Oscars live: The 96th Academy Awards are being held overnight, recognising the best in film with Ireland hopeful that Cillian Murphy and film Poor Things will both receive awardsThe main ceremony at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles kicks off at about 11pm Irish time, and is expected to run for three hours or so.
What we can say for sure is that - while the Irish have not exactly dominated the awards over the last 90 or so years - one of our own designed the statuette. Cedric Gibbons from Dublin designed the trophy in 1928. A biography of Bette Davis claimed she nicknamed the award after her first husband Harmon Oscar Nelson but a more plausible origin story suggests that an Academy executive secretary called Margaret Herrick said the statue looked like her “Uncle Oscar” when she first saw it in 1931.We might use some of the downtime to look back at some of the more memorable moments in Oscars past ... and sure we might as well start with the Slap that was heard around the world.
We will also be watching closely to see if Element Pictures – who produced Poor Things – will be in their element by the end of the evening.