SPAIN'S answer to the Oscars, gracing the red carpet at the Goya Awards is every performer's, writer's or director's ultimate goal this side of the pond. Although the weirdest cinema success experience would have to be that of winning a coveted statuette and having to watch your name read out on telly.
Last year's Best Actor Antonio Banderas presents the 2021 ceremony and his long-term colleagues Penélope Cruz and Pedro Almodóvar give out awards (photo from official Goya Awards website)
That's exactly what happened last night (Saturday, March 6). After all, the 2020 Goyas took place barely a week and a half before the first lockdown, when health bosses in Spain were urging the public not to panic unduly and ruling out mass contagion.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at least the pandemic did not stop the ceremony altogether – it simply meant that only the presenters, those actually giving out the prizes, and those singing on stage would be at the usual venue in Madrid, and everyone else, even the winners, joined in via Zoom.
In a bid to make it an extra-special evening rather than the let-down it was threatening to be, the organisers went all out with the cast list – starting with one of the two presenters being none other than last year's Best Actor winner Antonio Banderas, who was joined at the mic by María Casado; continuing with prizes being given out by last year's Best Director, Best Original Script and Best Film winner, silver-screen household name Pedro Almodóvar, and by the 2020 nominee for Best Lead Actress Penélope Cruz; and finishing with personal hellos and waves from half of Hollywood to the hopefuls and their friends and family watching with them.
'Half of Hollywood' is only a slight exaggeration: Zoom greetings filling this year's ceremony came from Helen Mirren, Emma Thompson, Charlize Theron, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Salma Hayek, Sylvester Stallone, Benicio del Toro, Isabelle Huppert, Monica Bellucci, Ricardo Darín and Laura Dern.
And along with Almodóvar and the most world-famous of his veteran players, other prizegivers were some of Spain's most famous screen stars: Paz Vega, Belén Cuesta, Najwa Nimri, Hiba Abouk, Maggie Civantos, Natalia Verbeke, Leonardo Sbaraglia, and The Others director Alejandro Amenábar, to name just the best-known 50% of them.
Pop sensation Aitana provided some of the music, and so did Princess of Asturias Award-winning Hollywood soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, albeit posthumously in his case.
Also posthumously, TV actor Quique San Francisco was present in spirit, with tributes given to him following his recent death from pneumonia at the age of 65.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com