And the award for best Oscars advice goes to…
Brian Tyree Henry, who recently picked up his first Oscar nomination for Causeway, revealed the wisdom his co-star Jennifer Lawrence imparted to him about handling the pressure of the Academy Awards. Turns out, it came down to two words.
"'Don't trip,'" the actor, 40, exclusively told E! News at the Oscars nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Feb. 13. "Cause I was like, 'I don't have a gown to cover mine.'"
Lawrence was speaking from experience as she fell while walking up the stage steps to accept the Best Actress Oscar for her lead role in Silver Linings Playbook in 2013 and while heading down the red carpet in 2014.
But in all seriousness, Henry noted The Hunger Games star has been "really supportive."
"She's somebody that doesn't take a lot of this too seriously," he continued. "She really just wants to meet good people and do good work. And so, in that essence, it's never been anything too heavy. She has been an incredible support. We text each other and just call each other names, but she's been a good friend through this. So, I'm very grateful."
In fact, he said Lawrence was confident he'd get an Oscar nomination for his performance in Causeway right from the get-go.
"After almost every take that I did with Jennifer, she would literally come and be like, 'You're gonna get nominated for an Oscar,' and then just walk off," the Atlanta alum continued. "And I was like, 'What? Why do you keep doing that? Stop doing that.' And what's crazy is, for the rest of my life, I will have to tell her, 'Thank you, you were right,' which I think is what she wanted."
And he's thankful to have had the opportunity to work on the film.
"You had a group and an ensemble of people, who got together to tell a story about this walk of life that we go through that involves grief, that involves loss," he noted. "One of the most amazing ensembles ever from Linda Emond to Jayne Houdyshell, Stephen McKinley Henderson and our director Lila Neugebauer, who I've known for almost 20 years. She's known that this was possible for me and has held that vision for me and didn't give me anywhere to hide and really nurtured my performance in a way that I've never experienced."
Of working opposite Lawrence on the indie project, Henry added, "To be able to do this kind of story with her, to go back to that grassroots storytelling where she started, was truly something to see."
The Eternals star is nominated in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role category along with The Fabelmans' Judd Hirsch, Everything Everywhere All at Once's Ke Huy Quan and The Banshees of Inisherin's Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan.
And it looks like he's formed a bond with many of this year's nominees, including Best Supporting Actress nominee Jamie Lee Curtis.
"That's another thing that's been so great is that most of these people are my contemporaries—like the people along the way that I've either worked with, or admired in some way, or I'm going to work with in some capacity," Henry said. "So, it's just been fun. I also compared it to us being that detention class, that it feels like a weird, distorted Breakfast Club because we're all in here just being raucous and silly but also celebrating amazing work and just really happy for one another."