Star-Studded Academy Museum Gala With Paul Mescal, Ariana Grande Raises Over $11M

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures hosted its annual gala on Saturday evening to celebrate Paul Mescal, Rita Moreno, and Quentin Tarantino while raising more than $11 million for exhibitions, education, and public events for the L.A. museum that opened in 2021.

And tonight’s fourth annual gala which is one of Hollywood’s most glamorous nights again gathered heaps of stars in its support The gala was co-chaired by Dr. Eric Esrailian, Salma Hayek Pinault, Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria and Tyler Perry. The night’s guest list ranged from Hollywood icons — Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meg Ryan, Joaquin Phoenix and Julia Louis-Dreyfus — to relative newcomers, including Anora‘s Mikey Madison, Queer‘s Drew Starkey, Babygirl‘s Harris Dickinson, recent Emmy winner Anna Sawai and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story actors are Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez.

More performances were with celebrities who could be nominated for this year’s Oscars, including the leads of the Wicked musical, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Jon M. Chu; Emilia Pérez with Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, and Édgar Ramírez; director of Dune 2 – Denis Villeneuve; Sebastian Stan from The Apprentice,

At the gala, Mescal accepted the Vantage Award, which celebrates a rising artist whose work complicates the prevailing discourse on cinema; on Saturday, it was handed to him by Saoirse Ronan, his co-star in Foe.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet, the star of the Gladiator II film added, “It is a huge, huge honor. When the offer came in frankly I was half hesitant as I didn’t quite understand the premise of it, the fact that it is about two individuals who are just starting their careers and are still figuring out what their careers mean to them. It was more logical and I think I just really needed to be able to share some of what this job and this industry means to me.”

Spielberg was present to do the honours of presenting the Icon Award, to Moreno, presented for an artist whose work has greatly influenced world culture, and joins the EGOT winner’s collection. The third, more personal award, the Luminary Award, an artist Tarantino brought to the festival expanding the creative definition of cinema, was handed to him by John Travolta.

While accepting the honor, Tarantino said he would be contributing the first penned copy of the script of Pulp Fiction.

During the final show, Grande rolled out a platform to join Erivo who sung some of her songs: “I’m Here” from The Color Purple, Home from The Wiz, Somewhere Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, and ended with Purple Rain. The event was co-hosted by Rolex, Academy Museum’s founding sponsor and the official watch maker of the Academy Museum.