‘In the Loop’ screenwriter’s brush with Oscar

“Hi, Mom, I’ve been nominated for an Oscar.” It’s the dream call from any son or daughter. And swiftly comes back the dream reply. “Congratulations. I’ve got someone in fixing my boiler, so I’m going to have to go.” That’s how my Oscar experience started. There’s a special training school mothers go to to learn the exact length and density of the deflating remark. To be fair to my mom, she rang me back later completely thrilled: I guess she just didn’t feel up to being thrilled while there was a strange man in the house.

I was calling her from a wet London at lunchtime. That’s when I’d got the news. We’d been warned that there was a tiny but definite chance “In the Loop” would get an adapted screenplay nomination, but I hadn’t wanted to court disappointment by sitting next to a laptop refreshing the page in the hopes my name would come up. So there I was standing in the rain. Tony Roche, one of my fellow writers on the screenplay, came home to a set of congratulatory messages on his voicemail. He had to ring one of them back: “Congratulations for what?” Bless him; he had no idea it was nomination day.

It didn’t feel like Hollywood. I was soaked in rain, not lying by a swimming pool receiving congratulatory baskets of facial creams. The next few days were a blend of excitement tempered by reminders that all of this was, of course, not true. People would be thrilled when I told them the news but then ask, “Do you get to go to the ceremony?” as if I’d been nominated for a special pretend Oscar, given out in a quiet, dark event on the outskirts of L.A. to people of no discernible merit.

And so we headed off for L.A., all of us excited but also bemused by the sheer absurdity of finding ourselves in a position clearly reserved for others. Driving through Beverly Hills I explained to the others the tense feeling I get in my stomach as I pass through. It’s nothing to do with the location and everything to do with a bad experience I had there three years ago, while being “involved” in the making of a U.S. version of my BBC comedy “The Thick of It.” I spent two weeks holed up in a delightful Beverly Hills hotel, while numerous corporate vice presidents threw money and people at the project.

I sat by a swimming pool for a long time while a few miles away a committee beast was sucking the life-blood out of the show. Finally, I put on some clothes and went home. The project died, but I put my experience of excitement blended with disappointment into “In the Loop,” a film about British politicians hopeful they can make a difference in the U.S. and finding out they hadn’t.

We went to the Oscars nominees lunch, arriving way too early. We took photos in an empty luncheon room, convinced we’d be thrown out for touching the large Oscar mock-ups on stage. I couldn’t shake off the feeling our presence was some administrative error. And then the guests arrived. Most of them, thankfully, were in the same category as us: pinching themselves that they’re in the same room as Meryl Streep and Morgan Freeman.

As a reminder, there were other things to think about; we got a message from London that one of our dogs was so pregnant, she may well start to have puppies within hours. My wife and I mingled with stars of screen and multiplex while texting back home messages about whelping baskets and bottles of sterilizer.

The lunch put us at ease: Everyone bunched up for a team photo, and in the mayhem you can find yourself next to the director of an animated short while accidentally crushing one of George Clooney’s toes. It’s an enormously leveling experience. I began to feel I could just about manage the occasion, when the producers of the Oscar ceremony itself came on and explained what would happen on the night. They told us to keep speeches short and think about what all this really means to us. For everyone, famous and obscure alike, the thought slowly dawned: I’ve been nominated for an Oscar. Now what do I do?

It’s stopped being bizarre, impossible, surreal. I’ve stopped apologizing for my presence on the nomination list, as if occupying someone else’s seat. It’s great to be here. We probably won’t win, but it was a pleasure to be asked to take the odds seriously. Back home, my son says he’s going to call one of the puppies Oscar. So I guess I’ll have one after all.

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