Tami Lane is hoping she’ll have a 13-pound Oscar award to tote around the night of Feb. 24.
Lane, 38, and a graduate of Woodruff High School and Bradley University, is up for an Academy Award for her prosthetics makeup work on “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” And since she has already won an Oscar — in 2006, for the blockbuster film “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” — she knows all the pros and cons of winning.
The pros? Besides the obvious, you get to go to all the A-list after-parties. The cons? Carrying around that heavy little guy all evening. Last time, she was so inseparable from her Oscar that her jewelry rubbed off part of the solid-gold coating.
“The Academy says you can give it back and they’ll re-dip it, which is nice. But I like the scar,” said Lane, by telephone from Los Angeles.
Lane says the process is a little less nerve-wracking the second time around.
“The first time, it was gut-wrenching,” she said. “And you feel like it’s a fluke and you could never get there again. This time, it’s more easygoing — especially since I’m going up against my best friend.”
Lane’s team will compete against the staff of “Les Miserables” and “Hitchcock,” the latter which includes special effect makeup by her friend and mentor Howard Berger, whom she worked with on the “Narnia” films. Lane said she’ll be happy for her friend if he wins.
“If he wins or if I win, we figure we have a two-thirds chance of going to the Vanity Fair party,” she said.
Lane says working on “The Hobbit” trilogy has been the most challenging project of her career. Since the 3-D films are being filmed in 48 frames per second instead of the normal 24, their work had to be flawless, she said. Her average work day started at 4 a.m. and often lasted until 10 p.m. While on location in New Zealand, they worked out of a caravan of trailers and often took helicopters to reach certain filming locations.
Lane has always been a fan of movies. But her obsession with her work has made it difficult to get swept into that fantasy world like she used to. Now, she finds herself studying the details and critiquing everything from how lighting affects paint colors to the quality and bushiness of fake eyebrows. That’s how it was the first time she watched “The Hobbit.” But the second time, she let herself relax.
“When I saw it a second time, I was proud and overjoyed,” she said. “I had no idea why I had been so critical the first time. I enjoyed every minute, and I can’t wait to see Part 2.”
But first, she has an event to attend. Her plans for the Academy Awards? “Hopefully winning. It’s going to be fun, it’s different this time around.”
