Warren Beatty wants Cheryl Boone Issac, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to set the record straight regarding Sunday night’s shocking error that led to La La Land momentarily being awarded Best Picture instead of the actual winner, Moonlight.
“Rather than for me to respond to questions from the press about the Academy ceremony, I feel it would be more appropriate for the president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, to publicly clarify what happened as soon as possible,” Beatty said in a statement, according to Variety.
Beatty, along with co-presenter Faye Dunaway, accidentally awarded La La Land with the evening’s top honor after he was handed the wrong envelope that stated one of the movie’s stars, Emma Stone, as the winner of Best Actress. Following the snafu, Beatty briefly explained the reasoning behind the mistake while still onstage. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has been responsible for handling the Oscar envelopes for the past 83 years, issued a statement on Monday apologizing to Beatty, Dunaway and the filmmakers of both movies.
In an interview with the New Yorker, Issac said that she reacted in “horror” to the miscue.
“I just thought, What? What? I looked out and I saw a member of Pricewaterhouse coming on the stage, and I was, like, Oh, no, what—what’s happening? What what WHAT? What could possibly . . . ? And then I just thought, Oh, my God, how does this happen? How. Does. This. Happen.” she explained. “And it was such a wonderful show.”
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