In the rarefied world of Oscar predictions, I used to have a certain cachet. People came to me for insight into the great conundrums of our time: Could Michelle Yeoh beat Cate Blanchett? Should they even keep doing the ceremony after the score from “Challengers” was snubbed?
I take my role as The Projectionist seriously — about as seriously as you can take anything that requires wearing a tuxedo during the day — and because of that commitment, I’ve spent years obsessing over the analysis my readers need to dominate their Oscar pools.
But these days, all they want from me is food pics.
Forget about “Who will win?” The question I’m now asked most about awards shows is, “What were they eating?” Sure, it’s notable that “One Battle After Another” triumphed with the Directors Guild, but how was the coq au vin? Are the odds better that the Producers Guild will choose “Sinners” this weekend, or that the show will double down on serving chicken potpies?
This all started innocently enough. Years ago, when I first began attending awards shows, my mom always asked me to take pictures of the meals. Since I was already in the habit of live-tweeting, I added those pictures to my threads, and whether the dinners looked delicious or dismal, they became surefire conversation starters.
My accidental foray into food journalism became especially pronounced this season, after the dinner photos started going so viral that the host of “The Town” podcast, Matt Belloni, introduced me as the guy chronicling “the sad food they serve at awards shows.” Now I can’t make it more than a few minutes into a ceremony before being bombarded with social-media requests to “drop the menu, king!”
Why the sudden surge of interest? Maybe people assume that the A-listers at these shows are eating caviar and drinking liquid gold, so any evidence to the contrary feels unexpectedly compelling. That would explain what happened last month at the Critics Choice Awards, which kicked off the televised awards season with a meal that went viral for all the wrong reasons.
To be fair, this ceremony has never been known for its fine dining: Two years ago, when guests were served pizza slices in a bag, “The Color Purple” star Fantasia Barrino-Taylor joked, “Where are the lamb chops?” Guests hoping for an extra bite are traditionally forced to traipse into the lobby for some Cold Stone Creamery, because what could a 100-pound actress possibly want more than cake-batter ice cream larded with rainbow sprinkles?
Still, the Critics Choice dinner felt particularly bleak: Consisting mostly of a few grapes, some crackers and two small wedges of cheese, it looked like the sort of snack plate you’d unbox on a budget airline. Social-media derision was swift, and after her win for supporting actress in a TV comedy, the “Abbott Elementary” star Janelle James roasted the meal in her acceptance speech.
“The best thing about being nominated four times is I finally realized they’re never going to feed us at this thing,” she said. “It’s going to be grapes and ice cream every year.”
If a meager awards show dinner hardly strains your sympathies, that could be part of the reason these photos keep going viral: At a time of stark class disparity, there’s a perverse pleasure in knowing that even celebrities are forced to nosh on rabbit food sometimes. When it comes to these menus, do we actually care what the rich are eating, or do we just want to eat the rich?
For that matter, do the actors even eat what they’re served? Many of them are meal-prepped down to the last calorie and would rather die than deviate from their diets: At the star-packed Gotham Awards in December, for example, the bowls of melted cheese dip always go utterly untouched.
Of course, there are exceptions, and actors who are less preoccupied with their abs have much more invested in the dinner options. I’ve heard that one older Oscar winner will negotiate with the servers for an entirely different entree, as if he were ordering from a restaurant menu instead of attending an awards show. And during his season-long sweep for “Joker,” Joaquin Phoenix even prodded the Golden Globes to adopt an all-vegan dinner. (When the actor went un-nominated for the “Joker” sequel, the ceremony was free to serve sushi and black cod with miso from Nobu.)
But in general, there is less food consumed at these awards shows than you might expect. Hunger can reach a fever pitch by the night of the Oscar ceremony, where the food on hand is so limited that the four-time host Jimmy Kimmel leaves boxed pretzels under guests’ seats to help tide them over. Once the show is over, A-listers are finally ready to indulge, whether that means snacking on smoked salmon Oscar statuettes at the official after-party or racing to Astroburger for fries and a cheeseburger, as Hilary Swank did in 2005 after her “Million Dollar Baby” win.
Though I’m used to these culinary customs, it always amuses me when newcomers weigh in, whether they’re social-media users or first-time nominees like the Norwegian actress Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays the supportive sister in “Sentimental Value.” Just after the Critics Choice Awards, she was asked by i-D magazine what surprised her most about the mad gantlet that is awards season.
“The food (or lack thereof) at awards ceremonies is very odd,” Lilleaas noted. “But I’m thankful to be fed at all, so I won’t complain.”
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
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