\n\tWhat follows is the answer, from interviews with more than 40 people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci; Simone Ledward Boseman, the widow of Chadwick Boseman; the producers of the telecast, including Steven Soderbergh, and its director; the Academy\u2019s president and CEO at the time; and dozens of that year\u2019s Oscar nominees and winners. It\u2019s the story of an awards<\/a> season unlike any other \u2014 one that stretched over 14 months and came to an end in, of all places, a train station in downtown L.A., with a ceremony that many felt went off the rails, even as its very occurrence was something of a miracle.<\/p>\n \t\tCOVID COMETH\t<\/p>\n \n\tDR. ANTHONY FAUCI In the very early days, the information that was coming from China was not particularly transparent. They first said that the virus didn\u2019t transmit very efficiently and was well controlled by classical public health methods. As weeks went by, it became clear [that it was worse], not from the Chinese authorities, but from the Chinese scientists saying, \u201cWait a minute, it really is spreading a bit more easily and efficiently than the original SARS, and people are getting really sick. Some of them are dying.\u201d There was a satellite photo of the Chinese building thousand-bed hospitals at the same time they were saying, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not so bad.\u201d I started to get concerned. When Chinese people from Wuhan were visiting northern Italy for business, I was getting contacted by the Italians \u2014\u00a0whom I knew because many of them trained in my laboratory \u2014\u00a0and they told me, \u201cTony, no kidding, this is really, really bad.\u201d When I got the real scoop from my Italian friends, I said, \u201cWe are in real trouble here.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat was in February 2020. The 92nd Oscars, for unrelated reasons, had been moved up from March to Feb. 9, 2020. If it had not been, it would have been impacted by COVID too.<\/p>\n \n\tFAUCI COVID probably was much more prevalent under the radar screen than we thought.<\/p>\n \n\tOn March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic; Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive; and President Trump announced a ban on travel from Europe. Days later, the Dow fell nearly 3,000 points, its biggest single-day drop. That same day, following the lowest-grossing weekend at the North American box office since 1998, Universal canceled the theatrical release of its film Trolls World Tour and sent it straight to PVOD. The following day, the nation\u2019s three largest cinema chains \u2014 AMC, Cinemark and Regal \u2014 shut down all locations. And March 19, California issued a mandatory stay-at-home order. Plans for films with Oscar potential began to fall apart.<\/p>\n \n\tNICOLE NEWNHAM (CO-DIRECTOR OF THE DOCUMENTARY CRIP CAMP) We\u2019d had our Sundance premiere at the Eccles [in January 2020] \u2014 we were the opening night film \u2014 and got this epic standing ovation. Then we went to the True\/False Film Fest [March 5-8, 2020]. I remember we had our last screening there, and it was a packed house. Jim [Lebrecht, her co-director] and others wanted to go have lunch, and I was like, \u201cI think I just want to sit here and experience this one more time.\u201d Sure enough, that was the last time I saw it with an audience.<\/p>\n \n\tMAITE ALBERDI (DIRECTOR OF THE DOCUMENTARY THE MOLE AGENT) I was lucky in the sense that at least I had the chance to make the premiere at Sundance. It was my only experience of the film with an audience.<\/p>\n \n\tFLORIAN ZELLER (CO-WRITER\/DIRECTOR, THE FATHER) The first screening was at Sundance, and there was a very enthusiastic reception. I was sitting next to Michael Barker from Sony Classics, and he said, \u201cYou should get used to this!\u201d But that\u2019s the only time I attended a screening of my film.<\/p>\n \n\tLEE ISAAC CHUNG (WRITER-DIRECTOR, MINARI) At Sundance, we had started hearing reports of it. We were talking to Youn Yuh-jung [one of the film\u2019s stars] about the need for her to be careful as she was flying back to Korea. We knew there were cases in Asia, but we didn\u2019t know what was coming.<\/p>\n \n\tRAMIN BAHRANI (WRITER-DIRECTOR, THE WHITE TIGER) Netflix\u2019s policy was, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to any festivals during COVID.\u201d We had an online premiere, and people were \u201cinvited.\u201d They got a link and \u2014 Netflix was so generous \u2014 a beautiful package in the mail with food, and DoorDash was delivered to their house.<\/p>\n \n\tPETE DOCTER (HEAD OF PIXAR AND CO-WRITER\/DIRECTOR, SOUL) We had spent four-plus years on the movie. We were approaching the end, and then, bam! Within days, though, we were back up \u2014 we\u2019re lucky because in animation you can do it somewhat remotely \u2014 so I was sitting in my bedroom watching dailies and finalizing shots. As the film approached release, it got delayed and delayed again. Finally Bob Iger and Alan Bergman called: \u201cWe are going to put it on Disney+.