Oscar fever: The nominees react

“I slept in, because, you know, I was tired. And there’s not much buzz in categories like mine. And no one called me and woke me up, because I spend my days alone in darkened rooms hunched over reams of little pieces of film trying to put them together in some comprehensible order, so I don’t really have that many friends. So, about midday, I went over to the Oscar website and noticed that I was nominated, and then I went back to what I was working on. Oh, and it’s a real honor.”

-- Juliette Welfing, nominee for Achievement in Film Editing, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

“Well, it was a challenging assignment, because we were in this big room filled with old car parts and hammers and stuff, and we had to smash them together at random and shout out ‘Ka-Pow! Ka-Pow!’ and ‘Bwoooosh!’ and ‘Shpeeee-oooooo! P-Tang!’ all day. So it’s nice to see all that effort geting recognized.”

-- Ethan Van der Ryn, nominee for Achievement in Sound Editing, “Transformers”

“I would say that it’s an honor just being nominated up against these other four supremely talented individuals. I would say that, but I can’t, because I’ve never heard of any of them except Colleen Atwood – doesn’t she pretty much win every year? And I’d say it’s really quite unexpected and lovely, except that’s not quite the case, either – you work on one of these big costume epics and you’re pretty much a lock for a nomination.”

-- Alexandra Byrne, nominee for Achievement in Costume Design, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

“To be honest, I worked on that so long ago I don’t really remember anything about it. But I must confess, I’m ashamed of being the person responsible for the phrase ‘the Oscar-nominated film “Norbit.”’”

-- Rick Baker, nominee for Achievement in Makeup, “Norbit”