I had my speech ready. I was going to thank my husband, my amazing parents… then someone else’s name was read out: LESLEY PATERSON on what it’s like to come so close to Oscar glory… but just miss out
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As an athlete, I know you are always ravenous after a race. It’s nothing compared with how hungry you feel after an Oscars ceremony, when you’ve been so busy getting into the damn dress that you haven’t thought about food.
To be honest, I was too nervous to eat anyway. How ironic that it was the sportswoman in the room whose body nearly failed her.
My knees went when I was waiting for the announcement about whether I was going to achieve my great dream of being an Oscar winner.
I thought I was going to throw up in the seat – all over my beautiful designer dress! I was thinking, ‘OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD’.
Maybe I’d made a mistake with all the positive thinking and believing my own narrative, because I genuinely thought I was going to win. My worry was about whether my legs would carry me to the stage.
Lesley Paterson arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles
Then I heard someone else’s name read out. Oh the shock! The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay was awarded to Sarah Polley for Women Talking – not to me for All Quiet On The Western Front.
Sarah is an idol of mine, and of course later I congratulated her, but I don’t mind admitting that I was gutted. I am gutted.
I’m finding it hard to process the loss, which is another irony because as an athlete, you have to learn to lose before you can learn to win.
The problem for me is that when I lose a race, I have a system for dealing with it. I analyse what went wrong, what I could have done differently. There’s always a physical release too, which was missing here. There was no outlet for my disappointment.
So how was my Oscars experience? Surreal is really the only word. One of my stand-out memories of the night is of walking into the ladies’ toilets and seeing all these A-listers applying their lippy. The Irish actress Jessie Buckley – a total heroine of mine – was there.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge could not have been nicer. Outside, Cate Blanchett gave me a big hug. Just 16 years previously I’d waited tables at this very event, determined that one day I would return as a nominee.
The film I’d fought for 16 years to get made, All Quiet On The Western Front, had been tipped for great things – and much of the evening was a triumph for us. All Quiet was up for nine Oscars and won four – the most that any Netflix film has ever won.
You would not believe how much jumping around and screaming there was from the Netflix team. But while I was delighted, I was also disappointed to not have my own Oscar.
Canadian director Sarah Polley holds the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking as she attends the Vanity Fair 95th Oscars Party
My own woes were, however, put into context by the lovely Martin McDonagh, writer and director of The Banshees of Inisherin. Banshees had also been nominated for nine awards, but didn’t win any. ‘Try being us,’ he said, as we commiserated.
Did I enjoy it? Hand on heart, I found it an escapade. It’s quite a machine, very orchestrated. There is a lot of hanging around. You arrive with your glad rags on – but there is nowhere to go. You get out of the car and wait for an hour and a half to get on the carpet.
Then there is another two-hour wait in a crowded room before you can get to your seat. It is weird to say it was not that enjoyable an experience, but I know that had I won, I would be telling a very different story.
And there were highlights. There were so many inspirational stories of achievement – and a real sense of female empowerment in the room.
All Quiet on the Western Front, pictured
Then there was the Vanity Fair after-party, which was bananas. The way it works is that every winner gets to take a car load of people in. Because All Quiet had four winners, we took four cars – and you should have seen us squeezing as many people in as we could.
I had my speech all prepared. I was going to thank my husband and my amazing parents – who taught me that a wee girl from Stirling could do whatever she wanted in life, if she tried hard enough.
Luckily, my husband Simon was there with me, squeezing my hand. He has been on this journey with me, so he understood. As a sports psychologist, he also understood the complicated emotions going on – all this drive and focus that suddenly had nowhere to go!
He gave me a pep talk: ‘I know you are disappointed, but let’s celebrate being here. Then we can regroup and come back next time – and win.’
We even chatted with Sarah Polley about giving directing a go – so maybe Best Director next time? Why not? Tomorrow, the hard work begins. Again.
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