\u201d At first, I thought that was something to be discussed, and then I quickly realized, \u201cOh no, they\u2019re just telling me.\u201d I\u2019ll be honest, it was pretty heartbreaking.<\/p>\n \n\tMADELINE SHARAFIAN (DIRECTOR OF THE ANIMATED SHORT BURROW) Pete Docter is my hero, and he had asked me, \u201cHey, would it be cool if I put Burrow in front of Soul?\u201d I was like, \u201cWould it be cool? This is the best day of my life!\u201d But unfortunately Soul ended up being released on Disney+.<\/p>\n \n\tDARIUS MARDER (CO-WRITER\/DIRECTOR, SOUND OF METAL) Sound of Metal took me 12 years to make. I worked extremely hard, and I managed to set up a theatrical release for it with a three-month window, which was pretty hard to accomplish with Amazon. Then COVID happened, so there was no theatrical.<\/p>\n \n\tKEMP POWERS (WRITER, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI, AND CO-WRITER, SOUL) Both films got into a bunch of film festivals, all of which were either canceled or we couldn\u2019t attend. Soul was selected for Cannes, which got canceled. One Night in Miami debuted in Venice, but we couldn\u2019t go. For One Night in Miami, we did a drive-in premiere in Malibu. They actually did a red carpet where people drove their cars through a red carpet.<\/p>\n \n\tOne film that was already in the can, having shot in 2019, was Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom, which starred Chadwick Boseman, best known for Black Panther. Unbeknownst to any of his collaborators, Boseman made the movie while battling colorectal cancer.<\/p>\n \n\tSIMONE LEDWARD BOSEMAN (WIDOW OF CHADWICK BOSEMAN) It\u2019s so strange to talk about it in these words because obviously with COVID so many people lost loved ones. But the timing of lockdown for what we were going through was honestly ideal. I am really grateful for that time.<\/p>\n \t\tTHE ACADEMY ACTS\t<\/p>\n \n\tAcademy officials were desperately trying to figure out how to move forward, all while working remotely.<\/p>\n \n\tDAWN HUDSON (ACADEMY CEO) Every day was hell, to be honest. We were operating 12 hours a day. We did that for a whole year.<\/p>\n \n\tTo be eligible in most Oscars categories, a film had to screen for one week in a commercial theater in Los Angeles County. Before theaters shut down, though, only a handful of films had qualified. The Academy decided it had to act. On April 28, its board of governors met via Zoom and determined that films that had been intended for a theatrical release prior to COVID would be allowed to qualify that year via the Academy\u2019s members-only streaming service \u2014 which, fortuitously, had been opened to all films only months before.<\/p>\n \n\tSHAWN FINNIE (ACADEMY OFFICIAL) Thank God, because I don\u2019t know what eligibility would\u2019ve possibly looked like without it.<\/p>\n \n\tAcademy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement: \u201cThe Academy firmly believes there is no greater way to experience the magic of movies than to see them in a theater. Our commitment to that is unchanged and unwavering. Nonetheless, COVID-19 pandemic necessitates this temporary exception to our awards eligibility rules.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSeveral weeks later, on June 15, the Academy announced that it was extending the close of that cycle\u2019s Oscars eligibility window from Dec. 31, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021, and was pushing back the 93rd Oscars from Feb. 28, 2021 to April 25, 2021. Not long after, in a sign of the times, the Academy announced that it would also allow films to qualify via drive-in screenings.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, America was on fire. On May 25, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin while being arrested.<\/p>\n \n\tTRAVON FREE (WRITER\/CO-DIRECTOR OF THE SHORT TWO DISTANT STRANGERS) I started seeing the video online before it made its way onto the news. It was so heinous; you couldn\u2019t believe what you were seeing. I think that\u2019s why it culminated in the largest global protest ever. We came back from a protest in downtown L.A., and I said, \u201cThis is the worst version of Groundhog Day ever,\u201d and that was the seed of the idea for the film. I wrote it at the end of June in five days, and we shot it in September in five days, during the only window that L.A. allowed anyone to film in L.A. They opened everything up for one week, and we happened to have our permits for that one week.<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking of production opening back up, several people who would later play key roles in the 93rd Oscars were instrumental in making that possible. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, who had learned about pandemics and befriended experts while making his 2011 film Contagion, headed the Directors Guild\u2019s COVID-19 Safety Committee and helped write the report \u201cThe Safe Way Forward,\u201d published June 12. And from Aug. 17-20, live TV maven Glenn Weiss produced the virtual Democratic National Convention, at which Joe Biden was nominated, from a temporary studio in his home.