Aoife Barry reports from West Hollywood.
AS THE PLANE descends at LAX airport, I feel a sense of déjà vu. The flat expanse of yellow and red lights, overlooked by mountains and hills, are so familiar to me.
But in reality, any sense of familiarity is all down to the movies.
I haven’t been to LA before – I only feel like I know it because of the amount of times I’ve watched films featuring it, from the gritty To Live and Die in LA to the celebratory La La Land.
While the plane taxis along the tarmac, it’s hard not to ruminate over what LA ‘means’, and all its connections to success and stardom, as on board are a number of Irish Oscar nominees – the team behind An Cailín Ciúin, and An Irish Goodbye – and their family members, friends and colleagues. Man of the moment Paul Mescal’s parents and sister were there too; he’ll be taking mum Dearbhla as his Oscar date on Sunday. His swift ascent up the ladder of fame is the sort of Hollywood tale we all love: how quickly a GAA player from Maynooth can become a global star.
LA is home to Hollywood, the fabled birthplace of cinema. It’s a place that promises dreams wilder than you could imagine, that gives hope that those dreams can come true. It’s also a place where reality butts up against those dreams harshly. Walking around Hollywood at night, you can see that stardom and poverty walk hand-in-hand here.
On Sunday, those nominees who touched down on LA soil (or rather, concrete) last night will be at the apex of la-la-land activity: attending the 95th Academy Awards. It’s a real pinch-me moment for them, because you can’t dream of anything bigger than an Oscar nomination.
But I’d venture that in the reality of it all, alongside the excitement are the nerves that come with achieving a life’s dream: what happens next? There are no guaranteed wins at the Oscars – which is why industry insiders treat a nomination for Ireland as a win – but there is guaranteed hope, much crossing of fingers, Child of Prague statues placed in gardens, whispers that this year could be a big one. Hollywood is a place where confidence can carry you far.
But it doesn’t mean the stars are insulated from everyday problems. Best Supporting Actor nominee Barry Keoghan unfortunately discovered an airline had lost his luggage when he arrived in the city. (He’s since deleted his tweet about it, making us presume the bags have been returned.) During the big times, life always finds a way of reminding you who’s boss.
Awards campaign
The nominees have done more than their duty up to this point. They’ve been doing the awards campaign necessities of holding screenings for Academy members (they’re the people who vote for the nominees and winners, and they number almost 10,000, spread out globally).
They’ve held meetings and Q&As. They’ve shaken hands and shared anecdotes at the annual nominees luncheon alongside Hollywood icons like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise.
Before the 3.20pm flight to LAX yesterday, the red carpet was rolled out for them at Dublin Airport. After The Journal checked in for our flight to the city of angels, we chatted to some of the An Cailín Ciúin team – director Colm Bairéad, producer Cleona Ní Chrúalaoi, and Carrie Crowley – about their expectations of the weekend ahead.
“We weren’t expecting a red carpet in Dublin Airport,” laughed Bairéad. “There’s a big gang of us going over from our film. There’ll be a real Irish sort of vibe I think to the whole thing.”
It’s been “really hectic” over the last few months, Ní Chrúalaoi added. In between campaigning, they premiered their film in US cinemas.
They were sanguine about their Oscar win odds. “We’re up against some very stiff competition, particularly with All Quiet on the Western Front, which is a clear favourite. So we’re just going to really enjoy the moment,” said Bairéad.
“Stranger things have happened I guess, but we’re not going in thinking ‘oh we’re going to win this thing’.
“We just think it’s such an incredible achievement that we have an Irish language feature film nominated for the first time at the Oscars, and no matter what happens, we’re just going to celebrate everything that our film has achieved so far.”
One of the stars of the film, Carrie Crowley, told us that one of the highlights for her will be an event where the directors of the Best International Film gather on Friday. “It’s such a privilege to go with those people,” she said. “That’s to me more exciting, more of a privilege than the Oscars.”
The category the film is nominated is a tough one, she acknowledged: “We’re in with some really good films.” That in itself shows the high quality of An Cailín Ciúin (or, as it will be called on Oscars night, The Quiet Girl), but it makes dreaming of a win that bit tougher.
