Chapter 496: Ready

"Darling, who should we vote for in the categories where our movie isn't nominated?"

In the villa's living room, Ivanka looked up at him. Duke set his newspaper aside and said with utter irresponsibility, "You decide."

"But I haven't seen any of those nominees," Ivanka said, scratching her cheek.

She hovered her pen over the ballot, clearly quite interested in exercising Duke's Oscar voting rights on his behalf.

Duke picked up a glass of water, walked over, and handed it to her. "Drink this first. You haven't had a drop since last night."

"I'm heading back to New York tomorrow for a promotional event. Dehydrating myself makes me look slimmer..."

At this point, catching Duke's insistent gaze, Ivanka had no choice but to take the glass. "Alright, I'll give up the dehydration diet."

She blinked rapidly and deliberately pushed the ballot in front of him. "How should we vote?"

While Duke looked over the ballot, Ivanka quickly picked up the glass, took a tiny sip, and put it back on the coffee table.

"I don't know who to vote for either," Duke said with a shrug. "I haven't seen the films that have nothing to do with us."

He was, in fact, one of those irresponsible voters. Out of all the nominated films, aside from the few he remembered watching in his previous life, he had absolutely no intention of seeing the rest.

People like Duke made up a substantial portion of the Oscars' 6,000 voters.

Duke had become an Oscar voter—one of the nearly 6,000 members of the Academy—a long time ago. According to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, membership was earned in one of two ways: an invitation from the Academy, or automatic induction upon receiving an Oscar nomination.

Duke fell into the second category.

He was incredibly busy these days, making his voting duties largely a formality. In most cases like this—where he had no personal stake in the category—he would just vote blindly, or choose whichever name looked familiar and pleasing to the eye.

It wasn't just Duke; this was a very common voting method among many Oscar voters. Public relations and media campaigns had the greatest influence on their choices.

The final round of voting for this year's Oscars began on February 14 with the announcement of the nominations and ended on February 25, just before the awards ceremony. Once the voters mailed their ballots back to the Academy, two accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers would tally them. After the votes were counted, the winners' names would be sealed in envelopes filled with suspense and anticipation, waiting to be opened one by one during the live television broadcast.

Oscar voting had undergone many reforms throughout its history. In recent years, every Oscar involved two rounds of voting. All members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences belonged to one of fourteen professional branches, such as actors, directors, writers, and cinematographers. They voted twice in total: first to select the nominees, and second to choose the winners.

During the first round of voting, voters were restricted to candidates within their own branch. For instance, Duke could only vote in the directing categories. Once the list of nominees was revealed, all nearly 6,000 members could then vote across different categories.

Before the Academy expanded the Best Picture nominations to ten films, the new ranked-choice voting system had not yet been introduced. The method remained a typical "first-past-the-post" system, where the highest vote-getter won.

Of course, regardless of the voting system, personal favor generated through PR, lobbying, and various other means still carried significant weight, sometimes even deciding who took home the award.

Duke and his team members were mostly Academy members themselves. They had worked on nominated films, or their friends had. How would they vote? It wasn't hard to guess.

In the vast majority of cases, a person had their biases, and those biases were influenced by their surroundings.

Ivanka took five minutes to finish voting for the categories unrelated to Return of the King. Duke sealed the ballot in an envelope and handed it to Emma the housekeeper, asking her to mail it out promptly. With that, his Oscar voting journey came to an end.

As the Oscar Awards Ceremony approached, more and more Academy members finished casting their votes.

Howard Rodman was the vice president of the Writers Guild, holding significant influence within an organization that championed the rights of Hollywood screenwriters. Sitting with a few friends, he spoke openly about his voting choices.

"I'll only vote in categories where I've seen all the relevant films," he said.

As a busy man, the films he could spare the time to watch carefully were usually the most impactful of the year. Not to mention, that particular film had done all the right PR work targeting him.

"I'm giving my vote to Return of the King."

His ballot had already been mailed out. But after work that evening, many of Howard Rodman's friends and subordinates also cast their votes for Return of the King.

