Faye Dunaway thought Warren Beatty was just "joking" for effect when he hesitated before handing her the wrong envelope in the agonising Oscars mix-up that saw La La Land mistakenly handed Moonlight's best picture award.
The 76-year-old actress has spoken for the first time about the February awards show debacle, which caused chaos at the Hollywood ceremony and stunned millions of live TV viewers.
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Oscars mix-up: La La Land producer, Emma Stone react
The 87th Academy Awards end with a major bungle as La La Land is wrongly announced as winning best picture instead of Moonlight. Vision courtesy A.M.P.A.S.
Dunaway said she failed to pick up her co-presenter's unease before mistakenly reading out La La Land for best picture when Moonlight had won.
"He took the card out and didn't say anything. He paused, and looked over to me, and looked around," the actress told NBC Nightly News' Lester Holt.
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"...I finally said 'You're impossible'. I thought he was joking. I mean, I thought he was stalling – Warren's like that. He likes to hold the power, a dramatic pause ... it's part of his charm."
The mistake arose after PwC partner Brian Cullinan handed Dunaway and Beatty the back-up envelope for the actress in a leading role category.
Dunaway said she did not notice Emma Stone's name on the card before reading it out and admitted feeling "completely stunned" when she realised her error.
The world watched as La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz stopped proceedings and announced the correct winner.
Dunaway now has feelings of guilt and wonders whether she could have prevented the debacle.
"I felt guilty, I thought 'I could have done something, surely'. Why didn't I see Emma Stone's name on the top of the card?"
When asked if she felt "stung" by the incident, Dunaway said: "Yeah, completely. And we were, I won't say 'deer in the headlight', but you are completely stunned. You don't know what has happened."
Earlier this month, Warren Beatty briefly told his side of the story in an interview with British chat show host Graham Norton. "I guess you could say it was chaos," Beatty recalled.
In a recent interview with the UK Telegraph's Robbie Collins, Beatty described that he knew something was up, so held back. But after looking to his co-presenter and Bonnie and Clyde co-star for her view, she misunderstood and, like a consummate Hollywood pro, smiled and read out what she'd been given.
"There is something comical about it," he said with a wince. "But the academy has always been very kind to me, so I don't want to pontificate about it. You know, they've always supported... Yeah, you're probably aware of my..." He stopped, sensing trouble.
"Well, you say it." Silence.
"Your own illustrious film-making career?" Collins ventured.
"Oh, yes!" he said sunnily. Collins wrote: "Now I know how Faye Dunaway felt."
AP, with The Telegraph, London