Tag: sticky-player

At this point in her life, Lindsay Lohan has tried-and-true rituals for getting ready for a big night out. Lohan opts for what she calls a “pretty simple” routine, starting with “nice eye patches, maybe a face mask,” before starting hair and makeup. But first it’s all about tending to bath time and bedtime for her eight-month-old son, Luai, with her husband, Bader Shammas. A veteran of the red carpet, Lohan is no stranger to preparing for an event like the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, but before she’s out the door, there’s one more crucial step. “Before I leave, I want to see my son and give him a kiss,” Lohan told Vanity Fair the morning after attending the 30th anniversary of the renowned event. 

During a time when every moment matters, Lohan and Shammas treated the Vanity Fair Oscar Party like date night. It had been more than 10 years since Lohan, who was “just excited to go and get dressed up and look fab,” had attended the bash. And for the new mom, who next stars in Irish Wish, out later this month, it was a time to catch up with old friends and make new acquaintances. “I bumped into a lot of people that I haven’t seen in a long time. Billie Eilish was one of the sweetest people and Sydney Sweeney—I met both of them. And it’s just nice to see everyone. Everyone was just there having a nice time and I think it’s so beautiful to see,” she said.

Lohan catching up with Kim Kardashian inside the Vanity Fair Oscars Party.

Photograph by Krista Schlueter

Having previously attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Lohan knew that the night required a daring, ultraglamorous ensemble, and turned to Balenciaga for a custom embroidered bustier dress in silver sequin fringe embroidery. An iteration of the brand’s resort 2024 collection final look, the dress was originally shown with long sleeves and a high neck. But for Lohan’s tailor-made look, the frock was made in a strapless version, allowing the actor to channel Old Hollywood glamor. “The dress was so beautiful, and it reminded me of 1920s casual. We wanted to go for effortless chic, effortless glam,” Lohan said.

Jamie McCarthy

Initially torn between two options for the night, the other being more form-fitting, Lohan saw the sequined gown and knew it was the one. “It just made more sense, and the weight of it felt really special. You know whenever you put something on that feels heavy, it just feels more glamorous. And that’s kind of the vibe I wanted to go with,” said Lohan. And glamor was just what she exuded with the glittering gown alongside her signature auburn tresses and dark brown eye makeup, topped with a peachy lip. 

With the whimsical night out spent mingling with the biggest names in Hollywood behind her, the new mother reflected on finding her equilibrium between being in front of the camera and life with her family in Dubai, where she prefers being at home and hosting friends and family.

“I think life is all about balance. So no matter where you are, you will find that, if that’s what you crave. I think it’s important to have both worlds to be in—you always need a place you can go back to and settle. So even though we spend a lot of our time in New York as well, home is always where the heart is, no matter where you are,” she said.

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The Best Moments From the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Sure, many of the best moments of the Oscars 2024 made it on screen — Da‘Vine Joy Randolph’s emotional speech, Nicolas Cage’s tribute to Paul Giamatti, Scott Evans giving a peck on the cheek to fellow Ken Ryan Gosling. But at an event this star-studded, with so much at stake, there‘s always way more going on than any cameras can capture. But from the arrivals on the red carpet to the most intimate moments of the Vanity Fair Oscar party, we were on the cast. Reporting from the Oscars ceremony, David Canfield, Natalie Jarvey, Joy Press, and Kara Warner were our eyes and ears in the lobby, the auditorium, and backstage, while Nate Freeman captured the moment inside the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Ahead, a look back at the major moments you didn‘t see on TV. 

Everybody Felt the Kenergy

It’s possible that Ryan Gosling in a bedazzled pink suit will be the defining image of the 2024 Oscars, so let’s start there. Natalie spotted the black cowboy-hatted Kens in the lobby before the performance, and then watched the lobby bar get noticeably quiet once the performance began. In the auditorium it was wall-to-wall enthusiasm, with the lyrics to the song put up on giant screens so everyone, not just Greta Gerwig and Emma Stone, could sing along. Some even treated it like being at a concert, recording it on their phones – as if it was not being filmed for broadcast.

The Kens line up. 

By Natalie Jarvey

When the performance was over, the Kens were all back in the lobby, even more enthusiastic than before. They gathered in a circle to celebrate, jumping up and down and chanting “Ken! Ken! Ken!”

Thanks to Francesca Scorsese, we know that Martin Scorsese also approved. 

A Poor Things Sweep at the Bar

As in so many years past, the lobby bar was the place to do some serious people-watching, and Joy caught a particularly dramatic moment. Emma Stone was catching up with Kirsten Dunst in the lobby when Poor Things began its winning streak, taking home the awards for makeup and hair, production design, and costume design in quick succession. Stone shouted “oh my god!” and streaked across the lobby to watch it unfold on a monitor, with a happy but stricken expression on her face. For one victory she jumped up and down and screamed in excitement, then turned around to apologize to those behind her.

There was yet another source of excitement throughout all of that: Stone and Florence Pugh were watching together and were just as thrilled by John Cena’s streaker bit as the rest of us.

John Cena’s Quick Change

Cena really did have nothing but a small modesty garment on for his presentation of the best costume design nominees, but thanks to a remarkable quick-change he was outfitted in a curtain by the time he announced the name of winner Holly Waddington. 

