Exclusive Irish celebrations in Hollywood, frantically scurrying along the Walk of Fame, a mashed potato bar and one of the most prestigious celebrations of film in the world — working in LA in the lead up to the Academy Awards was equal parts thrilling and terrifying for deputy digital editor Sarah Gill, who shares her Oscars week diary.
I’ve always felt caught between two stools in terms of putting my energy into manifesting a certain outcome, and being deathly afraid of jinxing it. And then something like the Oscars happens. Something you thought too far beyond your wildest dreams to even hope for, but it happens anyway.
You happen upon the application for press accreditation, apply in earnest and completely forget about it. Then, a matter of months later, confirmation and approval are in your inbox and in a blur of emails and calls and meetings, your flights are booked, accommodation is organised and you’re flying into LAX with an IMAGE-branded mic and a dream. You’re sweaty and anxious and excited and spend the entire 11-hour flight contemplating every decision, every flap of a butterfly’s wings that brought you to this point. You have a little cry into your silk eye mask and then you fall back to sleep.
Ostensibly, ‘journalist goes to media event on assignment’ is supposed to be taken in one’s stride as the very ordinary professional affair that it is, but as someone who has never been able to play it cool about anything in her life whatsoever, I thought it fitting that I chart the week that was in all its chaotic glory.
Day One: Touching down in LA
Flying to LAX—on the same flight as Jessie Buckley’s mother, Marina, and Dermot Kennedy—was in and of itself a great source of excitement to me, a woman from Roscommon who is spiritually still a teenager. LA is where the movies are, the realm where the celebrities are suspended in the primordial goo of fame and stardom. It couldn’t be a place with traffic and toilets and the same normal, everyday reality we’ve got here, could it?
I did what Miley Cyrus instructed me to do—hop off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan—and headed straight for the Omni Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza. It was about 10pm Pacific Time, which is eight hours behind us, so I was asleep standing up and ready to nosedive into that comfy, comfy bed before you could say should-I-order-an-Uber-Eats?
Day Two: Rolling out the green carpet
In the weeks leading up to the Oscars, the good people at the Academy got into the habit of sending out very alarmingly red-inked, bold, underlined emails to make sure we were abreast of all happenings and our place within the madness. On Thursday afternoon, they had scheduled a media walk-through, where I and a selection of journalists from outlets across the globe were briefed on the logistics of getting there, gaining access to the press room, and, crucially, what not to do.
Taking photos inside the winners’ room is a move punishable by death, even if you feel you look extremely cute and urgently need to document it (I asked). Once you get your press pass, you are also not allowed to let a single soul lay their eyes on it except security and their lovely, cuddly sniffer dogs. Once all of that information was in my head and slowly processing (I developed a fun new paranoia that I would somehow accidentally start live-streaming and/or set off their airport security style scanners with the explosives I didn’t have), it was time to zoom across the city for the Oscar Wilde Awards.
“You’ve heard of The British Invasion in music,” emcee Matt Walsh says as he kicks off the event. “Now I think it’s clear we’ve got something of an Irish invasion going on in film and television.” A celebration of all things Irish talent at the Ebell of Los Angeles, the ceremony stepped into its 20th year of honouring Ireland’s brightest stars and bringing together the creative energy of American and Irish artists. The event focuses on Irish arts and culture, and recognises achievements in Irish film, theatre, and other creative pursuits. This year’s honourees were Domhnall Gleeson, Maura Tierney, and Lee Cronin, and guests in attendance included Academy Awards 2026 nominees, industry executives, musicians, and stars of film and television. You can read a full rundown of the Oscar Wilde Awards here.
Before the event kicked off, we had the opportunity to interview some big names on the green carpet, including the aforementioned honouree and complete gent, Domhnall Gleeson, three-time Oscar winner Richard Baneham, Oscar-nominees John Kelly and producer Andrew Freedman, and the very mesmerising Jason O’Mara of These Sacred Vows. There were music performances from Dermot Kennedy and Dave Lofts, baskets of Tayto scattered about, and something that I have become very passionate about having at my next soiree: a mashed potato station.
Day Three: Brunch, buzz and Blue Moon
On Friday morning, the Consulate General of Ireland and Screen Ireland hosted an utterly beautiful Irish Oscar Nominees Brunch in the stunning surroundings of Ysabel. Many of the big names and nominees from the night prior were in attendance once again, and we heard from both Ceann Comhairle, Verona Murphy T.D., and the head of Screen Ireland, Désirée Finnegan, who each impressed upon those gathered just how proud they were of Ireland’s cultural footprint on the world stage.
