best picture nominee Top Gun: Maverick, joked in his opening monologue about the audience reaction to Smith’s attack last year.
“If anything unpredictable or violent happens at the ceremony, just do what you did last year – nothing,” he told the crowd of A-list celebrities.
“Maybe give the assailant a hug.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hopes to move past the slap and stage a glitzy show and boost sagging TV ratings with this year’s ceremony.
Ahead of the awards, nominees dressed in designer gowns and tuxedos touted their movies on a champagne carpet in place of the traditional red.
Producers said they planned to celebrate the movie-going rebound of the past year, one that some feared might never happen when streaming took hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several of 2022’s biggest hits at the multiplex landed in the best picture race, from Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere Everywhere All at Once to Elvis and Avatar: The Way of Water.
Last year, the television audience for the Academy Awards ranked as the second-lowest ever with 16.6 million viewers.
The big films on Sunday’s ballot, rather than some of the little-seen movies nominated in recent years, could help draw more viewers.
The musical performances also may boost viewership.
Lady Gaga emerged as a last-minute addition and was expected to sing her nominated Top Gun song Hold My Hand.
Pop superstar Rihanna also will take the stage, performing Lift Me Up from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Reuters
