Awards shows are always events worthy of note, but sometimes they make the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The 2017 Oscars was notable for the now infamous moment where La La Land was announced as Best Picture by mistake, and last night at the BAFTAs there was similar confusion over the Brest Supporting Actress award when Carey Mulligan was announced as the winner despite Kerry Condon winning the award.
According to EW, the issue here was not an envelope mix-up, as had been the case at the Oscars. Instead, it was essentially a translation error. Troy Kotsur, who won the Best Supporting Actor award at the BAFTAs last year, announced Kerry Condon as the winner. However, the sign language interpreter who was doing the vocal announcing gave Carey Mulligan’s name by mistake.
The error was realized and corrected instantly, so Mulligan apparently never got out of her seat, and the flub was even corrected during the tape-delayed broadcast of the show, so many had no idea that the mistake had even been made. One assumes the fact that two of the nominees have different spellings of the same first name is what led to the confusion.
One has to assume there’s a bit of extra disappointment that comes with not winning the award when there was a second there that you thought you had won. At the same time, Mulligan already has a BAFTA from her performance in 2010's An Education, so at least she has that going for her.
Things were much more chaotic back in 2017 when Warren Beaty famously announced La La Land as the Best Picture winner. He’d apparently been handed the wrong envelope, a duplicate copy of the Best Actress award, and on the spot, he read the movie associated with Emma Stone’s award. It wasn’t until all the “winners” were up on the stage that the situation had been figured out, and the award was properly presented to the producers of Moonlight.
This error was a simple case of misspeaking, which can happen to anybody. It’s not the sort of thing that can really be avoided through any new show procedure, but considering how many decades these awards shows have been going and how complex it can be to keep the winners secure until the moment they are announced to the audience, it’s honestly a testament to these shows that we don’t see more errors like this.
This accident will likely not live in infamy in quite the same way that the Best Picture announcement at the Oscars still does. There’s a decent chance there will be at least one reference to it at the awards show this year. In both that case and this one, however, the correct winner was ultimately recognized, and that’s what matters.
