Here’s a snapshot for celeb watchers who muse over the backstage scene at Hollywood awards shows:
During Fox’s Teen Choice 2011 awards — aired live Aug. 7 from the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City — the celebrity staging and gift tent was California surf punk meets high design.
According to Mary Wilson, the Denver interior designer contracted by Fox to perform a whirlwind decorating job on the preshow “green room,” where celebs hang out before going on stage, the network wanted “to keep things playful and stay with the (show’s) surfboard theme.”
Getting it done, primarily from out-of-state and in less than a month, was “pretty intense,” says Wilson. She’s a California native who relocated to Colorado about eight years ago after stints in New York and Dallas. For this gig, she called on West Coast friends and associates, along with some of her favorite home decor lines including Hudson Furniture Inc., Jiun Ho, Ted Boerner and Tai Ping.
A trained studio artist, Wilson uses artwork to inform her interiors. In this case, oversized photography of graffiti art on the Santa Monica pier helped set off a room outfitted with light-colored upholstered seating, petrified wood tables, tropical print accents, gray silk draping and the grand focal point: a 5-foot tall, 175-pound, layered chain chandelier.
This was the place where the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, Khloe Kardashian, various “Twilight” cast members and dozens of other Hollywood glitterati cooled their heels before the actual award show.
Among the memorable sights for Wilson? Actor Ashton Kutcher, who won one of the signature surfboard trophies for his turn in the romantic comedy “No Strings Attached,” apparently dismissed requests to leave the actual surfboard behind.
“He decided he wanted to take a surfboard this year,” Wilson recalls. Despite being waved down by security, “[Kutcher] just smiled and nodded and put it in the back of his stretch limo.”
Elana Ashanti Jefferson: ejefferson@denverpost.com