While in LA, I had the opportunity to sit down with not one but two nominees for more longform conversations, the first of which was with one half of Element Pictures, Andrew Lowe. Founded by Andrew Lowe and Ed Guiney in 2001, Element has had five films nominated across a grand total of 30 Academy Awards and has received six wins. Nominated in four categories at this year’s Oscars for their work on Bugonia, we spoke at length about awards season buzz, working with Yorgos Lanthimos, and the way in which an Oscars after-party is actually a lot like an Irish 21st. You can read the interview in full here.
Day Four: Hollywood Boulevard
I managed to catch Macdara Kelleher of Wild Atlantic Pictures during half-time of a Six Nations match on the sun-soaked poolside terrace of his Hollywood hotel, where we obviously spent large swathes of time talking about the glory of escaping the 60-day-strong record of rainfall in Ireland. We are Irish, after all. Wild Atlantic Pictures were nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Ethan Hawke for the film Blue Moon, which was shot almost entirely in Ireland with a largely Irish crew behind the camera. You can read our chat in full here.
Once the aforementioned interviews were written up, I had a great big luxury on my hands: free time. During which I did what any self respecting and chronically online Millennial-Gen Z cusper would do, and I took myself to Erewhon for a Hailey Bieber smoothie and on a grand tour of the Big Three: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Target. And also Sephora. And In-N-Out. I was raised on YouTube, so this was a very important voyage for me to go on.
I was in the lucky position to have a press pass that grants you access to the red carpet area while it’s still in the process of being built. The very glamorous event actually takes place in a shopping centre, which is in use for its intended purpose right up until Saturday night. Walk throughs are happening throughout the day on Saturday, wherein normal lay people strut up and down the carpet with the name of an A-lister worn on a placard over their chest. It is very strangely dystopian and feels like someone is playing a game of The Sims in real life.
The Big Day: I’d like to thank the Academy…
Come Sunday morning, the protective plastic is ripped off the red carpet, the streets are blocked off, and a convoy of blacked-out jeeps are ferrying celebrities right up to the centre of the action. Onlookers line the fences, hoping to catch a peak of someone famous before anyone else, and if you’re me, you’re panicking because you’ve taken a wrong turn and can’t seem to find the press entry point, so you’re playing a very difficult game of mouse trap on Hollywood Boulevard until a kind security man guides you to where you’re meant to be.
It’s at this point that the event’s host, Conan O’Brien, strides on by you to get whisked away via golf cart to the venue around the corner. The red carpet ends at around 3pm, with the ceremony itself kicking off at 4pm. The press room itself has a sort of wedding ballroom feel to it, but instead of drunk relatives lining the tables, it’s a select group of US and international journalists. There are a number of monitors displaying a live stream of the show throughout the course of the evening, and we’re all furnished with a headset so we can keep listening without interruption.
Once a winner is announced on stage, there is about a 30-minute window until they arrive in the room for a press conference style question and answer session. We’ve all got auction paddles that we wave in the air in the hopes that the moderator calls your number. The corridor area is filled with buffet tables of just about any food you could possibly desire and refreshments abound.
As the evening ticks by, we’re busy updating winners lists and posting across socials, while keeping a watchful eye on the stream to see who the next lucky winner will be. At times, watching the stream in the press room was like what I imagine it must feel like to watch a sporting match you care about on a big screen in a beer garden. People are going wild, they’re on their feet and jumping up and down, they’re cheering for their favourites, particularly when Michael B Jordan walked into the room.
If you somehow missed it, Ireland took home two wins in the form of Jessie Buckley’s historical achievement in becoming the first Irish actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, while Richie Baneham picked up his third statuette for Best Visual Effects for his work on Avatar: Fire and Ash.
The final winner was Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of One Battle After Another, which took home a total of six Oscars throughout the night. His other half, Maya Rudolph, comes in to stand among the press, recording her hubby in all his glory. Celebs, they’re just like us!
By the time the ceremony had ended, the final winner had left the press room stage, and all work was written, filed and squared away, it was as though all moisture had left the room. Headaches were setting in and a zombie vibe had taken over most of us, but the buzz on the streets pulls you back into the excitement of the moment fast. The next day, many of the Irish contingent are on the same flight back to Dublin, where we touched down on Paddy’s Day to a Dublin washed green and oozing with patriotism. It felt fitting for the weekend that was in it, to enter back into reality while everyone’s spirits are still soaring with the feeling of Irish pride.
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