Who are you going to be excited to meet?
Oooh…Cate Blanchette, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julie Christie. And Marion Cotillard — I know I am going to be like [in a whisper]: "You're so pretty… and talented." There are tons of people. I think when I get nervous about the singing it is more about [the fact that] I have to get up there and sing Happy Working Song to Daniel Day-Lewis. Now that is surreal! These people whom I want to see me as some Grande Dame of the screen, and I am going to be like [sings]: "Oooh — ooh, woo, hoo, woo!" It will be fun.

If you'd won the Oscar, who'd you have thanked?
Who would I have thanked? I don't know. You know, I didn't write a speech. And it caused a little bit of panic. I was sure Rachel [Weisz] was going to win. She deserved to win. I was cool with that. But at some point right before the category was being announced, I had prepped myself. And usually Supporting Actress is one of the first awards. But they flip-flopped it but I didn't know it. So we were all expecting it to be the second or third category and instead it was further into the show. So I was prepared to hold it together for a certain amount of time. And then that time increased and then I was like: "What if by some weird twist of fate, I win? What am I gonna do?!" I was so nervous thought I was gonna die.

So the typical list [of people to thank]: the parents, the agent, the managers…
I don't know. I probably just would have been the first person in history to stand with my mouth open and sort of gaze out into the audience.

MARKETA IRGLOVA

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in Once Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard huddle together to perform their song If You Want Me. Clutching his battered acoustic guitar, she struggles to find the key. Hansard has forgotten the guitar's capo, so he has to hold down the strings across the guitar's neck for her for the entire song. Her voice is soft and ethereal; the lyrics haunting and heartbreaking. Before the song's end, she cannot suppress a giggle. The moment is one of quiet intimacy and although this performance is for Manhattan's entertainment press gathered in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper, there is a feeling that the listener has intruded on a private moment.

The song is from the film Once, a quiet and understated modern musical love story that struck a chord with filmgoers at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it picked up the coveted World Cinema Audience Award. The film was snapped up by Summit Entertainment, who then sold the North American distribution rights to Fox Searchlight for $1 million. Not too shabby for a DV-shot feature made for under $10 000. The film was released globally and has grossed well over US$16 million worldwide. And now, the haunting track Falling Softly has picked up an Oscar nom in the Best Song category.

"It was amazing," enthuses Irglova, "That was the last thing we expected. It is not like we weren't ambitious, but you have to realize that the film was made for so little money and everything was done so low-budget that we were hoping for it to come out on DVD and for a few people in Ireland to buy it and to create a word-of-mouth [buzz] about it." To be part of this success has been a meteoric ride for Marketa Irglova, an unknown Moravian teenager still attending high school in a small eastern border town in the Czech Republic. Irglova has reached this point not only through a series of fortunate happenings, but also because of her talent, a devil-may-care audacity, and a winning unpretentiousness.