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The Business

Oscars producer Michael De Luca on that fateful mistake

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6676 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In an exclusive interview with The Business, Oscars producer Michael De Luca remembers the night that culminated with the biggest flub in Academy Awards show history. De Luca tells us what happened in the moments following that epic blunder and what he thinks should have happened instead.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

0:06.4

It was kind of like the Hindenberg report. I literally heard, oh my God, he got the wrong envelope, he got the wrong envelope.

0:12.1

And then it was slow motion.

0:14.2

In an exclusive interview with the business, Oscar's producer Michael Deluca remembers the night that culminated with the biggest

0:20.7

flub and Academy Awards show history.

0:23.8

DeLuca tells us what happened in the moments following that big mistake and what he thinks

0:28.8

should have happened instead.

0:30.8

But first on the news banter, that Oscars blunder continues to resonate.

0:35.2

Stay tuned. It's the business from KCRW.

0:41.7

I am joined by my associate and banter, Matt Bellany, of the Hollywood reporter. Hello, Matt.

0:48.6

Hi there. So, well, some time has passed since the Academy Awards debacle, and yet, as we are sitting here talking, this has not been resolved.

0:59.0

I mean, I will just quickly say, if someone has not been in the world, obviously the wrong envelope was handed to Warren Beatty.

1:06.3

He clearly was unclear what he should do in the moment.

1:13.0

Faye Dunaway looked at the card and blurted out La La Land. Everyone thought it would be La La Land. Now we have the sort of rolling post-mortem.

1:19.2

You know, it took the Academy quite a while to respond. As we will hear in our upcoming Mike

1:24.7

DeLuca interview, he was wondering what the heck was taking so long as he was at the governor's ball after the Oscars telecast ended.

1:33.0

Why was the Academy so quiet?

1:35.1

Ultimately, it started to become a question of Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

1:39.9

And now there is, as we speak, it could change before this airs, but certainly the Pricewaterhouse Cooper's longstanding relationship with the Academy is questionable going forward.

1:51.1

And these two accountants who were there, Brian Cullin, who seems to have been the primary culprit, you know, tweeting a picture of Emma Stone as the best picture was happening and standing there with the

2:02.1

envelopes in his hand. But he and this other person from Pricewaterhouse Cooper's Martha Ruiz

2:07.4

were the only ones who knew what the best picture really was. I think pretty much everybody

...

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