‘My fun night at the Oscars’ – Cartoon Saloon director insists she doesn’t mind not winning
THE talented writer and director behind Kilkenny-based animation studio Cartoon Saloon’s latest Oscar-nominated film has revealed how her big day on the red carpet turned out to be a lot of fun, despite her initial nerves.
In a two-page interview in the Culture section of The Sunday Times, Louise Bagnall tells how she went to LA for a week of events in early February before returning for the actual ceremony.
She recalls: “When you’re standing on the red carpet and you’ve done all your photographs, you’re just standing around and you’re like, ‘Jesus, this is great. Here I am, there’s [actress] Michelle Yeoh – that’s really cool.’ Nobody was particularly looking at us but we were able to be there and enjoy it. There’s a lot of buzz, a lot of excitement.”
And despite not bringing home a coveted golden statuette to Kilkenny for her multi-award winning short film Late Afternoon, Louise (picture above with producer Nuria Blanco) insists she’s not all that bothered about not winning.
“It’s a cliché that being nominated feels like a win, but it really did. I mean, I went to the Oscars.”
Louise, who is originally from Dublin but now lives in Kilkenny, also revealed she is currently working as assistant director to Nora Twomey, who was presented with the President’s Award at last year’s Kilkenny Business Awards, on her new feature film, My Father’s Dragon. And she said she’s now starting to develop her very own feature project.
Louise said it’s still too early to see how her Oscar nomination will boost her career, but she admits it can’t hurt.
She told the newspaper: “We’ve a whole team of people who can now say they worked on a Oscar-nominated short. It’s a win either way.”