Christopher Nolan’s Bicep Curls

There was a steady trickle of winners in the press room backstage all night, but few were as loaded down with hardware as Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan, who joked that now that he has two Oscars he can do bicep curls — and then proceeded to do them. At 8 pounds apiece, that’s a decent-sized weight to lift after a long night!

Emma Stone Gets Sewn Up

Speaking of “I’m Just Ken” — Stone blamed her busted dress on that performance when she took the stage to accept her best actress Oscar, and stuck by it when she arrived in the press room backstage. By then, thank goodness, her dress had been repaired. “When I came back, they sewed me back in, which was wonderful,” she told reporters. “I genuinely do think I did it during ‘I’m Just Ken.’ I just was so amazed by Ryan and what he was doing, and that number just blew my mind and I was right there and I just was going for it and things happen.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Emotional Reflection

The Holdovers star gave the first speech of the night, and quite possibly the most emotional. Backstage she elaborated on what she said in her speech about learning to simply be herself. “When I looked at this show for many years as I was growing up, I didn’t necessarily see myself there yet,” she told the press. “So I was on this journey of trying to figure out how I could mold myself to that, because I thought that’s what success would mean. And what I have begun to find in my journey is, and being myself and doing the work and staying focused and driven and clear, I could do exactly the same thing whilst being myself.

Godzilla Stomps In

In the early hours of the red carpet it was the Godzilla Minus One team, eventually the winners for best visual effects, at the center of attention, decked out in Godzilla-inspired gear from head to literal toes.

Christopher Nolan has gotten good at watching other people take home Oscars. He earned his first nomination in 2002 for the twisty screenplay of Memento, which Nolan cowrote with his brother Jonathan. After that, it was a short journey toward Nolan’s becoming one of the most significant directors of the 21st century—to the point that when his 2008 film, The Dark Knight, missed the cut for best picture, it sparked a full-scale overhaul of the category itself. 

Yet every time Nolan has been back at the Oscars—he was nominated for writing and best picture for Inception, as well as for best picture and, finally, directing for Dunkirk—he’s been left out of the winner’s circle, even as his films have won a combined 11 Oscars. 

On Sunday night, that will finally change. As the director, producer, and sole writer of Oppenheimer, Nolan is up for three of the film’s whopping 13 nominations, and he’s the overwhelming favorite to take home the best-director and best-picture prizes. All in all, Oppenheimer appears poised to win at least eight Oscars, which would be a bit of a poignant milestone; the last film to take home that many was Slumdog Millionaire, champion of the best-picture lineup that infamously left out The Dark Knight.

Though it took a while for any of the categories in which Oppenheimer was favored to be announced, Robert Downey Jr. made for an apt first winner, taking home the best-supporting-actor award he’s been tipped for all season. His victory was followed shortly after by Jennifer Lame, the film’s editor, who helped wrangle the film’s extraordinarily complex storyline and 79 speaking roles, masterfully managing both quick cuts into Oppenheimer’s visions of the quantum world and intense argument scenes.

Any Nolan film at this point in his career would be pegged as an Oscar hopeful. Oppenheimer was no exception, particularly when members of it mammoth cast were announced in the fall of 2021. What nobody expected was for Oppenheimer to be swept up in a bona fide cultural phenomenon, opening opposite Barbie in a rare example of a Hollywood showdown that actually benefited everyone involved. The films were never entirely equal; Barbie had a bigger box office haul, while Oppenheimer had more of the epic sweep that usually helps in an Oscar race. But by the time July ended, it was clear both Barbie and Oppenheimer would not fade once awards season began. 

Nolan has been named best director by the Directors Guild, Critics Choice, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and many other precursors. But he wasn’t the only “Oppenhomie” who has been an awards juggernaut. Robert Downey Jr., in his first big screen role in three years, earned some of the biggest raves of his career for playing petty bureaucrat Lewis Strauss, setting aside his Iron Man charm for a character far more vain and dangerous. Fifteen years into an improbable, endlessly fascinating comeback, Downey has won, or been runner-up for, nearly every supporting-actor prize there is—and has been an invaluable presence on the awards circuit since the actors strike ended, using his charisma to prop up his costars and director in addition to himself. 

Most visible among those costars, of course, is Cillian Murphy, a key supporting player in so many Nolan films who finally takes center stage as J. Robert Oppenheimer. He’s a dominant force in the film despite Oppenheimer’s signature quiet calm, capturing a man who dreamed of greatness but was horrified by the way he achieved it. Murphy has found his way to the head of the class in an extremely competitive best-actor field, winning the SAG and BAFTA awards shortly before Oscar voting ended. Unlike Downey, he has not been seen as a guaranteed winner all season—Holdovers star Paul Giamatti has been formidable competition—but Murphy heads into Oscar night as another Oppenheimer front-runner.

As with every Nolan project, the film’s crafts are also impeccable, and seem poised to dominate at the Oscars as well. Composer Ludwig Göransson, working with Nolan for the second time, provides a rich, booming score for almost every moment in Oppenheimer; at just 39, he’s poised to win his second Oscar for best original score. Hoyte van Hoytema, previously nominated for his work on Nolan’s Dunkirk, wrangled an immense IMAX camera during even the film’s most intimate moments, combining those with sweeping desert vistas and one very famous explosion to make one of the year’s most visually audacious scenes.