Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images
LOS ANGELES – On a night full of stars on the occasion of the
29º Governors Awards the one that shone the most was that of Michael J. Fox , the “Back to the Future” actor given a decade to live by doctors when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 13 years. Tonight, at 29 years, received an honorary Oscar as recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Film Academy.
“He turned a chilling diagnosis into a courageous mission. Michael J. Fox never asked for the role of an activist against Parkinson’s, but it has been his best performance”, said Woody Harrelson in the award presentation speech, which was followed by the honorary oscars to recognize the careers of australian director
Peter Weir, the composer Diane Warren and the pioneering filmmaker from Martinique Euzhan Palcy.
The Governors Awards, which were held at the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, brought together more than 500 people at a gala that regained glamor and the festive spirit leading up to the pandemic. Many of those present were actors and directors who aspire to be nominated in the awards season, which, with these awards, begins.
The afternoon started with a cocktail to which Michael J. Fox was one of the first to arrive accompanied of his wife Tracy Pollan and their children. The actor and activist got up from his wheelchair to pose in front of a huge photo of himself that covered one of the hotel’s columns.
Soon after, it was all familiar faces coming out of the brief red carpet:
Jude Law clad in a black tuxedo, Tom Hanks, Jessica Chastain in bright red, Cate Blanchett extremely elegant in black and white, Ana de Armas Seeking a nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde,” the cast of “Top Gun: Maverick” without Tom Cruise but led by Jennifer Connelly, Monica Barbaro and Danny Ramírez, the young Jeremy Pope (nomination hopeful for his starring role in “The Inspection”) talking animatedly with Eddie Redmayne, the Brazilian Wagner Moura (the Pablo Escobar of “ Narcos”), the most popular director in India, SS Rajamouli, who has been campaigning for weeks for the surprising action film “RRR”… Mexicans were not lacking Alejandro González Iñárritu and Daniel Giménez Cacho , director and protagonist of “Bard”.
Ana de Armas on the red carpet of the Governors Awards / Photo: Jon Kopaloff, Getty Images
Governors Awards: emotional speeches and a lot of humor
After two hours of cocktail, he went to the lounge where the guests dined -arugula salad, pear in wine and goat cheese for the first course, and balacao for the second course- while the tributes to the four winners took place.
Woody Harrelson presented the award to Michael J. Fox after reviewing the actor’s career in Canadian origin and to tell amusing anecdotes of their friendship, which started in the years 80.
“We made a mess”, replied Fox, who gave a thank you speech as emotional as it was funny, in which He stressed that the best role of his life has been to be an activist in the fight against Parkinson’s. Your foundation has already raised $1,216 millions of dollars for research against the disease.
Cher then presented the honorary award to Diane Warren, a Californian composer who has created songs for more than 80 films and that she is the woman with the most nominations in the history of the Oscars without having won: 29.
“I waited 50 years to say this: I want to thank the Academy,” Warren said onstage after receiving the honorary Oscar.
Actor Jeff Bridges was in charge of presenting the award to Australian director Peter Weir, responsible for films com or “Dead Poets Society” or “Witness”. Bridges, who worked under Weir’s direction on “Fearless,” recalled how it was the late Robin Williams who introduced them.
“I would give anything to have Robin Williams here for 5 minutes,” Weir said during his speech, which thanked everyone the film crews with whom he worked. “I always thought of the whole crew as the crew, whether they were in front of or behind the cameras,” he said.
“My team knew it wasn’t about my ego or of his ego, but of the ego of the film”, he added.
The filmmaker Euzhan Palcy received the last honorary Oscar of the evening. It was the actress Viola Davis who summed up her career and presented the award.
Palcy, a native of Martinique, thanked the Governors of the Academy and recalled how Robert Redford opened the doors of Hollywood for her in 1536. Doors that she later voluntarily closed when the big studios did not want to give the green light to the projects she wanted to do, but only to films with white protagonists.
“They told me that blacks and women were not profitable,” he said in his speech, full of claims to inclusiveness in a room with African-American stars like Davis herself or the entire cast of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” .
“But today here we have the proof: black and women are profitable”.
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