Hollywood
Oscar feeling in the Academy Museum
An “Oscars Experience” is offered at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. photo
© Barbara Munker/dpa
Oscar winners are often surprised on stage at how heavy the trophy is. You can lend a hand at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles – a curator from Heidelberg knows her stuff.
It is 34 centimeters high, weighs a good four kilograms and is covered in gold: how does that feel, one Receiving Oscar on stage in front of over 3,000 guests at the Dolby Theater? You don’t have to be a movie star to experience some of this. The “Oscars Experience” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles invites visitors to do so.
A red carpet leads into a room, in the middle of which a shiny gold trophy sits on a pedestal. From a small stage you look at a virtual audience, the music starts up, your name appears and cheers and clapping can be heard.
“And then you can pick up a real Oscar statue and feel how heavy it is,” says museum curator Jessica Niebel, who comes from Heidelberg. Several cameras are pointed at the “winner”, a quick word of thanks and the Oscar experience is over. A short video of your own appearance will follow by email.
From Frankfurt to Hollywood
Before moving to Los Angeles, Niebel worked at the Frankfurt Film Museum. In 2021, she took part in a retrospective about Japanese anime legend Hayao Miyazaki at the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The 83-year-old co-founder of the legendary Ghibli animation studio in Tokyo is in the Oscar race on Sunday with the animated film “The Boy and the Heron.”
Curator Niebel is at the Oscars herself for the fourth time, this time she is helping on the red carpet where the limousines arrive. There she would receive prominent supporters of the museum and escort them to the security check. “It’s not that uncomplicated where everyone can go and who can go where,” she says. “All the excitement and glamor is of course overwhelming.”
For film fans, the Academy Museum is a real treasure trove spread over seven floors and a huge domed building. The show “John Waters: Pope of Trash” about the cult director John Waters (“Hairspray”, “Polyester”) is currently attracting many visitors. Among the museum’s vast collection of films, photos, posters, costumes and props are a shark dummy from the horror shocker “Jaws,” the door to Rick’s Café from “Casablanca” and nearly two dozen Oscar trophies.
The Oscar – an “ancient fellow”
For Niebel, the Oscar has a special significance as the oldest film award ever. The film expert jokes that he is an “ancient guy” who will soon be 100. In addition, in contrast to festival awards such as those in Cannes or Venice, it is not selected by a small jury, but by the broader film industry. More than 9,000 members of the Film Academy vote on the Oscar winners. The Academy Awards will take place for the 96th time on Sunday.
There are also possible surprise moments at the gala. “This is a live show, anything can happen,” says Niebel, referring to previous scandals, such as the slap in the face handed out by actor Will Smith (2022) or the embarrassing mix-up of envelopes in the top category “Best Film” ( 2017). A “thrill” that the Germans are looking forward to.