Oscar Season Kicks Off With Trump Impressions and a Bond Tease

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Of all the Academy’s awards-season events, the Governors Awards tends to be the least musty. Everyone’s in high spirits because nobody loses any trophies here — they just collect their already announced honors. The elitism that shapes later Oscar-campaign weeks hasn’t yet taken hold, which means anyone promoting a generally respected movie can anticipate an invitation. (This isn’t the exclusive Nominees Luncheon that will happen in February.) But it’s still a moment to be seen on the trail to eventual motion-picture glory. To put it simply, it’s a non–Pitch Perfect–related event where both Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson are present and Nicole Kidman is also featured.

The reception begins at a reasonable 5 p.m., and even before anyone has had time to get drunk, the evening is a schmoozy, gossipy affair during which celebrities, industry insiders, and journalists speak loudly about the movies that will and won’t be fêted in the coming months. Snippets of conversation taken out of context play like a parody of Hollywood: Omar Apollo asks someone, “You saw Challengers twice?” Another guest claims that an unnamed film is “Megalopolis all over again.” Matthew Belloni of The Town asks a 12-year-old girl if she liked Dune, (she hasn’t seen it), while a nearby Guy Pearce fan lobbies hard for his performance in The Brutalist, explaining, “Sometimes it’s just time.” At 5:34, the crowd is parted by an assistant and a 95-year-old June Squibb, who makes a grand entrance on a wheelchair.

The most effective handshaker of the night is far and away Sing Sing actor Colman Domingo, who, when he’s meeting someone’s wife, has a remarkable ability to look her in the eyes with warmth and express how excited he is to meet her. Then, 30 seconds later, he’ll have moved on and be talking to, say, Nina Garcia. “He’s always on the best-dressed list,” Garcia tells a friend, touching one of the many brooches on Domingo’s jacket. Meanwhile, a woman is shouting about one of the few yet-to-be-released films of 2024. “I can’t believe the movie is coming out this year,” she says. “When I came on the job, they told me the budget is $25 million,” her conversation partner exclaims. “You can’t do a period piece for fucking $25 million.” “The movie better be fucking good,” another group member adds.

The DJ plays a lot of ’90s R&B with Janet Jackson melding right into Mariah Carey as the guests transition into the dinner portion of the night. Some of the last guests to find their way into the dining room are Angelina Jolie, wearing a fabulous cape, and her son Knox. “Do you have to use the bathroom?” Jolie asks her son. At 6:30, Academy President Janet Yang begins the ceremony with a speech that Barry Keoghan, seated toward the back, amusingly talks through. Throughout the night, Keoghan is a hyperactive presence, at one point asking an event worker to take a photo of him and Paul Mescal on his phone while Saoirse Ronan waits close by.

At 7:11, Domingo introduces the award recipients and mentions Donald Trump without mentioning Donald Trump: “Tonight we will inspire each other to just keep going,” he says. “Am I right?” This year, the trophies are going to Juliet Taylor — making her the first casting director to ever receive an Oscar, ahead of a competitive casting category getting added to the ceremony in 2026 — James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, British rom-com maestro Richard Curtis, and Quincy Jones, who was offered the distinction before he died earlier this month. When discussing Jones, Domingo solemnly quotes the song “Tomorrow,” and in the distance there’s the sound of glass clattering at a neighboring table, which turns out to be Keoghan attempting to reach something.

Taylor gets the first segment of the night, ushered on by Kidman. Suddenly, Woody Allen, who was instrumental in Taylor’s career, is speaking during a video segment. “I can’t tell you what an honor and joy it has been to have been a lifelong friend” of Allen’s, Taylor says when she arrives onstage. One person “Whoo!”s and another claps. When she mentions Steven Spielberg, there are a million audible “Mmmm”s. 

Daniel Craig, promoting his movie Queer, introduces Broccoli and Wilson. “You came here tonight to find out who the next James Bond is,” Craig tells the audience. “He’s not in this room. Or maybe he is. Don’t look at me.” A video narrated by Michelle Yeoh plays next, including a section about how important choosing the next Bond is. When Broccoli and Wilson come onstage to give their acceptance speeches, Wilson goes first and reads diligently from the teleprompter. Broccoli’s speech, however, isn’t on the tiny screen, leading me to half-believe she is actually announcing the next Bond. She does not. They leave the stage with the question hanging over everyone.

Curtis is up next, receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He’s introduced by Heretic’s Hugh Grant, who kills so hard that Belloni tweets that he should host the Oscars someday. He takes several British jabs at Curtis, claiming the honorary Oscar is a “better-than-nothing Oscar”; changes a mud-wrestling joke that appears on the teleprompter with the name Judi Dench to Maggie Smith; then finally tells Curtis they must work together again. “I was so curious how Hugh Grant was going to turn his infamously unsatisfactory character to present me with this award. And it turns out he didn’t bother,” Curtis responds, to much laughter. The rest of his speech is serious, and he takes time to implore the studio heads in the room to hire impact producers. Some people clap for that.

Finally, the night closes out with tributes to Jones. Jamie Foxx goes first, doing a shockingly accurate Trump impression and then saluting the Jones-produced The Color Purple, “especially the first one!,” which earns some uncomfortable laughter. A choir led by Jennifer Hudson takes the stage, and finally Jones’s daughter Rashida Jones reads the speech that her father intended to give and tells everyone to listen to his lesser-known work.

As the crowd filters out, Natasha Lyonne asks Sharon Stone to take a picture of her in front of an Oscar statue with Azazel Jacobs. Stone tells Jacobs to smile, to “show us how lucky you are!” “He’s the director of the film,” Lyonne replies, referring to His Three Daughters. “We’re both lucky.”

Two men in drab suits mill about, lightly gabbing. “Every single one of those speeches was heartfelt emotionally,” says one. “It’s everything,” says the other, “that the Oscars is not.”