It doesn’t sound too difficult: guard the winning Academy Awards envelopes with your life, then, when the moment is right, hand the correct envelope to the presenter and VOILA your job is done.
That’s exactly what Brian Cullinan, one half of the two PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) employees who were in charge of the Oscars envelopes on Hollywood’s night of nights, thought when he discussed his upcoming gig in an interview with Medium just two weeks before the ceremony.
“The producers decide what the order of the awards will be. We each have a full set. I have all 24 envelopes in my briefcase; Martha [his PwC partner who also works at the awards] has all 24 in hers,” Brian said, when asked to explain his role during the show.
“We stand on opposite sides of the stage, right off-screen, for the entire evening, and we each hand the respective envelope to the presenter.
Listen: The Recap team debriefs on the drama of the 2017 Oscars. (Post continues after audio.)
“It doesn’t sound very complicated, but you have to make sure you’re giving the presenter the right envelope.”
They’re the words that are now coming back to haunt him after last night’s epic blunder: La La Land was announced as the winner of the night’s biggest award, Best Picture, before it was revealed Moonlight had actually won.
It’s since been revealed that an envelope “mix-up” was to blame.
In the same interview, Martha Ruiz said that as soon as they hand over the last envelope, “Brian and I meet onstage and head over to get something to drink very quickly”.
But Brian added that it “doesn’t end with the last envelope”.
While he was talking about the fact he will keep the secrets of which film or actor was voted second or third, or how close the winners really were, his words have taken on an entirely different meaning after last night's mishap.
He also added that there had "never been a problem" with the envelopes in recent history.
PwC has issued an official apology to all those involved in the Best Picture drama, and confirmed that an investigation is underway to determine what happened.
"We sincerely apologise to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture," the statement began.
"The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred."
Brian Cullinan - who was tweeting from backstage throughout the awards - has since deleted his tweets, with users saying he was too busy being "starstruck" to focus on his job.
Others were a little more understanding of what will arguably be remembered by Brian and Martha as their worst day at work ever.
"You are only human...it's just an awards show. Let's be kind," one person wrote.
"Not the end of the world...hang in there," wrote another.
Top Comments
I think the only shocking thing about announcing the wrong winner was the way the guy carried on after he found it they read the wrong name. They should have left the stage and let the announcement be re-made not commandeer the microphone and snatch the card from Warren Beattys hand. He carried on like a spoiled brat. So rude.
Completely agree Jessica!
I was unclear who that guy was but I thought he was the producer of La la land, if so I think he acted accordingly. He was obviously peeved and shocked as anyone in that situation would be but he kept in but disokayed a tiny bit of anger. I think this is all fairly justified considering what happened to him, I think it took incredible self control for him not to have really lost it up there.
Particularly losing to Moonlight which was undeserving of a nomination, let alone an award. I say this having seen all of the oscar movies (except for arrival)
Fences was the worst film I've ever seen. Moonlight had some nice moments but was quite a badly made movie too. They were only in there for political correctness.
Hidden Figures was the only one of those movies that should have been nominated, it was a very good movie, and deserved it's nomination but sadly I think Moonlight won brvause it had two categories of political correctness, black gay people. That was always going to win over any story about women's rights, even a movie like Hidden Figures which was about black women's rights.
In any case all of the other oscar movies could have been equal contenders, becsuse whilst my personal favourite was La La Land, I would say that all of the films this year were equally good except Moonlight and Fences. I would have been happy for any of the other movies to trump my favourite La la Land, but to be beaten by something as poorly made as Moonlight is ridiculous.
By the way at the Newtown Dendy session an audience member at the end of Moonlight got up and said that was the most boring movie ever, and a number of people laughed. So if you can't win over the crowd at inner city gay, arty, leftist Mecca Newtown with that movie then I rest my case. Admittedly I do not think it was the most boring movie ever, it had some touching moments such as the love between the two men, but beyond that it was a highly confusing movie with large chunks of it we couldn't figure out what was going on, so very poorly directed. It's a pity as I think it is a story that should be told, but was so badly told.
Politically correct wins like this just play into the hands of people who think black people are only being rewarded for the colour of their skin, whereas give it to a movie that is truly deserving that happens to be directed by someone black gives people new found respect for those people's abilities.
Having not seen any of the nominated movies, I can't agree or disagree with your comments, but I love your new word "disokayed"!
Really? I think he was very gracious through obviously shocking disappointment - he only grabbed the card to show them that he wasn't joking/mocking and Moonlight had actually won. It's funny how different people interpret the situation.