When the nominees for Best Animated Film were announced, one person was more shocked than anyone to hear Irish hand-drawn film The Secret of Kells announced—the movie's director. Oprah.com caught up with Tomm Moore in a rare free moment to talk about how he got the news, why 2D animation isn't dead and why The Secret of Kells is the little film that could. 
Rachel Bertsche: Congratulations on your Oscar nomination!

Tomm Moore: Thank you so much. It's really bizarre. We were really surprised; it wasn't at all on our radar. We had a great year, we won lots of awards and festivals and we thought we'd sort of run the race. Then we were settling down to work on the new film and then this just came up, and it's just been a whirlwind. It's fantastic. It's a great boost.

RB: Where were you when you found out?

TM: I was in a meeting with our Belgian co-producer. He'd come over from Belgium to sit and go through the budget for our new movie and see, were we going to be able to pull it off? We were sitting doing a very dry, very boring meeting working out the numbers with our accountant and someone out in the office started screaming. I sort of thought she had seen a mouse or something. We were looking at each other going, "What is going on?" It was really surreal because Anne Hathaway and the president of the Academy had just announced the nominees, we were waiting for it to pop up on the website, because it was the middle of the day in Ireland. When it came up after the live feed, we were just totally blown away. Then the phone started ringing and it was a crazy day.

RB: I'm sure it's been crazy ever since. Have you had a chance to breathe and take it in?

TM: Well, I've had to do these weird 48-hour trips to L.A. the last couple of weeks, because I had to keep working in Ireland but then went out to the Oscar luncheon and out to the Annie Awards—we've been nominated for an Annie as well—so every week I'm flying over to L.A. and back. I never know what time zone I'm in.

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