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‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ Casts React to That Epic Best Picture Oscars 2017 Mixup

Making the best of a bad situation. The casts of La La Land and Moonlight were gracious in their reactions to the epic Best Picture Oscars 2017 mixup that saw the hit musical initially given the award instead of the real winner, Moonlight. Watch the cringeworthy moment in the video above!

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As Us Weekly previously reported, the cast of La La Land, including Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, were already onstage as several members of the crew gave their acceptance speeches before they realized there’d been a screwup.

Best actress winner Stone, 28, could be seen mouthing, “Oh, my God,” before La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz said, “I’m sorry, no, there’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke. Moonlight has won Best Picture.” He then held up the correct card for all to see and handed the award over to Moonlight.

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The cast of the coming-of-age film seemed stunned as they then made their way to the podium while the La La Land cast filed quietly off stage and the real winner’s writer and director, Barry Jenkins, gave a speech.

Backstage after the awards show, Jenkins opened up about the shocking error with reporters. “[There’s] no explanation,” he said. “Things just happen, you know. I will say I saw two cards, and so … things happen. I wanted to see the card, to see the card, and [presenter] Warren [Beatty] refused to show the card to anybody before he showed it to me. And so he did. He came upstairs and he walked over to me and he showed the card.”

The card was for the best actress category and said, “Emma Stone: La La Land.”

“Everybody was asking, ‘Can I see the card?’ and he was like, ‘No, Barry Jenkins has to see the card. I need him to know.’ And he showed it to me.”

Stone also addressed the controversy in a backstage interview, saying that she “f–king loved Moonlight” was “so excited” for its Best Picture win.

“Of course, it was an amazing thing to hear La La Land,” she admitted. “I think we all would have loved to win Best Picture. But we are so excited for Moonlight. I think it’s one of the best films of all time. So I was pretty beside myself.”

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Giving further credence to the fact that there were actually two best actress envelopes, Stone continued, “I also was holding my Best Actress in a Leading Role card that entire time. So whatever story … I don’t mean to start stuff, but whatever story that was, I had that card. So I’m not sure that happened. And I really wanted to talk to you guys first.”

As one of La La Land‘s producers Fred Berger came out of the Dolby Theater, he said to someone, “Well, at least I got to give my speech.”

The film’s best actor nominee, Gosling, 36, came out behind Berger, giving him a hug and saying, “You gave a great speech, man.”

Moonlight‘s best supporting actor winner, Mahershala Ali, admitted that he began to get worried when he saw a lot of people coming out onto the stage and La La Land‘s winning moment disrupted.

“It threw me more than a bit,” he told reporters. “I didn’t want to go take something away from someone. I feel very fortunate to have us all walk away with Best Picture. It’s very remarkable.”

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