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Nobody ever stands on stage on the Oscars and acknowledges, of their acceptance speeches, “I need to thank yoga and meditation.”

Yet Sunday evening, there have been an outsized variety of Oscar-winning actors, directors, filmmakers, and singers who could easily have said exactly that. It’s comprehensible, given the 45-second closing date and all of the obligatory expressions of appreciation, why these celebs wouldn’t mention the physical practice of yoga and meditative component on stage. Or that they wouldn’t take the time to clarify the way it helps quiet their thoughts long enough to assist them discern fiction from reality, because it does for thus lots of us.

But here’s a have a look at what we all know of several 2024 Oscar award winners and exactly what their experience with meditation and yoga has done for every of their performances in addition to their life.

2024 Oscar Award Winners Who Practice Yoga or Meditation

(Photo: Handout | Getty)

Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Randolph’s portrayal of  a “warm, witty cafeteria matriarch,” as The Recent York Times describes her role in The Holdovers, is yet one more of the actor’s characteristic scene-stealing interpretations of a multifaceted character. Randolph’s only publicly known association with yoga mirrors that.

In a recent talk show interview, she recounted a slightly dramatic dim sum outing by which a burglary took place at a close-by store. Amid the following chaos and screaming happening, Randolph explained how she responded by running into the restaurant kitchen, grabbing knives, and “doing these yoga breaths of fireplace.”

Although she didn’t engage in any obvious types of breathwork while delivering her acceptance speech Sunday evening, she did possess a self-awareness and self-assuredness that tends to result from practicing yoga. “For therefore long, I’ve all the time desired to be different, and now I realize I just have to be myself.”

Best Original Song: Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

Although there are countless yoga playlists populated entirely with Billie Eilish tracks, her own practice leans toward meditation. Based on an interview with the then-20-year-old star in V Magazine, she experienced a “very, very dark situation” following her sudden celebrity status.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. Stricken with what she described as “really, really unbelievably terrible nightmares,” she began using a meditation app. “I might hearken to that meditation app each time I needed to take a breath and never think in regards to the horrors that were happening in my mind,” she said. Eilish has explained quite a few times that she later drew on those nightmares to create her music videos that resonate with tens of millions.

Her songwriting sibling, O’Connell, has his own approach to meditation. In an interview with Vanity Fair, he explained that he also struggles with difficult emotions and finds driving with a podcast or music within the background to be “very meditative.”

Best Director: Christopher Nolan

Clearly there’s an understanding of expanded consciousness by the creator of Inception, The Dark Knight, and Oppenheimer. The themes of individual responsibility, empathy, and fallibility of perception are strikingly aligned with some form of practice of self-awareness. We’re guessing he meditates.

(Photo: Kevin Winter | Getty)

Best Actress: Emma Stone

It’s common to see tabloids splashed with photos of celebrities—including Stone—toting a yoga mat as they walk right into a studio. Although when Stone talks about her practice, she focuses on meditation.

“It’s changing my life completely,” she said in  an interview with USA Today a decade ago. “I’m pretty into it. A couple of times a day, I meditate. That has been the perfect thing for my mind.”

More recently, she shared in an interview with NPR that her first panic attack occurred when she was just seven years old. When the interviewer asked if she turned to acting as an escape from herself and her anxiety, Stone beautifully explained that it was the precise opposite. “All of my big feelings are productive,” she said.

Stone went on to liken acting to meditating, explaining that each demand a deal with the current slightly than allowing rumination in regards to the past or fear of what’s yet to return be a distraction. As Stone explained, while meditating, you’re “living within the experience and living in your body.”

She demonstrated that in her acceptance speech for her role in Poor Things, calming herself as best she could—at the same time as her dress malfunctioned—while admitting to the world, “This is de facto overwhelming.” Stone continued to share that in the times prior to the ceremony, she had been panicking about this moment. Director Yorgos Lanthimos had calmed her just by saying, “Please take yourself out of it.” We’re betting he meditates, too.

Best Live Motion Short: Wes Anderson

It’s uncertain whether filmmaker Anderson meditates or practices on a mat, although his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is definitely, in a convoluted form of way, entirely about meditation. Disillusioned by magic, the lead character is drawn to yoga and its meditative facets. There’s more to the story—lots more—but actually Anderson appreciates, and needs to convey, that meditation brings each of us what we’d like and never necessarily what we wish.