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, Boseman\u2019s health was rapidly declining, and to the shock of the world, he died on Aug. 28. He did get to see the film for which he would posthumously receive widespread recognition, even though it would not drop on Netflix until Nov. 25.<\/p>\n \n\tLEDWARD BOSEMAN We did get a chance to see it because he was going to have to do press. What I remember most, more than the watching of the film, were the conversations around knowing that they were going to be pushing toward award season and reconciling with what he was going to be able to participate in and what he wasn\u2019t going to be able to do because of where he was. Those were hard conversations to have. I think that\u2019s when members of his team started to recognize, \u201cOK, something\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tA JOLT TO THE OSCARS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX\t<\/p>\n \n\tGiven that the Oscars remained on the calendar and people had little else to do, campaigning continued. FYC billboards went up around L.A., though few were leaving their homes. Interviews, Q&As and panels moved online. With everyone at their wit\u2019s end, these sometimes took strange turns. During a Zoom Q&A for Mank, filmmaker Paul Schrader was called on and asked Amanda Seyfried if she thought that Marion Davies, whom she played in the film, was \u2014 randomly quoting Nicolas Winding Refn\u2019s film Only God Forgives \u2014 William Randolph Hearst\u2019s \u201ccum dumpster,\u201d leaving Seyfried and dozens of Academy members shocked.<\/p>\n \n\tRIZ AHMED (ACTOR, SOUND OF METAL) The Zoom meeting is now familiar to everyone, but it was the start of that. I remember Hollywood Reporter roundtables, Actors on Actors, all of it \u2014 we were little boxes on screens. That became the new normal.<\/p>\n \n\tPOWERS I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t say that many times I was wearing sweatpants \u2014 or no pants.<\/p>\n \n\tGLENN CLOSE (ACTRESS, HILLBILLY ELEGY) If you were lucky, you had good lighting at home.<\/p>\n \n\tZELLER I was in France, so I would wake up in the middle of the night and do a Zoom.<\/p>\n \n\tPAUL RACI (ACTOR, SOUND OF METAL) Zoom after Zoom, saying the same things. It was depressing, although at the same time I had to stay excited putting on my minstrel show, \u201cHey, everybody, look at me!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCHUNG There was no excuse for not being able to make a meeting.<\/p>\n \n\tMARDER There was no talking to people afterward. There were no meals. There was no travel. There was no joy. It was just being in front of your screen, having hundreds and hundreds of interviews.<\/p>\n \n\tJON BATISTE (COMPOSER, SOUL] During awards season, I was also taping The Late Show with my friend Stephen Colbert, also on Zoom. So for five shows a week I would be on Zooms, and simultaneously I was also doing the campaign around our film on Zoom.<\/p>\n \n\tLAKEITH STANFIELD (ACTOR, JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH) Doing everything remotely felt convenient at first, but it quickly started to feel dystopian.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Cannes Film Festival had been postponed and then canceled; the Palais was now housing homeless people. But the fall film fests limped along: Venice took place in person, though few attended from abroad. Toronto was on an online streaming platform. And Telluride held a one-film-only drive-in screening \u2014 the world premiere of Nomadland \u2014 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with attendees honking and flashing headlights in approval.<\/p>\n \n\tCHLO\u00c9 ZHAO (WRITER-DIRECTOR, NOMADLAND) There was a fire over the mountains, and you could see the ashes falling \u2014 so apocalyptic.<\/p>\n \n\tEvery day brought something unusual \u2014\u00a0a half-in-person\/half-virtual Emmys telecast on Sept. 20, a mostly vote-by-mail presidential election Nov. 3 and a press release Dec. 3 announcing that Warner Bros. would release its entire slate simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, marking the beginning of the end of its relationship with Christopher Nolan.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Academy, meanwhile, tried to forge ahead with planning for the Oscars, announcing Dec. 8 that it had hired live TV specialist Jesse Collins, Oscar-winning director Soderbergh and Oscar-nominated producer Stacey Sher to produce the show. The trio said in a statement, \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled and terrified in equal measure.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJESSE COLLINS (OSCARS PRODUCER) They\u2019d called Oprah and asked her to produce the show, and she said, \u201cIt\u2019s not for me, but you should call Jesse.