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Billie Eilish and Sean Ono Lennon were among the winners at the 2024 Oscars in Los Angeles last night (March 10).
Eilish and her brother Finneas collected the second Oscar of their careers, winning Best Original Song for their Barbie soundtrack song, “What Was I Made For?” The trophy follows their 2022 win for their Bond theme, “No Time To Die.”
“I had a nightmare about this last night,” Eilish said in her acceptance speech after being handed the trophy by guest presenter Ariana Grande. “Thank you so much to the Academy. I just didn’t think this would happen. I was not expecting this. I feel so incredibly lucky and honored.”
She continued to thank the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, her best friend, and her old dance and choir teachers, noting that one of the latter “didn’t like me, but you were good at your job.”
Ono Lennon was present to collect the trophy for Best Animated Short for War Is Over!, on which he served as executive producer. The short film was inspired by and featured John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” He joined filmmakers Dave Mullins and Brad Booker on stage at the Dolby Theatre, paying tribute to his mother, Ono, by commemorating the UK edition of Mother’s Day.
Speaking backstage, Mullins said of taking inspiration from such a classic song (per Rolling Stone): “The song’s been played, I think for John and Yoko, it’s their most famous song that they’ve played at this point. So we had to take it seriously.
“We really just looked at what John and Yoko were trying to say with the song. We had Sean Ono Lennon as a creative executive producer, and we just tried to honor the antiwar message in a creative way that was fun and made you cry.”
Elsewhere at the Oscars 2024, Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo performed a moving version of “Time To Say Goodbye (Con Te Partirò)” as the soundtrack to the In Memoriam section of the show. The father-and-son duo wore co-ordinating blue jackets over the top of navy suits for the performance, which honored the likes of Tina Turner, Matthew Perry, Bill Lee, and more.
Jon Batiste performed his Oscar-nominated song “It Never Went Away,” which was featured in his Netflix documentary, American Symphony. As he performed, scenes from romantic movies, including Brokeback Mountain and Shakespeare In Love, played on the screen behind him. Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, meanwhile, made a surprise appearance at the event. He turned up to deliver a searing guitar solo during Ryan Gosling’s first live performance of Barbie’s “I’m Just Ken.”
View the full list of 2024 Oscars winners on the Academy’s official website.
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