Frances McDormand howled like a wolf at the 2021 Academy Awards for a poignant reason.
The actress, 63, did so after taking the stage last night (April 25) with director Chloé Zhao to accept the award for Best Picture for Nomadland.
McDormand said: "Please, watch our movie on the largest screen possible. And one day, very, very soon, take everyone you know into a theater, shoulder to shoulder, in that dark space and watch every film that is represented here tonight. We give this one to our wolf."
The actress then made the unusual decision to throw back her head and give a literal howl, no doubt to the confusion of many, but it turns out that she had a very good reason for doing so.
In an interview with Variety after the awards ceremony, Zhao explained that the actress was actually paying tribute to the movie's late production sound mixer Michael 'Wolf' Snyder, who recently died at the age of 35.
Zhao said:
"The howling is for our production designer Wolf who you saw in the In Memoriam - we, unfortunately, lost him recently, and his name is Wolf and he's the production sound mixer both on my previous film The Rider and Nomadland. He's part of the family. So, that howling to the moon is for Wolf."
Wolf's father, David, took to Facebook to write a message shared by his Aunt Cathy to explain that he died by suicide after battling depression for years.
The post read: "I'm sure it was difficult for Michael that he spent most of the last year alone in his small, Queens apartment, being responsible about dealing with the coronavirus. In spite of this, we all believed he was doing well, and for most of this past year, I think he was.
"He seemed especially joyful and invigorated in these last few months since he was able to return to work on several different film projects. He was certainly thrilled about all of the accolades for Nomadland and told us many happy stories about his work on the film and the amazing people he got to spend time with."
Wolf was nominated for best sound/effects at the CinEuphoria awards for Nomadland this year.
The film was a huge success at this year's Oscars, receiving awards for Best Actress (McDormand) and Best Director (Zhao), and Best Picture.
