Celebrities React to ‘La La Land’/’Moonlight’ Best Picture Shocker at Oscars 2017

Listing some of her credits, Kimmel said Streep has “phoned it in for over 50 films”. Producer Marc Platt followed.

Piers Morgan led his column in the tabloid paper with “The night I La-La-Laughed until I cried as Hollywood proved it wouldn’t recognize The Truth if it was hand-delivered in a red envelope”. Backstage, when he was asked by the Los Angeles Times how it felt to be given a prize only to have it taken away, he said: “It’s an award”.

Moments later the error was declared by a producer for “La La Land”, who had joined the movie’s crew on stage to accept the illustrious honor.

Platt called producer Fred Berger to the mic next. We lost, by the way.

Jenkins and his Moonlight co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney gave the best speech of the night for Best Adapted Screenplay, which they picked up before the’You won!

Platt added: “This is not a joke”. They took the envelope I had. Before the ceremony he and fellow nominees from the category signed a statement denouncing the rise of nationalism and fanaticism in the United States and promised to dedicate the award, no matter who wins, to those who “who uphold freedom of expression and human dignity”. The “Moonlight” co-star glowed on the stage as he informed that crowd that he and his wife, Amatus Sami-Karim, welcomed a daughter four days earlier. Director Barry Jenkins covered his mouth in shock. But I am, above all, surprised that, in a time of outrage, so numerous speeches were business as usual. And that’s very hard to feel joy in a moment like that, because somebody else … just, in front of them.

The auto crash scene resembled that from the Miss Universe 2015 when host Steve Harvey announced Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez as the victor of the crown instead of its rightful owner, Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach. After Horowitz’s announcement, Beatty acknowledged as much and explained that’s why he hesitated to announce “La La Land” as the victor.

“I want to tell you what happened”.

As the audience gasped in horror at the bad mistake, he continued: “This is not a joke”. “I’m always just working at the piano trying to find the melodies, and that can be a very, very long process”.

Shortly before, Emma Stone had received the best actress in a leading role award. Two accountants from the firm, Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan, were the only two people who knew the real winners before the awards last night.

Behind Beatty, the two casts traded spots. They started looking for the best picture envelope.

The ceremony opened with Memphis’ own Justin Timberlake dancing down the Dolby Theatre aisles, Jimmy Kimmel mocking Matt Damon and a standing ovation for the “highly overrated” Meryl Streep. “But to hell with dreams”.

Jenkins also offered a thanks to the “La La Land” team. “And that was so gracious and so generous of them”, he said. “Oh, my goodness.” He ended by announcing “my love to La La Land, my love to everybody”.

“Thank you to the Academy”.

“I don’t even know what to say”, she said. “I think it’s one of the best films of all time”. The sheer humanity of “Moonlight”, and these profoundly absorbing performances about a reality seldom seen on the screen make it the film of the year.

“God, I love “Moonlight” so much”. And so he did. And so everybody behind me on this stage said, “no, that is not acceptable”. I spent about two years composing the music before we even shot the movie. Chazelle, the 32-year-old filmmaker, also became the youngest to win best director.

CNN’s request for comment from the Academy and was not immediately returned.

And while director Asghar Farhadi won the best foreign language film Oscar for the film “The Salesman”, he chose not to attend the awards ceremony, with a statement from him reading, “My absence is out of respect for people of my country and those of six other nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the United States … filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes … they create empathy between us and others, an empathy we need today more than ever”.