Mank Oscar-winner pays tribute to her wife in touching acceptance speech
Jan Pascale accepted the Production Design award for ‘Mank’ onstage during the 93rd Annual Academy Awards at Union Station in Los Angeles, California. (Getty)
Mank set designer Jan Pascale used her Oscar acceptance speech to pay tribute to her wife, as well as her team and mentors.
Pascale won the Best Production Design award at Sunday night’s (25 April) Oscars for her work on Mank.
In her acceptance speech, she told the audience: “I’m so grateful to all of [my team], and especially to my wife Louise who inspires me every day.”
The Oscar-winner also paid tribute to her Mank production team: “It’s such an honour to work with such an amazing group of people.
“Thank you to my crew who worked their tails off on this, just to make it right.
“And you know, when I was young, I never realised that this was a career that was even a possibility. There was so many people that helped me along the way and guided me.”
"There were so many people that helped me along the way and guided me…and especially to my wife, Louise, who inspires me every day."
Jan Pascale accepts @TheAcademy Award for Best Production Design for "Mank."#Oscarshttps://t.co/ScDUrk0xaG pic.twitter.com/fR7mg012NX
— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 26, 2021
Jan Pascale was previously nominated for an Oscar in the Best Art Direction category for Good Night, and Good Luck starring George Clooney in 2005.
She shared the award with Donald Graham Burt, who worked with her on the film’s production design. Burt previously won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction in 2009 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
While Mank marks Pascale’s first Oscar win, she has also won an Emmy award for her work on the TV show Boston Public in 2001.
She has been working in set design and decoration since 1981, including blockbusters Velvet Buzzsaw, Horrible Bosses, Anchorman and Why Him?
Mank also won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and was nominated for 10 awards in total, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Original Score.
The black-and-white film is about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, following his journey to write the screenlay for Citizen Kane.
The screenplay was originally written by Jack Fincher in the 1990s, and planned to film towards the end of the decade with Kevin Spacey and Jodie Foster playing the leads.
The original project was scrapped and Jack Fincher died in 2003, leading his son David Fincher to revive the project in 2019. David Fincher was nominated for the Best Director award, his third nomination in this category.
Mank is available to stream now on Netflix, alongside a number of the other nominated and winning films.
There weren’t many LGBT+ nominees or winners this year, but this was among a few moments of queer joy during the event.
