At the recent Irish media junket for their new film God's Creatures in Dublin, Paul Mescal and Emily Watson told RTÉ Entertainment what they remember about the fateful day when they became Oscar nominees.
Watson has been nominated for Best Actress twice: for Breaking the Waves in 1997 and for Hilary and Jackie in 1999.
In a record year for Irish talent, Mescal received his first Best Actor nomination in January for Aftersun.
Looking back on when her first nomination was announced, Watson said: "I just remember sort of everything going into slow motion. It was just the sort of strangest... I think I was at some ceremony for something or other and my agent went off and made a phone call and came back. Everything wasn't on phones then!
"Then, bizarrely, my husband was still an actor then and he'd left that morning for Wales - he was doing a play in Theatr Clwyd - with my front door keys! So then I was completely locked out of my house, standing on the street corner going, 'Oh, I'm nominated for an Oscar!'"
Mescal continued: "What happened to my body when I found out - I just started shaking! And then you, like, kind of shake for an hour and then I had to go onstage in the evening!
"There was a girl in the audience who had printed out a poster. We're doing our curtain call at the end and she had this like... like a rock concert, a poster, 'Good luck at the Oscars, Paul!' And she gave it to me backstage afterwards. It was cute.
"There was something... noises were being made [as the nominations were announced], but I just saw my name and my phone dropped and I was like, 'Oh my... God!' It's mad!"
Mescal will join the other Irish Oscar nominees at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles tonight.
The 95th Academy Awards will be broadcast on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on Monday from 9:30pm.
God's Creatures will be released in Irish cinemas on Friday 24 March.
