Multitasking

When your event is populated with Hollywood’s latest crop of up-and-coming actors, like Hollywood Life’s Breakthrough of the Year awards are, it makes sense that the talent itself becomes one of the evening’s major draws. “We keep the event fresh with the lineup that we bring in,” said Hollywood Life’s events manager, Chris Vanger, who oversaw Sunday night’s seventh annual award show with the magazine’s director of marketing, Mariana Stanciu.

As the evening's focus, celebrities congregated in a minimally decorated Music Box at the Fonda. The event also doubled as a Superbad DVD-release party during a cocktail reception in the venue’s foyer and Blue Palms Lounge. "This is the second year we will be having a DVD-release party during our cocktail reception," Vanger said in an interview several days before the event. "We wanted to add another element to the awards show. We figured there’s an hour and a half during that time where people are just waiting for people to arrive, and it’s a good time to give an opportunity to a DVD coming out. The Devil Wears Prada was extremely happy with it last year."Superbad movie posters adorned reception areas, as did projection screens running scenes from the film and sponsor reels. An audio loop featuring music from the film’s soundtrack played while guests sipped on Superbad-inspired cocktails with names like “Bona Fide Badass” and the “McLovin”—named after the character played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who was one of the evening’s honorees and who roamed the reception. (In his acceptance speech later, the underage actor lamented the fact that he couldn’t try his character’s cocktail.)

Inside the theater, guests were seated at tables dressed in black and white linens, while presenters and honorees walked a stage lit with a morphing color palette achieved by LED projections on stretch fabric.

Perhaps it was the light fare—or the circulating cocktails—that prompted some impatience as Hollywood Life publisher Anne Volokh made her lengthy closing remarks. (We spotted an appreciative James McAvoy springing to his feet in a standing ovation when Volokh announced that she was through with her comments.) Guests, McAvoy among them, then made their way to the rooftop after-party, where a buffet spread and L.A.'s version of chilly air awaited them.