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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hadley Freeman

Clapping fatigue, Covid smooches and sprayed canapés: inside the Oscar nominees luncheon

Oscar nominees luncheon guests, clockwise from top left: Andrew Garfield and Lin-Manuel Miranda; Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Kristen Stewart; Alfred Molina and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Oscar nominees luncheon guests, clockwise from top left: Andrew Garfield and Lin-Manuel Miranda; Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Kristen Stewart; Alfred Molina and Benedict Cumberbatch. Composite: AFP/Getty Images

I am in a hotel ballroom in Los Angeles, two floors below street level, the kind of venue I associate with family barmitzvahs and work parties. But I am talking to neither a cousin nor a colleague. Instead, I am talking to Will Smith.

So, Will, I say, just about resisting breaking into “In west Philadelphia, born and raised …” Have you been practising your Oscars speech since you were 12?

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