The Oscar for best live-action short film resulted in expectedly big drama Sunday night as the category resulted in a tie.
A stunned looking Kumail Nanjiani, who presented the category, deftly handled the nearly unprecedented situation when he opened the envelope and declared, “It’s a tie. I’m not joking. It’s actually a tie. So everyone calm down. We’re gonna get through this. Focus up.”
Amid surprised murmurs in the crowd, Nanjiani explained he was going to announce one winner, and they would come up on stage and accept their award, and then he would name a second winner.
The winners were: The Singers (Netflix); Sam A. Davis and Jack Piatt and Two People Exchanging Saliva (Canal+/The New Yorker); Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata.
In between the awards, Nanjiani managed to beat host Conan O’Brien to the best (if obvious) joke:
“Ironically, the award for short film will take twice as long.”
After both awards were presented, O’Brien came back with his own jab: “I just want to say congratulations to both winners you just ruined 22 million Oscar pools.”
Upon initial research, ties have happened six times previously in Oscar history, the most recent being for best sound editing in 2012. It has also happened in the live-action short film category before, back in 1995. Many decades ago, a tie occurred in the best actress (1969) and best actor (1932) categories.
More to come…