That’s not Anderson’s only adjacency to yoga. Before his first film, he frequently frolicked at an eclectic coffee shop in Dallas where he met yoga teacher Kumar Pallana, who “was like a one-man Ed Sullivan variety show,” in accordance with an article within the Los Angeles Times. Anderson later gave Pallana character roles in several movies, including The Royal Tannenbaums and Rushmore.

Best Animated Feature: Hayao Miyazaki

Renowned Japanese filmmaker and animator Miyaziki is thought not just for his perfectionism but his emphasis on depicting the quiet beauty in on a regular basis moments and unremarkable places.

Reviews of Miyazaki’s current and past work note that his movies are likely to include a renunciation of ego and a capability to create an illusionist reality with the paranormal just beyond plain sight of reality. Perhaps most related to meditation is the intentional stillness which Miyazaki builds into his scenes and that he refers to because the Japanese word “ma,” which he has described as “emptiness.” The effect is a moment of stillness and silence in order that not only the character however the audience can take on the earth’s beauty which may otherwise goes unnoticed.

And let’s not overlook that the somewhat autobiographical The Boy and the Heron itself has been likened to a “meditation on grief” by Rolling Stone.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Cord Jefferson

Honorable mention goes to author and director Jefferson, who acknowledged his therapist during his Oscar acceptance speech for his work on American Fiction. Jefferson had previously shared in an interview with The Recent York Times that he has tried meditation, although not consistently. We understand. It’s difficult. We’re enthused to witness what artistry would result if and when meditation became an everyday practice for him.

(Photo: Jeff Kravitz | Getty)

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr.

You already know the story: Downey’s past struggles with addiction resulted in his 1996 arrest for drug-related charges, and he eventually hung out in prison. Since then, he’s modified his trajectory and has landed lead roles in box-office-smashing superhero movies including Iron Man, The Avengers, and Sherlock Holmes prior to landing the supporting role in Oppenheimer.

What’s less commonly known is that yoga is certainly one of the practices that helped him recreate his life and remain sober, together with 12-step programs, martial arts, and therapy. Downey worked extensively with Vinnie Marino, a Los Angeles-based yoga teacher who had also previously struggled with addiction.

“You get on the proper side of the tracks, and now you might be actually working with what some people would call magic,” explained Downey in an interview with TIME. “It’s not. It’s just you’re not within the f*cking dark anymore, so easy methods to get along a bit of higher, ?”

It’s an approach to self-awareness that seems as if it draws equally from existentialism and meditation. After filming Oppenheimer, Downey explained to Vulture that when repeated takes of a scene were obligatory, director Nolan would sometimes tell the actor to do literally nothing in the following take. That’s not a simple task for an actor. But Downey ceded.

“There was just this ongoing dialogue between a master filmmaker and someone who’s open to a brand new experience,” Downey explained. That’s beginner’s mind, a tenet of yoga by which any situation is approached from the angle of a novice and brought for what it’s and exploring what will be learned slightly than dwelling on how we expect things needs to be.

That approach can have also helped as Downey endured host Jimmy Kimmel’s quips early within the awards show about Downey’s former drug use. The actor’s restrained demeanor through the assault would be the true definition of superhero.

Best Actor: Cillian Murphy

We’ve only heard vague references about yoga from Murphy as something that “middle-aged guys” do. Although Murphy has lent his voice to the Calm app, reciting “sleep stories” for users to unwind and calm down. Props to the actor for facilitating the practice for others. Honorable mention.

Best Animated Short: Sean Ono Lennon

Acknowledged for his peace-promoting work War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko, the youngest son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is usually known as a“psychedelic musician.”

In interviews and social media posts through the years, Lennon has spoken overtly about transcendental meditation (TM), which his late father practiced. “I don’t consider TM as a spiritual practice, though I’m sure it could actually be for some. But for me, it’s like a scientific method to calm my brain down and making my frontal lobe more energetic,” he explained in an interview. “It’s an exercise, really. It helps me to have about 10 percent more conscious considering, which is sweet, because we make a number of decisions in our subconscious that aren’t all the time good.”

Lennon has posted on social media promoting the Lumenate App, which he describes as a “psychedelic inspired meditation app.” Lennon can also be known to share lessons learned from his personal meditation. A number of the comments are notably self-aware, others somewhat trippy, but all are grounded in thoughtfulness and the reminder that we could all be more understanding of others, including those whose viewpoints we don’t understand.