Heading into the 2024 Academy Awards, all bets were on Lily Gladstone. The Killers of the Flower Moon star was the odds-on favorite to nab the Best Actress Oscar for her turn as Mollie Burkhart, part of the Osage community targeted by white murderers one hundred years ago., Surely it wouldn’t go to Emma Stone, not because her work in Poor Things wasn’t phenomenal — it was — but because she already has one, for La La Land. Well, guess what happened?
Emma Stone’s reaction was spectacular pic.twitter.com/G9H6DFWMiY
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) March 11, 2024
When co-presenter Michelle Yeoh called out Stone’s name, her reaction wasn’t to freak out and cry. She looked shell-shocked, overwhelmed, genuinely not expecting her name to be called.
What’s more, she suffered a wardrobe malfunction. The back of her white dress came slightly undone, making her walk to the stage all the more of a trip. She leaned into the mistake, the way Jennifer Lawrence, another of the presenters, used to do. She joked, “I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken,’” alluding to the arguable peak of the night.
Emma Stone’s acceptance speech for her second #Oscar
See the full winners list: https://t.co/IctYZ9WO3B pic.twitter.com/mfINtVgAS9
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) March 11, 2024
Stone proceeded to honor the other women in the category: Sandra Hüller, Annette Bening, Carey Mulligan. She singled out Gladstone, saying, “I share this with you.”
She then admitted that the other night was “panicking” about how “something like this might happen.” But Yorgos Lanthimos, her director, told her, “Please take yourself out of it.” She concluded. “Because it’s not about me. It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. And that is the best part about making movies, is all of us together.” She then shared the award with everyone who worked on Poor Things.
Stone also thanked her daughter, who’s about to turn three, and who means so much to her that she slipped in a Taylor Swift line, saying she’s “bigger than the whole sky” — a reference, of course, to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky.”
Poor Things wound up winning four awards that night. Killers of the Flower Moon was shut out entirely.