Awards Watch: Another Award Named Oscar

Standing on the green carpet outside J.J. Abram’s Bad Robot production offices before the US-Ireland Alliance’s Oscar Wilde Awards last night, actor Steven Fry told me a Star Wars joke.

“Darth Vader says to Luke, ‘I know what you’re getting for Christmas,’” Fry began.

“Luke says, ‘You can’t possibly know.’

Vader says again, ‘I know what you’re getting for Christmas.’

Luke: ‘How can you possibly know?’

Darth Vader: ‘I have felt your presents.’”

In case you don’t know your sci-fi, Abram’s Star Wars The Force Awakens hits theaters in December. Fry and Fisher were arm and arm (well, waist and shoulders—quite a height different) on the press line before making their way inside the crowded celebration. Abrams stopped by before going inside as well. How is this pre-Oscar bash different than the others? “I think it’s the most irreverent, I think it’s the most fun, I think it’s the best music, and certainly the most Guinness,” he answered. Gavin James and Megan O’Neill performed later in the evening.

Once inside the coolest offices on Olympic (this it the fourth time Abrams has hosted the event), you followed the ‘Party This Way’ signs painted on the walls (are they always there?) and the revelers took up every spot in the offices from ground floor to the roof. One of Davison’s paintings was up for auction for the cause and ended up fetching $20,300.

Colbert (the future host of Late Show on CBS) is sporting a distinguished white beard right now prompting a good response from Fisher, “You are so getting laid with that new beard!” she exclaimed.

Colbert had the last word as he stepped up to the rooftop podium, “When one thinks of Ireland, one thinks —Los Angeles. They’re very much the same only in Los Angeles the grass is brown, the sheep have implants, and people starve themselves on purpose.”

Other attendees included Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker!), Lionsgate Chairman Michael Burns, Davis Guggenheim, Sarah Bolger, Tim Dowling, and John Cho.

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