For weeks, all eyes were on how this year’s Academy Awards would pull off a live telecast that broke with tradition. Unlike recent years, the Oscars
For weeks, all eyes were on how this year’s Academy Awards would pull off a live telecast that broke with tradition. Unlike recent years, the Oscars 2025 opted not to include performances of the five nominated best original song—last year, we had “I’m Just Ken,” Jon Batiste, and Billie Eilish; this year, the nominees included less popular tunes from the likes of Emilia Pérez and Sing Sing—which meant there was a significant gap to fill. Fortunately, the Oscars had no shortage of ideas.
“[The Team] was very clear from the beginning about celebrating all kinds of filmmaking,” supervising choreographer Mandy Moore tells Vanity Fair. “Tributes to great IP like Bond, Wicked being such a huge movie this year—along with being able to do a tribute for Quincy, it all fell into place.”
The show opened this year with a hotly anticipated dual performance from Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. But the songs they sang were a bit of a surprise. Grande started things out alone by performing the Wizard of Oz classic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” while Erivo got her own chance to belt solo on “Home,” from The Wiz. Fittingly, their thrilling “Defying Gravity” duet marked the performance’s rousing climax—call it a case of the Oscars imitating the nominees.
From there, we got a surprise number during Conan O’Brien’s monologue, tributes to the delayed Quincy Jones and James Bond that were introduced by, respectively, Queen Latifah and Margaret Qualley—more on those in a moment—and a range of other surprises. In an exclusive conversation, Moore takes us inside each of these numbers with exclusive behind-the-scenes details.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo
“All I had to do was get out of the way on this one. I didn’t do anything other than really tell them where to stand and gave them a couple thoughts for camera. But these two women are absolutely incredible, and are coming off of such a huge run this year with the film.
“It’s also nodding to Los Angeles and all the devastation of the wildfires, and how much we’re coming together as a community. Obviously the Oscars are here in L.A. It’s celebrating filmmaking, there are so many filmmakers here. To have these two huge people from Wicked able to sing Broadway level, bring incredible voices on that Oscar stage—that idea was all [executive producer] Raj Kapoor. The order was him.”
Conan O’Brien’s Monologue
“Conan and his writers wrote this hysterical song with Michael Bearden, and he’s just basically making fun of wasting time. Saying, ‘I’m never going to waste your time, but meanwhile I’m going to do this whole number about wasting time.’ And he just wanted it to feel like an MGM musical. Everyone’s on stage, and then we add this person, and then we add these people, and then everyone’s dancing at the end. His comedic timing is just absolutely incredible. And so that one was really fun, actually. It was a last-minute add. I had to rehearse it super quick, but it’s got all the dancers in it plus some very funny little cameos that I think really take it over the top. I think it’s a good way to start the show.
“Conan’s body is so cool. It sounds weird to say, but he also goes for it. He’s just gangly and tall and he is such a showman, and he really knows how to take that audience on a journey. And he’s so funny and he does love to dance. He’s like, ‘I don’t really want to do crazy steps.’ And I was like, ‘Don’t worry, you don’t need to. You just stand in the center. We’re going to do all the heavy lifting on the sides, but you do you, man.’”
The James Bond Tribute
“[The most ambitious] number was Bond. You have these four segments that are also highly choreographed with dancers and movement, but also with automation and stage design. So that kind of a bulky lift in a really tight schedule is super ambitious, but it’s the kind of thing that the Bond franchise would deserve.
“It starts out with the Bond theme, with Margaret and the 10 Bonds, and that was all about sensuality. Bond always has the one woman, the woman that he falls in love with—and he chases her through the movies. And then Lisa arrives as this villain character. And she’s joined by what I call her sirens, or the other Bond girls. Because I also feel, in Bond films, there’s always some character that you’re not quite sure if they’re good or evil. Those girls represent that. And then, at the end of Lisa’s, which is ‘Live and Let Die,’ there’s this choreographed fight-dance sequence, and then Bond escapes, which was really fun. We have this whole thing where Bond actually flies up and escapes, and then as he escapes, Doja Cat is revealed down stage and she sings, ‘Diamonds Are Forever,’ and she is dripping in diamonds. It is one of the most attractive looks of the night.
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