Not long after Ms. McDormand had her Academy Award engraved at the Governors Ball, it went missing for a short time.
If you ever win an Oscar, don’t let it out of your sight. That was the lesson on Sunday night, when Frances McDormand saw her freshly engraved statue for best actress briefly stolen at an Oscars after-party.
“After a brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited,” Simon Halls, a representative for Ms. McDormand, said in a statement on Monday. “They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out.”
A man accused in the theft, Terry Bryant, of Los Angeles, was in custody on Monday afternoon, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman said on Monday.
Mr. Bryant faces a charge of grand theft, which in California is a “wobbler,” meaning the crime can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony, a decision left up to the district attorney’s office. A felony grand theft conviction could mean up to three years in jail. He was being held on $20,000 bail.
At the party, Ms. McDormand was seen putting her Oscar down on a table while she snacked on macaroni and cheese and chatted with people.
Not long after, a photographer working for Wolfgang Puck, the chef who catered the event, noticed Mr. Bryant, 47, with an Oscar in hand and leaving the area.
The photographer took a picture of the man, alerted security and took the Oscar from him without incident, the L.A.P. D. said on Twitter on Monday. It was then returned to Ms. McDormand.
It was not clear how long the statue was missing.
On Sunday night, a man using the name Terry Bryant Djmatari posted a public video to Facebook of him holding an Oscars statue with the caption “My Oscar baby.” He holds it up and says to the camera: “My team got this tonight. This is mine.” He then kisses the statue and whoops. He also announces that he’s at the Governors Ball.
“Who wants to tell me congratulations?” he asks the crowd, prompting commendations from those around him.
It’s not clear what Mr. Bryant’s role was at the Governors Ball, but according to the L.A.P. D., it appears that he did have a ticket.
The Governors Ball is the official after-party of the Academy Awards, and winners can have their statues engraved there.
Variety posted a video of Ms. McDormand picking up her freshly engraved statue shortly before it was swiped.
Ms. McDormand won the Oscar for best actress for her role as Mildred Hayes, a grieving mother enraged by the investigation of her daughter’s murder, in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
