Oscars presenter Ansel Elgort was secretly betting against the technicians behind Guardians Of The Galaxy winning the Best Visual Effects Academy Award last month (Feb15) because he feared he would "pull a Travolta" and mispronounce their names.
The Fault In Our Stars actor helped to announce the winner of the technical prize at Hollywood's big night, but he admits he was working up a sweat fretting about who would claim the title because there was only one group of film editors' names he could actually figure out how to pronounce.
Elgort feared messing up the names would get him banned from future ceremonies and turn him into a laughing stock, like John Travolta, who infamously introduced Broadway singer/actress Idina Menzel as 'Adele Dazeem', at the awards show in 2014.
The 20 year old says, "I was actually most nervous because I had to present Best Visual Effects and the people who make visual effects are really good at their jobs, but they have really hard names to pronounce for some reason...
"I didn't know who was gonna win, obviously, and whoever wins, it's four names per winner... I looked at all the people who could've won and I said, 'Ok, I really hope Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't win' - no offence - because it's all the four names I couldn't pronounce! I didn't wanna pull a Travolta; it's my first time at the Oscars, I'll never be invited back...!"
Elgort's nerves were put at ease once he opened the golden envelope and discovered Guardians of the Galaxy's Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould had lost out to the guys behind Interstellar - Paul J. Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott R. Fisher.
He adds, "I've never been so happy that someone won an Oscar. I was like, 'Guys, your work is great and your names are even better!'"
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