Mailbag! Plus, What that BAFTAs Moment Means For Sinners
Little Gold Men by Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John, Rebecca, and VF Staff Writer Chris Murphy answer listener mailbag questions on everything from how they'd fix the often-confounding Best Song category to how new Academy members get sorted into branches and whether the Best Actress race is as certain as it seems. They also talk about the incident at the BAFTA Awards this weekend, and discuss how the outcry might alter the Oscars chances for Sinners.
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. |
| 0:10.4 | I'm Rebecca Ford. |
| 0:11.4 | And I'm John Ross. |
| 0:13.2 | And today we're joined by VF staff writer and one of Little Gold Men's New York correspondents, Chris Murphy. |
| 0:18.8 | Hi, Chris. |
| 0:19.5 | Hello, hello, hello. |
| 0:37.9 | Not just New York, you've been our sex correspondent. You wear many hats. Thank you. Please put some respect on my name. Thank you, John. Appreciate that. Okay, so later on the show, we're going to be answering a whole bunch of mailbag questions about the Oscar race. Thank you so much for everyone who sent those in. |
| 0:44.8 | But first, we've got a lot to catch up on about news and Oscar season. John, you and I have been to London and back since the last time we talked, and it's been quite an exciting time. |
| 0:51.1 | You got to stick around for the Bafters. Should we start there, I guess? |
| 0:55.2 | Did anything happen at the Bafters that's worth talking about or notable or insane? |
| 0:59.7 | From what I've read, there was a little bit of a scandal. |
| 1:04.2 | We're reading your own article. Yeah, my own. So, John Davidson, who is the real life inspiration for the British film, I Swear, which hasn't been released in the United States yet. |
| 1:18.5 | And he has Tourette's syndrome. |
| 1:20.9 | He was a guest at the ceremony. |
| 1:25.1 | The first five minutes of the show, he was vocalizing and voluntary tics. Then they made an announcement explaining what it was to the audience that we were hearing. They sort of have a very bit of a pre-show in which they were making all the sort of like announcements that are like where the emergency exits are, etc. |
| 1:48.0 | The show started and then Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented the first award of the night, which was for Best Special Effects. |
| 1:58.0 | And John Davidson shouted out the N-word as an involuntary tick. |
| 2:04.7 | It was pretty jarring. You could definitely hear it. I was sitting in the back of the |
| 2:12.9 | orchestra section. You could hear it all the way back there. So there was audible gasps. |
| 2:20.8 | They continued on with their presentation. |
| 2:24.3 | That's when Alan Cumming came out and made an announcement again about his condition |
| 2:31.6 | and to be respectful. |
... |
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