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3 Lessons From That Guy Who Tweeted He’d Win an Oscar 8 Years Before He Did
Matthew A. Cherry predicted his idea for ‘Hair Love’ was Oscar-worthy — and he was right
It may have seemed like bravado when director Matthew A. Cherry — a former football player with a few music videos and low-budget indie movies to his name — told the world that he would one day be nominated for an Academy Award:
That was in 2012. In 2016, he again tweeted that bombastic prediction, along with a single image and a request: “Any 3D artists follow me? I got an Oscar worthy short film idea to go with this image. Get at me 😳”
Yesterday, Cherry was back on Twitter with two words: Nailed it.
And he had indeed nailed it: Eight years after his initial prediction — and after raising $284,058 for his movie on Kickstarter and landing actor, writer, and producer Issa Rae to voice one of the characters — Cherry took home an Oscar for his short animated film, Hair Love, about an African American father learning to do his daughter’s hair while her mother is in hospital.
The director used his Academy Award acceptance speech to promote the importance of representation in animation and to advocate for the CROWN Act, a law proposed in states across the country that would prohibit discrimination based on hair style and texture. “We want to normalize black hair,” Cherry said at the podium.
Here at Forge, we’re fascinated by the steps that lead to a success of this magnitude. It struck us that Cherry’s approach exemplified three tried-and-true strategies that we could all implement in our own lives. Here they are.
