Once an A-lister has bagged their Oscar (or plural, in the case of this year’s runaway movie success Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer), you would be forgiven for assuming they slip into the obscurity of the night. Maybe knock back a few celebratory glasses of fizz at the after party, even.
What you might not anticipate is the reality that they have to wait at an engraving bar (no, sadly not the kind that serves anything bubbly or alcoholic) in order for their Oscar to be engraved with their name. Yes, really. So we did a touch of sleuthing to figure out exactly what the deal is with the Academy Awards engraving bar.
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Has The Oscars Always Had An Engraving Bar?
Historically, winners would have to return to the Academy at a later date to have their award personalised, but in 2010 statue manufacturer R.S. Owens decided to change things up.
‘An Oscar statuette just isn’t complete until a nameplate is attached,’ former Academy president Tom Sherak told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, shortly after the engraving bar was introduced to the ceremony.
How Does The Engraving Bar Work?
Okay, this is where it gets interesting. The engraving bar doesn’t exactly engrave the statues there and then, but rather it attaches a nameplate to the award as soon as the recipient is announced.
Since Academy Awards winners are typically pulled this way and that their big wins, an Oscar engraver (yes, that really is a job) revealed a few years ago that nameplates are made for all nominees to speed up the process of affixing it to the award.
Why Aren't the Awards Engraved Beforehand?
The results of the Academy Awards are stored safely under lock and key, after audit and accounting firm PwC tallies the ballots and has two representatives bring the prized envelopes in a briefcase and an entourage of police protection. That’s not all — there are only two copies of the envelopes, so PwC’s representatives have to memorise the results. After taking so many measures to conceal the results until the live broadcast of the Oscars, a pre-engraved award would be like a spoiler to the award season finale. And really, where’s the fun in that?
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Naomi May is a freelance writer and editor with an emphasis on popular culture, lifestyle and politics. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard as its Fashion and Beauty Writer, working across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Acting News Editor at ELLE UK and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others.
