Paloma Diamond Is Winning Awards Season

When the Oscar nominations were announced on January 23, one major snub was the talk of the town. I’m not referring to Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig. Real fans know it was Paloma Diamond who was robbed.

The fictional actress is the creation of Julian Sewell, 28, whose TikTok video parodying awards-show introductions has since been seen more than 19 million times on that platform alone since it was posted in March 2023. The spoof saw Sewell don a series of bad wigs to play five Best Actress nominees in snippets from fake films (including the ingeniously named Awake, Alone, and Aware on the Streets of Topeka, Kansas), but it was Paloma, with her sharp silver bob and smug confidence, who stole the show.

Since Sewell’s first video, Paloma has become a stalwart of film memes and viral jokes, especially among the terminally online. “Paloma Diamond Updates,” “Paloma Diamond PR Manager,” and “Paloma Diamond’s Fan Club President” are the names of actual accounts on X. People talk about her on TikTok as if she’s real and say they’ll take a week off work if she doesn’t win an Oscar. Gay men name their trivia teams in her honor. There are fan cams. “This past year has just been the year of Paloma Diamond,” Sewell told me in an interview from his home in Auckland, New Zealand, where he works as a teacher.

Sewell has been more than happy to produce Paloma content for his 700,000-plus TikTok followers (an audience that has doubled in size since that first video). She’s now been spotted sitting in the front row of fashion shows, attending the SAG Awards, giving press conferences, posing for photo shoots, reminiscing to Vanity Fair about her career, and giving a tearful TV interview about her shocking Oscars track record of 18 nominations without a win.

With this year’s awards season reaching its crescendo, Sewell brought the character back once more this month, revealing she is up for yet another Best Actress Oscar. In his new video, a smug Paloma sips a martini with a steely, determined look as she celebrates her 19th nomination and calculates what she’s going to need to do (and whom she might need to eliminate) to finally win. “Paloma Diamond is the Glenn Close of this universe,” reads one of the top comments.

I probably would have wanted to talk to you even if you hadn’t made a second video, because in the lead-up to the real awards season I just saw jokes being made constantly based on something you created 12 months ago. Had you noticed this enduring effect as well?
I did not expect for it to get the amount of attention it did. I just kept up with the universe, because that’s what people wanted. You always give the people what they want, right? So I just kind of started developing these characters, particularly the character of Paloma whom everybody wanted to see.

It’s funny because her character has kind of evolved a little bit. If you look at the original video, she starts out kind of smug, and she gives that little look. But people really love that. They were really pining for her! And then she kind of transitioned, and I tried to make her a little bit more of the Glenn Close/Meryl Streep kind of esteemed actress. I really played into that trope. And this past year has just been the year of Paloma Diamond!

Tell me more about how you fleshed out Paloma’s backstory.
I did a couple videos after that Oscars one that started to flesh her out as a character. One of them was a pisstake of a Diane Sawyer/Oprah Winfrey interview. And it became this thing where Paloma Diamond has been nominated 18 times. So she is more than worthy of this award.

It wasn’t until November or December, months after I made the first video, that my American friend was like, “Oh, so she’s Susan Lucci?” And I’m like, “Who is Susan Lucci?” Susan Lucci was a soap-opera actress who was nominated for a Daytime Emmy, and she was nominated 18 times, and she never won until her 19th time. If you look at the video of when she finally wins it, everyone in the room just explodes, and she melts. It’s so camp and so fabulous. I hope that one day when and if Paloma does win, that it’ll be that much of a celebration.

Why do you think she’s the character who everyone latched on to?
I think it’s her smug look, but I also think it was just because she was the first actress. She was the first one that everyone saw. Her name is Diamond, so it came first.

Everyone I speak to about it, I’ll ask, “Why is it Paloma of all people? Why was it not Justina Sorgen?” And a lot of people said, “I think it’s the name. It’s such a star-quality name.”

I kind of pulled “Diamond” from Neil Diamond. Diamond is a star-studded name.

What’s it been like to see her be treated as a real person out there in the universe?
I love it. It gives people an opportunity to be creative and to be in on the joke. I don’t have a Twitter account, but it’s blowing up on Twitter as well. Paloma Diamond was trending a few days ago when the actual Oscars nominations were announced.

