On her way to present the Oscar for Best Visual Effects on Sunday night, Elizabeth Banks nearly tripped over her dress. In addition, someone dressed in a bear suit followed the director onstage, in reference to Banks’ most recent film, Cocaine Bear.
Banks began by explaining the importance of visual effects, noting that without them, the bear in her movie would look just like the person wearing the bear suit.
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The bear pointed at the audience and patted his nose, in an attempt to score cocaine, to which Banks joked, “You need to wait for the afterparty like everybody else.”
The bit continued with the bear miming each nominated film.
Banks ran into some trouble with her voice cracking throughout the presentation, but she was able to announce the winner in the end, Avatar: The Way of Water. The film beat All Quiet on the Western Front, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick to the award.
Cocaine Bear was released on February 24 and is based on a true story where a bear fatally overdosed on cocaine in 1985. However, the film takes a few creative liberties. In the movie, the bear goes on a killing rampage, but in real life, the bear was not known to have killed anyone after consuming the drugs.
