Rolex describes the green room that it creates at the Oscars ceremony every year as a “convivial space where nominees and presenters gather before and after stepping onto the stage”.
It sure would have been an interesting place to be a fly on the wall if present Chris Rock and Best Male Actor Oscar winner Will Smith carried over their on-stage fight after the ceremony.
Rolex creates the green room every year as part of its wider partnership with the Oscars that includes sponsoring the Governor’s Ball and the main ceremony.
Rarely without controversy, this year’s event leapt to the top of news bulletins after Will Smith reacted with fury to a joke about his wife by the comedian Chris Rock; marching on stage and lamping him.
“By hosting nominees in the Greenroom, Rolex partakes in the intensely emotional moments which some of cinema’s greatest artists experience, before and after the Oscars ceremony,” Rolex says.
Ultimately, controversy will be good for sponsors, which have been generating dwindling returns in recent years, particularly during the pandemic when virtual ceremonies flopped as a spectacle.
Rolex sees past these types of short term wrinkles to the bigger picture and its long term commitment to support creative industries like film making.
The inspiration for this year’s Rolex green room comes from Hollywood and its major studios.
Decorative wall panels in an Art Deco style arrange elements from Rolex watches into mosaics to reproduce the skyline of cinema’s home, Los Angeles.
This ode to watchmaking takes the form of decorative elements symbolizing recognizable landmarks from the film world – Hollywood, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – and adorning them with some of Rolex’s most distinguishable features and visual signatures: indexes, hands, fluted bezels.
“The meticulous care that goes into the making of a Rolex watch, the attention we pay to the tiniest detail and our constant pursuit of excellence are all present in the Greenroom. They mirror the subtlety, the precision and the magic of film,” comments Arnaud Boetsch, Communication & Image Director at Rolex.
