Palm Springs International Film Awards: Top moments from the 'glamorous chaos' backstage

Backstage at the Palm Springs International Film Awards is a swirl and whirl of movie stars, handlers, photographers, lighting technicians, agents, selfies, alcohol, media members and TV cameras.

The evening's first award winner, Danielle Deadwyler, who received the Breakthrough Performance Award for the movie "Till," described the award show hustle and bustle perfectly: "It's glamorous chaos," she said.

Shad Powers, reporter for the Desert Sun, part of the USA TODAY network, was perched backstage this year, chatting with winners, watching the action, and seeing what happens behind the curtain.

Trophy talk

A hot topic backstage as the stars step down the seven or eight stairs into the waiting arms of their handlers who move them through a media maze, are the physical trophies they are now carrying. There are two types of awards. One is a tall bronze spirally actor, standing on a globe by late artist John Kennedy. It's pretty cool. The other one is a little more artistic. It looks like a glass cactus with Fritos sticking out of it. It's more of an acquired taste, but is one of the popular glass works of artist Dale Chihuly.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which honorees get which trophy, but Deadwyler was excited by the look of her award, and when I put her on the spot to describe it, she answered poetically.

"This is something stunning, it's very jester-al, like a jester that is, yet he's standing poised on rough terrain, and yet, it didn't care about my muscles or that this is my off day for lifting, because it's heavy," she said, trying a few bicep curls with it.

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Actors watching actors

A fascinating part of being backstage is watching one famous actor be completely entranced by the speech of another famous actor. I watched the cast of "The Fabelmans" stop their conversation to watch a speech by Cate Blanchett. Earlier in the evening, Brendan Fraser was completely entranced by Deadwyler.

You can tell when they listen to other actors talk, they are enjoying it on a level much higher than someone like, well, me. Actors love to talk to and listen to other actors. It's just a fact.

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Celebrities, they're just like us

You ever sheepishly ask a stranger to take a photo of you and your crew with your cell phone? It's awkward, you know you're putting them out, but you do it anyway. Apparently, famous actors are the same way.

Jamie Lee Curtis asked a stranger, Desert Sun photographer Jay Calderon to be specific, to take a photo with her cell phone of her and "Everything, Everywhere All At Once" co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu when they exited the stage (after Yeoh took home the International Star Award). Curtis had it all planned out and had just the right background, she showed Jay how her phone was all set for the photo. And just as Jay was about to take the shot, Cate Blanchett walked by and jumped into the photo. Fun backstage stuff!

Jay did the courteous thing and took a few options and showed them to Curtis. "Perfectly done," she said.

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Elvis has left the backstage

There's no doubt that the person most (I'll just keep it real) gawked at backstage was Austin Butler, the heartthrob who was a revelation in the titular role in "Elvis." Each award winner stopped to be interviewed by Entertainment Tonight and while they were being talked to, a small semicircle of workers and fans and hangers-on would watch to get a close look at the star.

Butler's semicircle was about five times deeper than anybody else's, filled with people I hadn't seen before and never saw after. Each were fighting for position to taking cell phone photos of the handsome leading man. Once Butler left, there was a lot more elbow-room to be had backstage.

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Over here, over here

Brian Tyree Henry, the actor best known for the TV show "Atlanta" (and who is getting Oscar buzz for his work in the film "Causeway" this year), was presenting an award Thursday night, and he poked fun at the sort of cattle-call nature of the photo shoots backstage. He had a small hand-held fan he used between shots to dry away sweat, and when he was in front of his final photographic firing squad, one of the photographers said "Look into the lens" and he said with mock outrage, "Which one, there are like 90 of you."

We gave Deadwyler the first word and we'll give her the last word as she had a ball being part of a night like this.

"I just love being around other actors, especially folks like these who are pushing their craft to a certain level. You can have a bigger conversation about where you've been and how you've worked and the stories you tell and a conversation about the stories they tell and everybody can kind of swirl all their stories together. I love it," she said.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs Film Awards backstage: Jamie Lee Curtis, Austin Butler