The second nomination came and went (Best Sound Editing), and Slumdog Millionaire didn't take it. No big deal. The night was young.
Then Best Original Song hit, and boom: second statuette of the night.
After that? It was a full-on massacre.
Best Editing. Best Sound Mixing. Best Cinematography. One after another, the awards kept piling up so fast people could barely keep track.
Slumdog stayed out of the acting races, but in the technical categories it was unstoppable.
Finally, the moment Joy had been waiting for her whole life: Best Original Screenplay.
The nominees: Frozen River, Slumdog Millionaire, In Bruges, Milk, WALL-E.
The last two were absolute monsters in the category.
Presenter Courtney Hunt took the stage with a warm smile. "A great script is the soul of a movie. It's the captain at the helm. Without it, even the biggest ship goes nowhere."
The montage rolled (ten seconds of each film). Then Courtney opened the envelope.
"And the Oscar goes to… Slumdog Millionaire, Joy Grant!"
Zero controversy. Clean sweep.
Joy shot up, hugged everyone in her row like her life depended on it, then bolted for the stage (Oscar rules: 30 seconds or bust). Half the actresses who eat it on those stairs are because of ten-pound gowns. Joy had wisely gone short dress, no train, zero drama.
First time on that stage. A billion people watching.
Honestly? It wasn't even her best script on paper (Juno, Source Code, The Blind Side were all gorgeous), but Slumdog hit different. In this exact moment in history, it was lightning in a bottle.
She grabbed the mic, clutched the little gold man, and laughed nervously. "Uh… I need to say this real quick before I fall off the stage, because I almost ate it back there!"
The Dolby Theatre cracked up.
Classic Joy, still cracking jokes with an Oscar in her hand.
Then she got quiet, voice soft and steady.
"People always ask where I find these stories. I tell them the same thing: go dig in a cemetery. That's where the best ones are buried."
"There are dreams that never came true. Loves that got lost. Kids born with nothing who still made it to the top."
"I thank God every day He let me be a filmmaker, because it means I get to stand up and shout that being alive actually means something."
"Thank you."
The place erupted.
She kissed the statue like it was the love of her life and walked off.
Within thirty seconds her speech was all over Facebook.
Oprah posted: "Hallelujah. Thank you @JoyGrant for reminding us why we do this. Thank you God for letting us be storytellers."
Bradley Cooper: "Someone asks what it's like working with Joy Grant? I just show them the bottle where I keep my tears. That's what it's like."
USA Today headline dropped before she even sat down: "Joy Grant's speech just stole the entire Oscars. Deafening."
The night rolled on.
Best Actor and Best Actress came and went.
Then the big one: Best Director.
The Coen Brothers (yes, those Coen Brothers) were presenting.
They did their usual deadpan bit.
"If the writer's the soul and the captain, what's the director?"
"The rusty old pipe the captain's always smoking, obviously."
Whole room lost it.
They got serious (sort of), opened the envelope.
The montage played.
The Reader (Kate Winslet's tear-streaked face, fresh off her Best Actress win).
Frost/Nixon (cold, controlled, perfect).
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Blanchett and Pitt carrying the weight of time).
Slumdog Millionaire (Maggie Q, feral and magnetic, every frame dripping with perfectly timed emotion).
"And the Oscar for Best Director goes to…"
The older Coen leaned into the mic like he owned the place.
"Slumdog Millionaire, Joy Grant."
The place detonated.
Second statue of the night for Joy. Seventh overall for the film.
Every head in the building swiveled to her.
She was officially undeniable now. Two little gold men said so.
Debuted at 16. Dragged by the tabloids for seven straight years. Started the comeback at 23. And now, at 29, the youngest director ever to win the Oscar, and the first woman. Period.
The trainwreck everyone wrote off? She just pulled off the greatest comeback in Academy history.
She hugged her team again, tears everywhere, and walked back up those stairs.
The Coens handed her the statue. Joy couldn't help clocking the irony (these were the same guys who once cracked racist jokes about Asians on a hot mic). The Academy had a sense of humor after all.
She got to the podium, took a shaky breath, and tried to play it cool even though her heart was jackhammering.
She looked out at the sea of faces (some crying, some already on their feet).
"Angela Chen (the real woman Maggie played) couldn't be here tonight. So I guess I'll say a couple things for her."
Deep breath.
"When I was 7, I wanted to run away because my parents were gone and the relatives I got sent to didn't want me."
"At 13, I thought about killing myself because every time I said I wanted to direct movies, people laughed in my face. Told me Asians don't have an artistic bone in our bodies."
"At 16, I wanted to disappear because all of Hollywood only saw the color of my skin."
"And now I'm standing here."
"I'm standing here to tell every kid who's ever been told they don't belong because of how they look or who they love: keep going. Don't you dare quit."
"Because life's got stages: first you don't know shit about the world. Then the world breaks you. Then you realize the darkness is everywhere, but so is the light. You just gotta keep walking till you find it."
She smiled (huge, radiant, unbreakable).
"Thank you."
The entire theater rose.
Standing ovation. Grown millionaires sobbing. People whistling like it was a rock concert.
A flower that grew through concrete.
From ashes to full bloom.
Goodnight to the woman who just carved her name into history forever.
And the ceremony still had one award left: Best Picture.