I love how people have also gone against her, and I have no problem with that. Like, if people want to be a Paloma hater, be a loud-and-proud Paloma hater! I don’t mind. It makes her more three-dimensional. Yes, you get people who are die-hard Paloma fans, true-blue Paloma supporters, and then you get people who are like, “It was not her best work. I’m just gonna say it.” It’s so good because it fleshes it out more, and it gives people something to talk about. People can really connect over this and be creative. People are like, “I loved Paloma in this movie,” and they’ll make up a name. I love it!

You said you’re not on Twitter, and that’s good to know, because I follow someone who has been tweeting for the last year as Paloma Diamond.
There are 500 of them! There are literally, like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people with the name Paloma Diamond.

She’s kind of a villain. There’s this famous tweet she makes me think of that’s like, “Girl: (does some sociopathic shit). Her gays: honestly, work.”
Yeah, well if you think about it, she is really, really lovely on the surface, and she plays up to the camera — especially in that last video that I did: Paloma Diamond in the Hollywood actress roundtable. She is so, so indulgent with her words and takes it far too seriously. And she plays up to the camera, but deep down, we all know she wants that award. And she has too much pride, I think. That’s a part of her character.

What do you think your videos say about our relationship with awards season?
If you really want to unpack it, it’s a social commentary on the pretension, the ostentatiousness, and the frivolity of Hollywood. I mean, if you really boil it down, what is the award for? It’s an award for acting. Yes, that’s a very legitimate award, but it’s not a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s not a Guinness World Record. It’s acting. It’s frivolous in a way. So it’s a complete pisstake of Hollywood and putting that competition on a pedestal.

I feel it’s also kind of a mockery of how we’ve gamified awards season as spectators, like it’s a sport. It reflects back on us about how silly this whole thing is. Like, they’re horses that are all racing each other.
This is a massive generalization, but it’s like awards season, or the Oscars, is like the Super Bowl for the gays and the girls. And so we take it really seriously, because it is a competition.

Let’s talk about this year’s nominees. I’d love to know about Sasha Alexander.
I didn’t realize this, but Sasha Alexander is an actual Hollywood actress. Totally didn’t know that.

I think that she’s young, she’s kind of bubbly, and I think a lot of people are rooting for her. I think she’s the ingenue. She’s like Emma Stone when she won for La La Land.

What about Picture of the Soul?
Well, I don’t want to give too much away, because all of these trailers are coming out! So you’ll be able to see it. Picture of the Soul is — there’s a little bit of Still Alice there. Something to do with memory and memory loss.

Michelle Bradley-Spencer and Scorpio Hunter?
Michelle Bradley-Spencer was totally not what I thought she would be. I actually wanted her to be more of a Julie Andrews with the short hair, but no. For some reason, I just came up with the idea, Why don’t we just give her a corny Southern accent? So she’s more of a country bumpkin.

Scorpio Hunter is quite serious. She’s on a mission to investigate something. And she’s got a lot at stake.

Daphne Cortezon and A Walk Along Jupiter Bay?
Daphne Cortezon is obviously a bit of a show-off. She does like to have her time in the limelight. A Walk Along Jupiter Bay is a film that’s about grief. And Jupiter Bay is — I think I’m literally pulling this out of my ass right now — but Jupiter Bay is like a name for death. So you’re having a walk along Jupiter Bay. You’re walking right next to death.

Breathe? This Paloma film?
Breathe is about a marathon runner.

I’m getting Annette Bening in Nyad vibes.
I don’t know what Nyad is. I haven’t even seen the trailer.

And lastly, The Unstoppable — which stars Lorelai Lynch, who also appeared in last year’s original video before ultimately losing the Oscar in a embarrassing mix-up.
The Unstoppable … You know what? I have no idea what The Unstoppable is about.

Lorelai Lynch — obviously, we’re bringing her back from last year, and she is a hot topic. People don’t know whether they love her or whether they hate her. She had this awful thing happen to her. She was La La Land-ed last year, so she’s a bit sassy, and she’s a bit salty about the whole thing, and rightfully so. She has a reason to be.