National Board of Review Awards gala celebrates ‘Wicked’ on eve of Oscars voting

Wicked was popular with the National Board of Review on Tuesday as the venerable group celebrated its top 2025 winner and its director, Jon M. Chu, and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande during its annual gala dinner.

In December, the blockbuster Universal musical won Best Film from the National Board of Review, Best Director for Chu, and a special collaboration prize for Erivo and Grande. Other notable NBR winners included Nicole Kidman (Best Actress for Babygirl), Daniel Craig (Best Actor for Queer), Elle Fanning (Best Supporting Actress for A Complete Unknown), Kieran Culkin (Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain), Mikey Madison (Breakthrough Performer for Anora), and the cast of Conclave (an ensemble prize awarded to Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini). 

Several other notable Oscar contenders were in attendance on Tuesday night, one day before voting for the 97th annual Academy Awards nominations began. Hard Truths star and Best Actress hopeful Marianne Jean-Baptiste awarded Mike Leigh with the Best Screenplay prize for their latest collaboration, Best Song contender Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mufasa: The Lion King) presented Chu with his Best Director honor, and Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay aspirant Jesse Eisenberg feted Culkin, his A Real Pain co-star, with one of the night’s best speeches. 

“If he were up here, he’d tell me to ‘shut the f–k up,’” Eisenberg said, providing energy to the otherwise austere proceedings. “Because we’ve been doing these question-and-answer things, and people ask me, ‘What’s it like to work with Kieran?’ And he’s standing there next to me, and I want to tell them it was the best experience of my life. He’s a genius, he can do 17,000 things in the time another actor can do one. And he just keeps saying, ‘Shut the f–k up, shut the f–k up.’ Because he doesn’t like praise. Which is ironic because he’s received more praise than anybody I’ve ever known and deserves it all.”

Culkin, who followed Eisenberg with his own hilarious speech riffing on how bathroom attendants are problematic, and Fanning, whose enthusiasm for her win was matched by her heartfelt tribute to presenter Sofia Coppola, gave standout winner speeches on Tuesday. But Team Wicked pushed the right message to potential voters before balloting opened. Wicked co-star and former NBR Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh presented Erivo and Grande with the NBR Spotlight Award for “creative collaboration,” Yeoh used her time on stage to praise the two actresses and Chu’s filmmaking prowess. 

“He’s a director with the kind of vision and belief that makes you think anything is possible,” Yeoh said of the filmmaker, who remains outside the Best Director race according to the Gold Derby odds. “From the moment I stepped onto the set, it was clear it wasn’t just a film. It was a labor of love done with extraordinary vision.”

Later, while presenting producer Marc Platt with the Best Picture prize, Deadpool & Wolverine star Ryan Reynolds also made a point to underscore Chu’s work. “If you ask me, the world we live in right now is the world that needed this film and this vision most,” Reynolds said. “So much of that vision, work ethic, and integrity is you, Mr. Jon M. Chu. You can feel the moral compass in the DNA of your work. You can feel it in the promotion – the man missed the premiere of his own film so he could attend the birth of his fifth child. I barely made it to the conception of my own children.”

The Wicked crew weren’t the only ones on message at the gala dinner. During their acceptance speech for the ensemble prize, Rossellini, Lithgow, and Fiennes all credited Conclave director Edward Berger. At the same time, Lithgow pointed out that Fiennes appeared in every scene in the film and served as the production’s onscreen leader. Fanning told a charming anecdote about being so excited to meet Bob Dylan on the first day of rehearsal for A Complete Unknown only to later realize the “Bob” on the call sheet was Timothee Chalamet, who was so immersed in the performance. “But really the truth is, by the end of the movie, ‘Bob’ had completely transformed and delivered a performance, and Jim [Mangold, the director], a film that brought me right back to that teenage time in my life discovering Dylan’s music for the first time, and it was really an honor of my life to be a part of this movie.”

Then there was Madison, one of four Best Actress contenders to appear during the dinner alongside Kidman, Jean-Baptiste, and Erivo. The Anora star was an early honoree for her breakthrough performance in Sean Baker’s film and read prepared remarks that focused on the strength she has found within the acting community. “One of the many things that initially drew me to acting was the desire for community, and it has truly been an overwhelmingly beautiful experience to be welcomed into this community in such a big way,” Madison said. It was a remark several speakers kept returning to as the night went on, including Carol Kane, and perhaps real-time proof that sometimes a good speech can stick in voters’ minds. Fortunately, several NBR gala attendees, including Culkin, Cane, and Jean-Baptiste, will have the chance to do it again on Wednesday night when the New York Film Critics Circle holds its annual dinner.