Salma Hayek says things were "freaky" backstage when 'La La Land' was wrongly announced as Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday evening (26.02.17).
Salma Hayek
The gaffe - which saw the feel-good musical movie, directed by Damien Chazelle, mistakenly announced as the winner of the coveted prize instead of Barry Jenkins' 'Moonlight' - was witnessed by the 'From Dusk till Dawn' star, who was standing backstage at the time.
Of the commotion, she told Entertainment Tonight: "I actually heard the stage manager standing in front of me saying, 'No, no, no, that is not the movie.' And so I saw it before it happened.
"I said, 'What are they going to do now?' and then I said, 'Oh my god, they are going to say it.' I actually saw it before everyone else and it was kind of freaky but exciting and I am just glad at least two movies got to get up on stage and be celebrating."
Since the incident, the company which compiles the Oscar results has "sincerely apologised" for the mix-up.
Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said in a statement: "We sincerely apologise to 'Moonlight', 'La La Land', Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture.
"The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation."
There are two sets of briefcases at the side of the stage at the ceremony, which each contain the evening's results, for security purposes.
Brian Cullinan of PwC previously explained: "From a security perspective, we double up everything. That's why there's two of us. We have two briefcases, that are identical, and we have two entire sets of winning envelopes. Martha [L. Ruiz] carries one of those briefcases, I carry the other.
"We go to the show separately with police escorts. I used to think it was for our security, it's really for the briefcase. We take different routes to get there just because of the kinds of things that can happen in L.A. traffic. We want to make sure that no matter what happens, one of us gets there. We've never really had a problem with that."
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