Peter Templeman: Celebrity spotting in L.A.

18 February 2007

Organisation

FTI member Peter Templeman is reporting from the USA, where his short film ‘The Saviour’ is nominated for an Academy Award.

The U.S. celebrate their artists in a very large way. Like the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Massive. Major news coverage on every channel every night in L.A. No mind confusing ‘artist’ with ‘celebrity’, they just love their stars over here. But when you look past the fuss that’s made, it’s hard to deny that America’s contribution to modern music and film has been extraordinary. Even the buskers are pretty amazing over here. Better than I’ve seen on the West End and in Paris. All with a touch of Hollywood.

It hit home for me when producer Stuart Parkyn and I arrived for the Oscars Nominee Luncheon, to the blinding pops of a pack of press. Of course, as soon as we emerged from our hire-car and they actually saw who we were – Nobody – the flashing throng headed straight past us for the limo arriving behind. One lone cameraman hung around though, I thought he was either lost or short-sighted. Until we spotted the channel nine sticker.

We moved self-consciously inside and stood in the slowly-moving line into the ballroom. Eddie Murphy was in front of us, and a couple of very friendly guys behind. They ended up being two of the producers of Little Miss Sunshine. Chatting with these guys was one of the highlights of the event for us.

They asked what our film was about. I started explaining it in a rambling un-pitchable way, as I have habit of doing, when one of them stopped me and said “Hang on – you did The Saviour?!” Not joking. He actually said “I saw it two weeks ago! I Love that film!” I honestly didn’t know what to say I was so stunned. So I said I liked their one too.

Truth is I love Little Miss Sunshine and the one person at this luncheon I most wanted to meet was the little girl, Abigail Breslin. She was pretty popular though, so I never got the chance. But I did have a nice chat to an ex-president of the Academy, while standing beside him at the most expensive-looking urinal I’ve ever pissed on.

The ex-president said he’d been coming to these luncheons for twenty six years, beginning back in 1981, when he recalled a much younger Stevie Spielberg being nominated for some shark-film he’d made. He told me the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been handing out Oscars since 1929. There are over 6500 members, and in order to vote for the Oscars, these members have to be active in film production. I wanted to ask him if he was still active, but it wasn’t appropriate given our current circumstance.

The annual Oscar Nominee Luncheon prides itself on that great American catchphrase – Democracy. It is at this event that, no matter who you are or what you’re nominated for, you get to hang with all the nominees as Equals. There is no hierarchy to the tables and everyone is thrown together randomly. I was sitting between Guillermo DelTorro and Peter O’Toole. Apart from a brief introduction to Marky Mark of the Funky Bunch, these two guys were the only people I spoke to. Didn’t run that smoothly at first.

When Mr O’Toole sat down next to me, it wasn’t that I didn’t know who he was. I was absolutely certain without any doubt that he was ‘Someone’. That was obvious. But it was years since I’d seen Lawrence of Arabia, and I always preferred Inspector Clueso to Sherlock Holmes, so… I will say he definitely looked familiar, that’s for sure. Thankfully by the time we had eaten, and had each received our individual certificates, I knew both his name and that he was excellent company, apart from the fact that he kept drinking my water. I let him.

The guy on my left was Guillermo DelTorro. He’s a pretty famous South American director so I told him it was an honour to meet him and that I loved his film. He said thanks and that he didn’t think it had been released in Australia yet. I said “Sure it is, I saw it last week. Tell me, why do they keep pronouncing it ‘Babble’ over here? Isn’t it pronounced ‘Baybel’? He looked at me plainly, and said “No it’s pronounced Pans Labyrinth.”

Apart from better pronunciation, I also learned from this event that it is surprisingly hard to clap with equal enthusiasm for a hundred and forty individuals in a row. Maybe it’s because Australians are not as trained in applaud as Americans – who really do know how to bang their hands together. They commit. We each received our certificate of nomination, and while the calling of my name didn’t exactly provoke the same approval as Marty Scorcese or Leo DiCaprio, compared with an Australian applaud it was a standing ovation.