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LOS ANGELES — Hollywood darling Sandra Bullock plans to show off her Oscar and her Razzie together in the same display at home.
The best-actress Oscar she won Sunday for The Blind Side will just get a more prominent position than the Razzie she won Saturday for the awful All About Steve.
“You take the good with the not so good,” Bullock said with a chuckle late Sunday, still giddy after her Academy Awards triumph. “But I had the best time at the Razzies (Saturday) night. It is what it is and, you know, it probably means more that both of them happened at the same time, because it’s the great equalizer. Nothing ever lets me get too full of myself. It quickly chops me off at the knees, and I like it that way because it just keeps things stable. And they’ll sit side-by-side in a nice little shelf somewhere, the Razzie maybe on a different shelf, lower.”
MAKE ’EM LAUGH: Even with an Oscar, Sandra Bullock wants to keep making comedies like her popular Miss Congeniality movies.
“I want to do everything,” she announced after her Oscar win for The Blind Side. “Just because I won an Oscar, I don’t want to ever stop doing something that makes people laugh. I love making people laugh. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I sort of wanted this to sort of all die down, but I’m going make mistakes, and I’m going to make everyone roll their eyes, and I’m going to maybe do something that works. But I just want to keep working in every genre that I’m allowed to, until I’m asked to not do it anymore.”
MAKE ’EM CRY: Sandra Bullock’s beau, tattooed tough guy Jesse James, did not cry when she won the Oscar. At least, that’s what Bullock is saying now.
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“Did he cry?” Bullock asked rhetorically late Sunday, teasing backstage media after the Oscar ceremony ended. “He doesn’t cry! He doesn’t cry! No!”
Laughing, she pointed out her husband of five years, sitting among the reporters. “He’s right there. Don’t piss him off. He had something in his eye. It’s very dusty from the dance music.”
Bullock also would not reveal what James whispered in her ear when her name was called for the Oscar. “You expect me to tell you that? I know, bless your heart for trying. I mean you got to ask. I’d never divulge what Jesse says unless he divulges it first. It’s between me and The Man!”
TENDER ON GENDER: Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win as best director in the 82 years of the Academy Awards, is still trying to downplay her historic win. Just as she had downplayed the gender issue during the Oscar campaign for The Hurt Locker, despite being only the fourth woman ever to be nominated in that male-dominated category.
“Well, first of all, I hope I’m the first of many,” Bigelow said late Sunday. “Of course, I’d love to just think of myself as a filmmaker — and I long for the day when a modifier can be a moot point. But I’m ever grateful if I can inspire some young, intrepid, tenacious male or female filmmaker and have them feel that the impossible is possible, and never give up on your dream.”
TAKING THE HIGH ROAD: Ex-spouses Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron have taken the high road — showing dignity and restraint — throughout the Oscar campaign. Now that it is over, now that The Hurt Locker has toppled the mighty box-office champ Avatar, Bigelow is still maintaining her reserve.
“First of all, I think he’s an extraordinary filmmaker,” Bigelow said about Cameron after the Oscar ceremony Sunday, in which she beat Cameron personally for the best-director prize. “I have to say, all the nominees are phenomenal, powerful, talented filmmakers. How humbling it was for me to be in that company, in that conversation.”
But Bigelow stopped short of saying anything else to Cameron, at least in public. They were married from 1989-91. Pressed on the issue by one reporter backstage, Bigelow shrugged and said: “Well, you left me speechless.”
Pressed even further, she gamely offered the big compliment: “I think Jim is very inspiring, and I think he inspires filmmakers around the world. And for that I think I can speak for all of them. We’re quite grateful.”
Cameron left Bigelow to marry Linda Hamilton, whom he left for Suzy Amis, his current (and fifth) wife. Hamilton, showing no restraint, recently called Cameron a talented control freak and a jerk as a husband.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: Armed with its six Oscars, including best picture, The Hurt Locker now needs to find its audience. But the filmmakers are not unhappy about the fate of the film so far.
“It’s an incredible honour,” producer and screenwriter Mark Boal said late Sunday. “The Academy Awards are the pinnacle of the filmmaking community and, obviously, they bring more attention to the film. And that’s all for the best, and we feel grateful for the journey that we’ve had, and just to be up here.
“And we all are reminded every day of how many filmmakers there are out there that don’t get their movies made at all, and don’t get them distributed after they are made and go straight to DVD. So it’s an incredible blessing and honour to be here and, of course, we look forward to more people seeing the film. But it’s been a fabulous ride already.”
With only $19.3 million in worldwide box office to date, The Hurt Locker has the worst theatrical revenues of any best-picture winner of the past four decades. The film is now on DVD and Blu-ray in North America and still looking for the audience it deserves.
HEY, SUGAR!: Even with an Oscar as supporting actress, Mo’Nique will not call herself a bona fide actress.
“I am stand-up comedienne who won an Oscar!” she said late Sunday, after winning for a sterling acting performance in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. “Oh baby, I did. Me!”
The ebullient Mo’Nique, who calls happily calls people ‘sugar’ and ‘baby,’ said Precious has had little to do with her acting career. Instead, it has been a life-affirming process.
“This role has shaped my life to allow me not to judge and to love unconditionally,” she said, in a reference to abuse she suffered in her childhood. “Now, if that goes into my career, great. But, if it doesn’t and I am just a dynamic person — as I strive to be every day — I’ve won, baby!”
During the Oscar campaign, Mo’Nique revealed for the first time publicly that she had been sexually molested as a seven-year-old, allegedly by her own brother when he used candy to lure her into the bathroom in their house.
CRAZY AND HEART-FELT: Jeff Bridges has a habit of excelling in small movies that take time to find their cult following. Crazy Heart, which just earned him his first best-actor Oscar, may be one of them.
“That’s the exciting thing to me, because this award brings some attention to that great movie,” Bridges said late Sunday about how Oscar might shine the light on Crazy Heart, which failed to make it as a best-picture contender.
The Big Lebowski, his collaboration with the Coen Brothers, is another favourite that took time to be appreciated. While Bridges was not nominated for an Oscar for that film, he is widely acclaimed for his role as The Dude.
“I’m digging The Dude,” Bridges said, joking. “You know, I love him. That’s wonderful, you know, the success that he’s had. I was a little disappointed when it first came out, it didn’t do much (at the box office). But now we have Lebowski fests, and all kinds of things.”
Can’t wait for the Crazy Heart fests to spring up.