Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars gathered at the annual Governors Awards in Los Angeles to honour the late Quincy Jones, James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, filmmaker Richard Curtis and casting director Juliet Taylor.
The event put on by the film academy’s board of governors is a de-facto campaign stop for Oscar hopefuls as awards season gets under way.
The Governors Awards are often an emotional affair, but the 15th event took on an added sadness following Jones’s death on November 3.
The record producer’s family were not sure they wanted to attend the awards but decided to show up for the event in Hollywood for a celebration of his life and work with humour from Jamie Foxx, a rousing performance by Jennifer Hudson and a moment with his family: his daughter Rashida Jones even read the speech he had been working on up until a month ago.
“We felt like we wanted to celebrate his beautiful life and career,” she said.
“His music has literally defined an entire century of culture spanning genres.”
It was a moving end to a celebratory evening that had Hugh Grant roasting Curtis for getting a “kind of Oscar” and Daniel Craig celebrating the legacy of the James Bond films.
The audience in the Ray Dolby Ballroom was starrier than even the Oscars.
Everywhere you looked there were famous faces greeting one another: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson at the bar ordering a margarita on the rocks; Jude Law and Kristen Wiig exchanging hellos; Zooey Deschanel sipping champagne; Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz Beckham wandering around; Saoirse Ronan and Elizabeth Olsen deep in conversation; Sharon Stone hugging Kieran Culkin; Jesse Eisenberg chatting with Elle Fanning; and Jeremy Strong taking a selfie with Guy Pearce.
Others remained near their seats, such as Jennifer Lawrence, June Squibb and Angelina Jolie, who attended alongside her son Knox Jolie-Pitt.
They sat beside her Maria director Pablo Larrain and across from His Three Daughters stars Natasha Lyonne and Olsen.
At another table, Barry Keoghan kept making his way to Margaret Qualley’s side, squeezing in between her and Demi Moore.
But most of the schmoozing subsided for the main event.
With no television cameras or band to play anyone off during a speech, it is a night during which friends and colleagues can pay tribute to the year’s honorary Oscar recipients.
Broccoli and her brother Wilson followed in her father’s footsteps, receiving the rarely given Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award, celebrating the work of producers.
Albert “Cubby” Broccoli accepted his own trophy, then a bust of Thalberg, at the 1982 Academy Awards as they looked on from the audience.
“It’s heavier than I thought,” Wilson said, holding the Oscar statuette.
Broccoli also commented on the importance of producers, a credit she said that lately is being handed out like party favours.
They got some gentle ribbing from Craig beforehand.
Broccoli, he said, “cackles, I mean, crackles with passion”.
But for a man who has always had a seemingly conflicted relationship with his Bond era, his admiration for them was evident.
“I can’t tell you how much I admire your integrity,” Craig said.
“These (Bond movies) are the most expensive independent films ever made.”
Grant was less delicate but infinitely funnier paying tribute to Curtis, who has written for and directed him in many films including Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill and Love, Actually.
“Would we call it an Oscar? It’s a kind of Oscar,” Grant said.
“It’s a better than nothing Oscar.”
Curtis may be best known for his contributions to romantic comedies, but the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was for a lifetime of charitable work, which Grant said was “annoying and frankly selfish”.
In his acceptance speech, Curtis made a plea to the room to set aside a small portion of film budgets to hire an impact producer.
Nicole Kidman presented the honorary Oscar to Taylor, a casting director unaccustomed to being publicly celebrated for her contributions to cinema.
In her career of more than four decades, she cast classics such as Annie Hall, Working Girl, Sleepless In Seattle and Schindler’s List.
Squibb, at the event with her Thelma director Josh Margolin, said that Taylor cast her in her first film, Woody Allen’s Alice.
“I don’t know if I’d have a career in motion pictures without it,” Squibb said.
While Taylor was excited about her award, she was even happier that her peers are soon going to be regularly recognised.
Starting with films released in 2025, the film academy will give a new competitive Oscar to casting directors.
There were many sombre references throughout the evening to the events of the “last few weeks”, although no-one speaking from the stage said anything much more specific.
Foxx, introducing the Quincy Jones tribute, did his own little impersonation of US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Why is everyone so down on these few weeks,” he said.
Foxx quickly got back on track to speak about Jones, whose celebration closed out the evening on a cathartic note.
“He was really excited to attend tonight,” Rashida Jones said.
“He has so many friends in this room. Well, actually, probably in every room to be honest because wherever he went he made connections with everyone.
“Real ones. He knew how to stay present, to stay curious, to stay loving.”
Jones invited the audience to listen on the way home, to go for the deepest cuts.
“There’s an entire universe waiting in his seven decades of music,” she said.
“And while you listen, hear him, hear how he imbued love into every single second of music he made. That was his real legacy: Love.”
