Hello and welcome to another special Oscar week edition of Little Gold Men, the Award Season Podcast from Vanity Fair and Panapley.

I'm Katie Ridge, the deputy editor of vanityfair.com

and I'm on my own right now.

I'm introducing the episode,

but throughout the week we'll have a lot of conversations

featuring all of us.

And starting out, we have our conversation with Ted Melfi.

He is the co-writer and director of Hidden Figures, which is one of the biggest hits in the Oscar

race.

And he is nominated as the

producer of the film as well as as the writer he called us from an Amtrak on his

way from another DC screening of the film they actually screened the film in the

White House which he chose not to brag about before the Obama's left, so they have some good history there.

So we're being joined by Ted Melfi, who is the director of Hidden Figures, which I believe at this point might be the biggest box office

hit of all of the best picture nominees.

So Ted, it seems like a good time to be you.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having it.

So the trajectory of Hidden Figures this season is really interesting because you guys were kind of part of the fall festival season and kind of weren't it was like a little bit of a late arrival for a while I think we thought it might even be opening in January.

Was that element of surprise kind of essential do you think to people embracing

this movie like they weren't bludgeon over the head with it in July saying it's going

to be a Best Picture nominee like you could take us by surprise?

...