The Oscars, like most of all award ceremonies, always leave several postcards with bloopers or missteps. But what is not so common is to see the discomfort of the nominees who fail to keep the coveted statuette. In these cases, those who do not go up to get the prize try to smile (with more or less spontaneity) and try to hide the anger or sadness caused by the defeat. But at the 2023 Oscars, an actress found it impossible to hide her anger.
The best supporting actress category this year was very fought over. The actresses in competition were Angela Bassett for Wakanda Forever; Hong Chau for The Whale; Kerry Condon for The Spirits of the Island; Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All the Time, and Stephanie Hsu also for Everything Everywhere All the Time. In the days leading up to the ceremony, Bassett sounded like the big contender in the category, with Condon the second favorite. In third place and with less chances to obtain the Oscar, appeared Lee Curtis. For this reason, her surprise was even greater when the envelope that hid the name of the winner threw her as the owner of the Oscar for best supporting actress.
When Jamie Lee Curtis was revealed to be the winner, the actress’s first reaction was one of surprise and then an euphoric mix of joy and excitement. But a few seats away, the cameras also caught the obvious expression of regret that crossed Angela Bassett’s face. The Wakanda Forever actress felt very confident in being the winner of this category and for this reason when Lee Curtis snatched this victory from her, her discomfort was more than evident. In fact, and unlike the rest of the performers in the competition, she didn’t even manage to applaud the victory of her classmate.
On social networks, many users echoed the obvious disappointment that Bassett experienced and some voices considered that it was a slight not to award the award to an actress who has been in the industry for so many years.
This is the second time that Bassett has been nominated for an Oscar, without managing to win the award. Her first chance at the awards was in 1993 when she was nominated for her performance as Tina Turner in the biopic dedicated to that singer (she lost it there to Holly Hunter for The Piano Lesson).
Jamie Lee Curtis, the winner
For her part, a very jubilant Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage to receive the statuette and gave a speech that caused sincere emotion in those present. Although the owner of a career that exceeds forty years, this was her first Oscar nomination and in her speech she remembered Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, two legends of classic Hollywood, when she assured: “To all the people who supported the films of genre that I worked on, to those thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, I say that we just won an Oscar together. My father and mother were nominated for Oscars in different categories, and I just won one!”