{"id":229161,"date":"2026-01-05T20:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229161\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:54:07","slug":"colleen-atwood-on-losing-oscars-in-l-a-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229161\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleen Atwood on Losing Oscars in L.A. Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen the Palisades Fire tore through Pacific Palisades last year, it didn\u2019t just destroy Colleen Atwood<\/a>\u2018s home. It melted three of her Academy Awards and badly damaged a fourth \u2014 a surreal, devastating footnote to one of the most decorated careers in Hollywood costume design.<\/p>\n

\n\tA costume designer whose work has helped define the look of modern studio filmmaking, Atwood has collaborated for decades with such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme, creating looks for films including\u00a0Chicago,\u00a0Memoirs of a Geisha,\u00a0Alice in Wonderland\u00a0and\u00a0Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Then came the fire. The blaze consumed her beloved Aderno Way house, along with nearly everything inside it. In the aftermath, Atwood was left with a single scorched statuette that she affectionately refers to as her \u201ccrispy critter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer loss was personal, but of course it was also part of something much larger. The twin Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed more than 12,000 properties across Los Angeles, upending the lives of thousands of residents \u2014 famous and unfamous alike \u2014 including the homes of Mel Gibson, Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, Rosie O\u2019Donnell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miles Teller, Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton, Diane Warren, Anna Faris, Eugene Levy, Anthony Hopkins, Joshua Jackson and Ricki Lake, among many others.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong the way, the fires spawned their own shorthand. One burned Oscar image briefly went viral online \u2014 an AI fake, it turned out \u2014 but Atwood\u2019s damage was the real thing. And not all Oscars, it turns out, are created equal, with older statues made from softer alloys melting faster than the bronze versions cast more recently.<\/p>\n

\n\tA year later, all of Atwood\u2019s Academy Awards have been replaced, but she is far from recovered. On the eve of the one year anniversary of the L.A. wildfires, The Hollywood Reporter checked in with Atwood to find out how she\u2019s doing and what\u2019s become of her hardware.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow are you doing a year later?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s still depressing. I\u2019m in the rebuilding process now with my house. I have plans and I\u2019m trying to figure out what materials to use. It\u2019s daunting. I am used to doing a lot of different things but I\u2019ve never built a house. The financial side of it is scary, too, because it\u2019s not been a great year for the industry. I\u2019m OK but so many others have been impacted by the changes within our business. You can try to look forward but there\u2019s not a lot of comfort coming your way.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is most worrisome?<\/p>\n

\n\tCity officials say that they are going to expedite this or that, in terms of helping with permits and the rebuilding process. But it doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s moving all that fas. There\u2019s been the first wave of people who have really gotten on it, and they are permitted or at least close. But there are others of us who have had to jump through more hoops. The permitting process is going to hit all at once, and that will be overwhelming for the City of Los Angeles. Then to find out about how the fire started, and that we didn\u2019t have water in the reservoir is\u2026it\u2019s like the emperor\u2019s new clothes. As an honest taxpayer, you pay taxes all your life only to find out that there\u2019s no water in the well. There are so many things you discover that bring up anger and frustration, and that\u2019s beyond the day-to-day of life. I\u2019ve been living in the same place for the last year and I just found out that the house is going on the market so I have to move again.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow long did you live in the house on Aderno Way?<\/p>\n

\n\tI moved in there in 1994. I move so much for my work that I\u2019m not a person who wanted to move into a house just to flip it and move on. I\u2019m not that person.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve created many iconic moments on screen with your work. Did you lose any of your archive?<\/p>\n

\n\tI lost a certain amount of it but I have a storage unit in the [San Fernando Valley] so it wasn\u2019t totally destroyed. I had some personal documentation, photographs, presents from different jobs, all of that is gone. But my archive survived which is great.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd the awards? I saw that you brought your Oscar to the Vogue World: Hollywood launch event at Chateau Marmont\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tI did. My crispy critter.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat happened to it? Did the Academy replace it?<\/p>\n

\n\tThey did. The Academy replaced the statues and they were the first to do so. The Academy and BAFTA were both really great when I reached out, and the Emmys were replaced as well. The Costume Designers Guild Awards have been slightly different as they haven\u2019t been replaced. Three of my Oscars totally melted. But the Academy changed to a foundry before I won for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them so they were solid metal. It\u2019s the only award that didn\u2019t melt.<\/p>\n

\n\tHearing that makes me think of that AI photo of a charred Oscar that went viral after the fires. What do you make of awards now or did the fires change your view on material possessions?<\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t see the AI one, I only heard about it in the first month or so after the fires. I was so in shock that I wasn\u2019t really dealing with things like that. I just was just dealing with the whole sense of loss and all of the paperwork. I did grab a few things \u2014 my dog, computer, family photos and an overnight bag \u2014 but I didn\u2019t think my house was going to burn down. I had a lot of beautiful art, photographic art that I\u2019d collected over the years and I didn\u2019t take any of it. Losing all of it had a big impact on me because I had gotten used to living with these beautiful things around me. Suddenly, I had nothing.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople asked me if I took my Oscars but I didn\u2019t think my house would burn down so they were not the first things I grabbed. But after I lost them, I realized the amazing power of the Oscar and how many people still value what it stands for. It made me really happy that I had some, and that the Academy came forward to help support us, along with the guilds and the Motion Picture & Television Fund. I found the support very moving. There are so many tragedies happening in the world that the Palisades Fire seems to have faded after a year. What matters now is the interest on loans and how hard the rebuild is on people. It would be great to have a better system for helping to understand it all.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have chosen to stay and rebuild. Why?<\/p>\n

\n\tI ran the numbers with some financial experts and in order to get the investment back out of the house, it\u2019s the best plan. In the end, it\u2019s about protecting the trust for my daughter who is special needs so that it can support her when I\u2019m gone. The loss of my place is huge to me. I lived there a long time, but I\u2019m excited about the challenge of the rebuild and what it can be. I also think the Palisades will come back, in a gradual way. I miss the wonderfulness of the original houses and how the Palisades was like a village. It will come back but perhaps in a more business-oriented way.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s shocking to think about is how you experienced such tragedy and it came as you had such an incredible year with the releases of some high-profile projects you worked on with One Battle After Another, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Wednesday. How are you looking back on this year, personally and professionally?<\/p>\n

\n\tProfessionally, it was one of the greatest years I\u2019ve had in my life. The second I read One Battle After Another, I knew it was a seminal film. I loved getting to work on Kiss of the Spider Woman because it is this classic beautiful musical about a time and place that really matters in this world. Continuing on with Wednesday was very fun, with its great cast and directors we work with. I also got to do \u201cThe Dead Dance<\/a>\u201d music video with Lady Gaga that we shot in Mexico City. It\u2019s not my usual thing but to be noticed for that was like, wow. I feel so grateful. I\u2019m grateful for the industry, for all the artists I get to work with, and for my team. It wasn\u2019t a typical year for me and I don\u2019t think it was a good year for anybody. But it was a year that really uplifted me and made me happy for what we do. I\u2019m a believer. I believe movies will still keep getting made. I know we\u2019re going to have to fight for it, but it\u2019s an important fight.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything you wish people knew or something you hope people learn about what happened?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s really important as we move forward in time that we learn the absolute importance of city government and accountability. It\u2019s big deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Jan. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Palisades Fire tore through Pacific Palisades last year, it didn\u2019t just destroy Colleen Atwood\u2018s home. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,35894,93,61,60,111083],"class_list":["post-229161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-colleen-atwood","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-los-angeles-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}