Posted February 23, 2015 The energetic performance of Best Original Song nominee "Everything Is Awesome!!" from "The LEGO Movie" at last night's Academy Awards was one of the highlights of the show, and the distribution of LEGO-crafted Oscars during the segment was a creative, whimsical touch. Now, the man who created the statuettes has explained how he got involved in making them, and how much he loves their warm reception from Hollywood's A-list. Nathan Sawaya, an artist known for his work with LEGOs (he's recreated classic pieces including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo using only the toy blocks), had crafted an earlier version of the statuette seen on Sunday night, an image that quickly went viral when "LEGO Movie" co-director Philip Lord tweeted it out after being snubbed in the Best Animated Feature category. But when filmmakers found out that "Awesome" was a nominee, Sawaya said they had some more fun up their sleeves. "The team behind 'The Lego Movie' approached me.
They wanted to do something extra special for the Academy Award performance of best song nominee 'Everything is Awesome,'" Sawaya said in an interview with Crave. "They had seen my earlier version of a Lego Oscar statue, and I was happy to take on the challenge." Sawaya built 20 statuettes made up of 500 LEGO pieces each -- glued together for structural integrity -- and they were featured prominently in Sunday's performance, used as props by dancers on stage before being distributed to people in the crowd. Among them were Emma Stone, Steve Carell, and Channing Tatum, though Sawaya tweeted that he was especially tickled by Oprah's over-the-top reaction to receiving the statuette. I loved @Oprah's face with my #LEGO Oscar! - Nathan Sawaya (@NathanSawaya) February 23, 2015 Stone continued to carry hers around for the rest of the night, while Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, and Clint Eastwood had fun posing with the trophies they snagged, too, as seen in this image tweeted by "LEGO" co-director Chris Miller.
I mean come on. - Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) February 23, 2015 All in all, while "The LEGO Movie" didn't receive the award -- or nomination -- it deserved, we're glad to see that everyone involved with the production were good sports, and made the best out of a not-so-awesome situation. And kudos to Sawaya's creativity for inspiring the now-classic bit. [via: Crave, Vanity Fair, h/t Mental Floss]Photo credit: AFP/Getty ImagesMovies, AwardsOscar Losers Receive the Next Best Thing, a LEGO Award! This year at the Oscars, everyone was a winner. As a consolation prize for those nominees who didn't win an Academy Award on Sunday, they were given LEGO Oscar statues which went over surprisingly well. Even American Sniper guys Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood seemed excited to pose with their toy awards alongside fellow nominee Meryl Streep. PHOTOS: Must-See Star Shots from the Oscars! Birdman actress Emma Stone and The Theory of Everything star Felicity Jones also kept their LEGO statuettes close by, and were more than open to posing with the next-best-thing to a real Oscar.
But it was Oprah Winfrey that seemed most thrilled with her gift. Cameras caught the Selma star's awestruck face when she was handed out the award during the performance of The LEGO Movie's song "Everything Is Awesome." VIDEO: The Best, Worst and Weirdest Oscar Moments Check out the awesome performance, below!The 2015 Oscars clocked in at just about three hours and 49 minutes, and before, during and after the programme, viewers turned to social media to comment on the action. Below, some of the night's most talked about moments. It's long been said that "a bad dress leads to years of bad press," and one of the most common questions that female nominees are asked by the Oscar press is "who are you wearing?" - a reference to the designer behind their red-carpet look. Other questions regularly revolve around cosmetics, beauty, and dieting. Earlier this month, a Buzzfeed post showed how celebrities responded to questions like "how do you balance career and personal life" and "what are you looking for in a man?"
But many say that line of questioning is too shallow, and tonight they used the hashtag #AskHerMore to send suggested questions to red carpet reporters. Rebecca Schinsky, Director of Content at BookRiot, tweets "My kingdom for a red carpet 'What are you reading?'"The hashtag is the work of a campaign started last year by The Representation Project, a group devoted to ending gender stereotyping in film. Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, an online community founded by the comedian to encourage discussion among young women, has pushed the hashtag forward in the run up to this year's Oscars. Reese Witherspoon, who has been nominated for Best Actress for her role in Wild, helped to elevate the trend when she posted a photo featuring a montage of several suggested questions on Instagram."This is a movement that says we are more than our dresses," she said on the red carpet. Oprah Winfrey had hoped to pick up an Oscar for the film Selma, which she produced. Ultimately, her film lost to Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, but she got to go home with one of the night's most coveted prizes - a statuette made of Lego.
The toys were distributed during a performance of "Everything is Awesome" from The Lego Movie, which was nominated for best song. A still of Ms Winfrey grasping her yellow brick Oscar, feigning surprise as if she had won the real thing, made the rounds online after the performance. "Lego Oscar" was trending in the US. The man behind the Lego Oscars, however, was not faking anything when tweeted, "So honored that I was asked to make the #LEGO #Oscars, and this is the cherry on top."Nathan Sawaya, an artist who works with the plastic toy bricks, has been tweeting his reaction and even included a video showing the little yellow statues' creation.Emma Stone was pictured with a Lego Oscar when her name was announced as a Best Supporting Actress nominee for her role in Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). She lost out to Patricia Arquette, who took home the award for her work as the mother in Boyhood. Still, as comedian Shalyah Evans wrote, Stone "has a Lego Oscar, which I honestly would prefer."