Tony Angelotti was a public relations expert who had supervised and directed promotional campaigns for over 250 films. He had been an Academy member since 1975.

"Dad, how do you decide who to vote for?" his son, Little Tony, asked curiously in the study.

Facing his young son's question, Tony Angelotti couldn't help but laugh. "Sweetheart, watching all the nominated movies is a very time-consuming task. For some categories, like Visual Effects, there used to be only three nominees, but now they've bumped it up to five. Because of that, watching all the films is getting harder and harder."

"So..." He raised his left hand to cover his eyes and held a pen in his right, hovering it about a foot above the ballot. "This is how I choose."

With that, he released his grip. The pen dropped onto the ballot paper, leaving a black dot on the name of one of the films.

Tony Angelotti uncovered his eyes, picked up the pen, and voted for that film in the category.

"Dad, do it again!" Little Tony cheered excitedly.

And so, Tony Angelotti covered his eyes once more...

Peter Bart was a contributing editor for Variety magazine. After a long day of work, he returned home and was reminded by his wife that the Oscar voting deadline was fast approaching.

Entering his study, Peter Bart brought out the envelope mailed by the Academy and pulled out the ballot. His wife followed him in, standing beside him to look over the names of the nominated films and individuals.

"Darling, you haven't even seen these movies," she said.

Hearing his wife's words, Peter Bart shook his head dismissively. "I read the reviews, and I talk with other people. So even if I haven't watched everything, I know what choice to make."

When it came to the scale and influence of reviews, no film could compare to Return of the King. Furthermore, everyone around Peter Bart was talking about it. Almost all the news reaching his ears centered on this movie, so he chose Return of the King without a moment's hesitation.

February 25 was the Academy's voting deadline. Even though the final results wouldn't be revealed until the ceremony on the 29th, Penny Kalis—the PR expert representing Duke—was highly confident.

"Based on the feedback we've received," she said, maintaining her composure, "Duke, your chances of winning are close to eighty percent. Return of the King is guaranteed seven to nine awards."

Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, Duke pulled his gaze back from the ocean. "That's pretty good already."

No one could guarantee a 100% chance of winning. For Return of the King to achieve what he envisioned, it required not only all sorts of groundwork, but also a little bit of luck.

Luck was something intangible and invisible, but when all the necessary work was done, it was sometimes crucial.

For example, some voters had a habit of voting blindly. More often than not, they weren't even sure where their votes would land.

"How are your preparations coming along?" she asked.

As her final client before retirement, Duke had brought Penny Kalis enormous profits, and in return, she devoted all her energy to him. She was now exclusively serving Duke.

Ivanka took over the conversation. "The gowns are ready. We're just waiting for the awards ceremony to start."

Penny Kalis nodded and asked Duke, "And the acceptance speech I prepared for you?"

"Don't worry, Penny." Duke pointed a finger at his forehead. "It's securely memorized right in here."

Although he wasn't an outstanding actor, it wouldn't be too hard to deliver a vivid, emotional performance upon winning, exactly according to his publicist's plan.

On the Oscar stage, one could always see winners giving excited or tearful acceptance speeches. But over eighty percent of these were simply performances. Receiving a major award was genuinely thrilling, of course, but as for the actors' exaggerated expressions, gestures, and words—perhaps only they knew how much time they had spent practicing in private.

On an Oscar stage watched by all of America and the entire world, what one said and did couldn't be left to chance. Acceptance speeches were never written by the winners themselves. A seemingly ordinary speech had to be drafted and reviewed by their PR teams and agents beforehand.

Many stars were erratic and prone to speaking without a filter. If they said the wrong thing at the Academy Awards, it could even impact their future careers.

For instance, expressing their views on sensitive topics like war and homosexuality...

Duke's acceptance speeches had been written by him, Penny Kalis, and Nancy Josephson. They covered everything from individual awards to group categories, meticulously planned down to what to say at which exact moment for each specific award.

Public relations had always been a profound discipline, and in a way, acceptance speeches were just another form of PR.

In short, Duke was ready. All that was left was to wait for the curtain to rise on the 76th Academy Awards.