At the 96th Oscars, in which Oppenheimer won the main awards with Poor Creatures, there was a very special guest who stole the show despite not winning any awards. Messi, the border collie who appears in Anatomy of a Fall, was one of the clear stars of the night, having appeared at the Dolby Theater by surprise.
In addition to his unexpected presence, during a moment of the broadcast that has gone viral, cameras captured Messi applauding Robert Downey Jr. after his victory as Best Supporting Actor for Oppenheimer, which caused a wave of comments and reactions in social networks. However, everything would have been a trick on the part of the Academy. Not only the applause, something that was more or less clear, but the presence of Messi.
In this sense, according to information from The Hollywood Reporter and other media outlets, Messi’s participation in the Oscars was not exactly what it seemed to be. According to journalist Chris Gardner, Messi finally stayed in France and was not at the Oscar gala, which was what was planned from the beginning.
So what happens to the dog they constantly focused on? If the information is true, during the ceremony images of a very similar dog were released that was in charge of replacing the real Messi. Furthermore, as can be seen in a video that has gone viral on social networks, the animal would have recorded the scenes before the ceremony began.
The animal appears sitting in one of the seats in the Dolby Theater, which is completely empty except for the seats that, due to the camera shot, were going to appear when the canine was focused. Then, during the broadcast, the images would have been broadcast at the appropriate times so that everything looked natural.
Precisely, in the video it is clear that the dog did not applaud Downey Jr. at any time – something unnatural due to the anatomy of his paws -. What really happened is that during the recordings there was a man under the dog’s seat waving fake paws.
This decision was intended to avoid unnecessary stress for Messi or his substitute during a gala full of noise, intense lights and a large number of people who, without a doubt, would have wanted to come and greet him. Additionally, filming these scenes in advance allowed the ceremony producers to have complete control in nailing the moment of applause.