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHUDSON Howard Rodman [the screenwriter and Soderbergh friend] told me Steven had a vision for the Oscars, that it was very specific, and that it probably could never be done.<\/p>\n \n\tSTEVEN SODERBERGH (OSCARS PRODUCER) I wrote a manifesto outlining, \u201cHere\u2019s what my approach would be if I were to be involved with this.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHUDSON He wanted an intimate Oscars, very much like old Hollywood, sitting around with your friends.<\/p>\n \n\tSODERBERGH And she said, \u201cThat all sounds good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSTACEY SHER (OSCARS PRODUCER) Soderbergh called me and asked if I would do it with him. I never say no to anything he asks me to do. [The two had collaborated on Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich and Contagion.]<\/p>\n \n\tSODERBERGH There\u2019s no upside to doing that job. You\u2019re going to get trashed no matter what. There\u2019s a certain freedom in that because you go in with the attitude of, \u201cI\u2019m just going to make something that I would enjoy if I saw it,\u201d and let the rest of it go. The asterisk of it being a COVID year was, to me, a huge opportunity. So the first thing we hit them with was, \u201cWe want to move it somewhere else\u201d [other than the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, where it is usually held], something I have always wanted to do. What I was pitching, and what the COVID situation provided for, was something where we could control the number of people in the room, make it really personal and focus more than is typical on the nominees and their stories.<\/p>\n \n\tGARRETT BRADLEY (DIRECTOR OF THE DOCUMENTARY TIME) I remember thinking how genius it was that the Academy had brought Soderbergh on to produce the show. The unknown can be a threat to filmmakers, but if there\u2019s anybody who thrives off of it or goes after it, it\u2019s Soderbergh.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tOscars producers Stacey\u202fSher and Steven Soderbergh. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatt Sayles\/A.M.P.A.S.\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tCampaigning continued into 2021 amid the backdrop of not only a raging pandemic \u2014 L.A. County hospitals were so full that on Jan. 4 ambulances were advised to stop bringing in patients who had little chance of survival\u00a0\u2014 but also rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (THR was remote-recording its Writers Roundtable when the news broke), Biden being sworn in as president on Jan. 20 and Super Bowl LV taking place in Tampa in front of a capped-crowd of just 25,000 real people interspersed with cardboard cutouts of fake people (Collins, one of the three newly-hired Oscars producers, produced the halftime show and would also produce the Grammys on March 14).<\/p>\n \n\tThe Oscar precursor awards took place in one form or another over the ensuing months \u2014 among them,\u00a0the Golden Globes on Feb. 28 (bicoastally so New York-based nominees wouldn\u2019t have to travel), the Critics Choice Awards on March 7 (a hybrid of in-person\/virtual), the SAG Awards on April 4 (held virtually, winners were notified days before and pre-taped acceptance speeches) and the BAFTA Awards April 10-11 (presenters were at Royal Albert Hall, but winners accepted remotely). Viewership plummeted across the board.<\/p>\n \n\tPOWERS With the ones that were remote, a lot of times they would let the winners know in advance so you could pre-record a speech. There were also a few where they had all the nominees record speeches, and then they just pressed play on the winners. I\u2019m sure I have videos on an old computer somewhere of me accepting awards I didn\u2019t win.<\/p>\n \n\tMARDER I was going through a major personal tragedy at the time [a family member was ill], so I accepted a DGA Award and a Spirit Award from a hospital.<\/p>\n \n\tDANIEL KALUUYA (ACTOR, JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH) I was winning awards, but I wasn\u2019t having the \u201cexperience.\u201d You start realizing that the award isn\u2019t the award, it\u2019s the experience of being close to people that you are inspired by.<\/p>\n \n\tThe most emotional moment of many ceremonies was when Chadwick Boseman was posthumously recognized. His widow delivered powerful acceptance speeches on his behalf at the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and SAG awards. <\/p>\n \n\tLEDWARD BOSEMAN It was very cathartic to be able to talk about him, but it was challenging to figure out what I was going to say because I couldn\u2019t say what he was going to say. I wanted people to be able to hear from him in whatever way they could, so I started leafing through his notebooks to find: \u201cWhat could I give that still felt it held his spirit?\u201d It was an honor to be able to do that for him.