‘So surreal’
A film is a huge team endeavour, so also on the plane were many of the film industry members who make it all work. Alongside the An Cailín Ciúin folks were Nell Roddy and Robert McCann Finn, who run Break Out Pictures. It’s the Irish distributor for the film (meaning, in a nutshell, it gets the film into cinemas).
“It’s so surreal,” Roddy told The Journal about watching the film go from a small ‘movie that could’ to an Oscar contender. “When you’re walking through [the airport], you just see all the cast and Colm [Bairéad] and Cleona [Ní Chrúalaoi] and you think, ‘oh my god, we’ve come so far’ from even two years ago when we first saw the film. It’s unbelievable.”
She recalled watching An Cailín Ciúin for the first time and thinking Colm Bairéad was “an incredible director”, and wondering why he wasn’t a bigger name. Break Out first started working on the distribution plan during Covid. “Cinemas weren’t even open and everybody was so down, and you’re watching this amazing film and you just imagine what it could be like [to have it in cinemas],” recalled McCann Finn. The journey since then has been quite the trip.
Everyone on the plane, whether involved in the films or not, knew that it’s a big year for Ireland at the Oscars – with 14 nominations, we’re guaranteed we will see at least one Irish face in the winner’s press room on the day. (After they pick up their statuette, each winner heads across the road to a hotel to have their photos taken and then be grilled by the press – and The Journal will be among those in the room. And yes, all us reporters have to be dressed up in gúnas and tuxes too).
As the plane took off, we were all encouraged to give the assembled nominees not one but two rounds of applause. The second was because the nominees weren’t on board the first time – oops – but it felt good nonetheless.
There were several familiar faces on the flight, including Áine Moriarty of the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA), which announced its nominees for this year’s IFTA Awards earlier this week, capitalising on the Oscar buzz. All of the Oscar nominees present yesterday were on the nominations list, along with a plethora of established and up-and-coming stars who no doubt are manifesting their own future Academy nominations.
When you see that someone like Paul Mescal, who made his breakthrough just three years ago in Normal People, has already been nominated for an Oscar, it shows – to use a well-worn but accurate cliché – how much Ireland punches above its weight. As a country, we don’t have to wonder if our film industry is good enough to compete with others. We’ve more than proved we can.
Also on the flight was Culture Minister Catherine Martin, who told The Journal in the airport how proud she was of the nominees, and detailed how she’s going to be meeting many US film industry heads this week to try and impress on them the joys of filmmaking in Ireland. She’s keen to see more films being made in the country’s studios.
This morning in LA, she will be attending a pre-St Patrick’s Day celebration and screening of Ireland Hits the Big Screen, a movie for IMAX Theatres narrated by Liam Neeson.
It’s going to be a busy few days in the lead-up to the Oscars, with a number of industry events set to take place. Tonight is the Oscar Wilde Awards bash in Santa Monica, which is being hosted at movie powerhouse JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot headquarters.
Irish stars Eve Hewson, Kerry Condon and Jessie Buckley will all be honoured by the event, which is run by the Ireland-US Alliance.
Also expected on the ‘green carpet’ are nominees Paul Mescal, the Cailín Ciúin team, the An Irish Goodbye directors, nominee Richie Baneham, and a plethora of Irish actors and filmmakers. The Journal will bring you the latest from the event.
Green wave
For us press folk, today is the day to pick up our Oscars accreditation and get a tour of the press rooms. We’ll also get to check out the red carpet, where the stars will sashay in their finery on Sunday evening.
As the so-called ‘green wave’ rolls into Hollywood, despite all the realism that must come with such a huge event, it’s hard not to feel optimistic. Even though Oscar experts aren’t necessarily predicting that we’ll get a huge amount of actual wins, we all know from watching that literally anything can happen on the day itself.
It’s that sense of anticipation that will keep the nominees focused until Sunday’s big bash – and in the meantime, they’ll get to soak up the wild and wonderful experience as it unfolds.
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