What’s it really like reporting on awards season? All-consuming and exhausting

The Golden Globes are behind us, but more long nights of liveblogging and video-clipping await

Joaquin Phoenix was concerned for journalists backstage at the Golden Globes on Sunday night, where he won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for his lead role in Joker.

He was apparently “tricked” into entering the press room under the false impression he was just appearing for more photographs, but became infuriated when it turned out he was being interviewed again. But he still asked if everybody was OK.

“Is it all right or is it awful? Do they bring you food? Do they have drinks?” he asked, before adding: “There’s more space in here than there was out there.”

It’s nice of Phoenix to be so concerned for journalists at this time of year, as the awards season builds to fever pitch leading up to the Oscars next month. So what’s it like for us?

As the Golden Globes got underway at the Beverley Hilton in LA on Sunday night, our culture reporters, both in the UK and in the US, were churning out news stories throughout the night – as well as liveblogging the event, of course.

Apart from announcing the category winners, their typing fingers were at the ready during the many political acceptance speeches.

Whether it was Michelle Williams who championed a women’s right to choose while accepting an award for her role in Fosse/Verdon, Patricia Arquette criticising Donald Trump’s policy on Iran as she won Best Actress in a Limited Series for her role in The Act or Phoenix calling out actors for taking too many private jets, the most interesting snippets of the night needed to be published in minutes, along with their accompanying video clips.

Another top priority was getting out the round-up of host Ricky Gervais’s jokes sending up Hollywood figures as soon as possible.

And now, after months of predicting who will win a Golden Globe, we’re left guessing what this means for the Oscars. The Bafta nominations came out this week too; they were criticised for failing to pick a single non-white actor and no female directors in a year when there were so many films to choose from. Even the head of Bafta admitted it was an error on their part.

There’s a special intensity to the awards show season, which can throw up all kinds of jaw-dropping moments: remember the 2017 Oscars, where the wrong Best Picture winner was announced. It’s a full-on time of year, and everyone is developing awards season fatigue.

That includes Joaquin Phoenix. Asked by a journalist backstage at the Golden Globes how he prepared for the role of Arthur Fleck in Joker, he reluctantly replied:

“I feel like I’ve talked about this for six months. I feel like I’ve answered these questions. You want to hear a different version of it? I can try and change it slightly, or what should I do?”

It sounds like he needs a break from the merry-go-round – just like the rest of us.

Yours,

Charlotte Cripps

Arts writer