<\/p>\n \t\tTHINGS GET REAL\t<\/p>\n \n\tOn March 15, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas announced the Oscar nominations from London. Streamers, indies and diverse filmmakers were represented among the nominees in unprecedented numbers. Boseman, meanwhile, became just the fifth person to posthumously receive a best actor Oscar nom, following James Dean, Spencer Tracy, Peter Finch and Massimo Troisi.<\/p>\n \n\tNEWNHAM People were dropping off flowers at the door because they couldn\u2019t come inside. Flowers were piling up.<\/p>\n \n\tSTANFIELD I was very shocked that I received a nomination because throughout award season, there wasn\u2019t any buildup to it, where typically you would see a bunch of nominations leading to an Oscar nomination. I got a call at 5 a.m. from my friend. He was like, \u201cCongratulations!\u201d I was like, \u201cFor what?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cGoogle your name.\u201d It said I\u2019d been nominated, and I was instantly overwhelmed. I hung up the phone and immediately started crying. I don\u2019t know where those emotions came from.<\/p>\n \n\tDuring the nominations announcement, it was also decreed that all events usually associated with the Oscars \u2014 from the Nominees Luncheon that precedes it to the Governors Ball that follows it \u2014 were canceled. Plus, the Oscars would be held in-person at Union Station, a train station in downtown L.A. built in 1939 in a blend of Art Deco, Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial styles. It had been featured in many movies and had recently undergone an eight-year, $4.1 million restoration.<\/p>\n \n\tSODERBERGH I wanted the show to be visually beautiful, and that meant finding a location that could support interesting shots.<\/p>\n \n\tSHER We scouted where the original Oscars was held [the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel], but it wasn\u2019t big enough or ventilated enough.<\/p>\n \n\tPOWERS Honestly, the Oscars could have been in someone\u2019s fucking garage and I would\u2019ve been like, \u201cThis is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn March 18, nominees received an email from the Oscars producers detailing their vision for \u201ca safe, carefree evening\u201d at \u201can intimate, in-person event.\u201d They directly addressed the obvious question: \u201cOf course, your first thought is CAN THAT BE DONE SAFELY? The answer is YES, IT CAN. We are treating the event as an active movie set, with specially designed testing cadences to ensure up-to-the-minute results, including an on-site COVID safety team with PCR testing capability. \u2026 For those of you unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about traveling, we want you to know there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show.\u201d The New York Times reported that Soderbergh had insisted on having a no-Zoom clause in his contract.<\/p>\n \n\tSODERBERGH I never saw or signed a contract and was never paid. And I didn\u2019t follow up. Frankly, I was like, I want to do it. And I also felt that not signing a contract gave me a sort of license to do whatever I wanted.<\/p>\n \n\tMany nominees \u2014\u00a0particularly those of a certain age and\/or based outside L.A. \u2014 expressed bewilderment that they would be forced to attend in-person and\/or travel to L.A. if they wanted to be part of the ceremony. COVID vaccinations had not yet become universally available in America (people under 65 only became eligible for them on April 1, 2021), and COVID was surging in Europe.<\/p>\n \n\tSHARAFIAN I\u2019m a very cautious person, and COVID really scared me. I felt if I wasn\u2019t able to get a double vaccination by the time the show happened, I would not go. It was down to the wire. It\u2019s not worth dying for.<\/p>\n \n\tNumerous nominees and distributors expressed concerns about the quarantine requirements. Many countries were only issuing visas for \u201cbusiness essential\u201d travel, and some countries\u2019 visa offices were shuttered. During a March 30 Zoom, the producers, accompanied by COVID consultant Dr. Erin Bromage of UMass Dartmouth, announced a softening of their position: They would set up \u201chubs\u201d \u2014 mini-Oscars ceremonies\u00a0\u2014 in major cities around the world, which would be included on the telecast.<\/p>\n \n\tSODERBERGH When it became apparent that we couldn\u2019t get everybody on a plane, we wanted to have a proper setup as a remote that was not a laptop, so we sent real cameras out so that the image would look identical to all the other imagery in the show. And there was a cost involved in that, but we felt it was worth it.<\/p>\n \n\tSoderbergh later told the L.A. Times, \u201cIt\u2019s the fucking Oscars. It\u2019s not a webinar. So we\u2019re just trying to get people somewhere where we can really make it look great. We want everybody to participate. It is our desire to hook up the people who can\u2019t come to Los Angeles through satellites and not through Zoom.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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