TORONTO -- Denis Villeneuve is celebrating a staggering eight Oscar nominations for his sci-fi film "Arrival" but the director says he's shocked that his leading actress Amy Adams was snubbed.
"If you had asked me yesterday what were my expectations, I would have said it's a given," the Quebecois director said Tuesday in a call from Los Angeles.
"It was a great disappointment for our team this morning. So we celebrate with a heavy heart."
Adams was widely considered one of the frontrunners for a best actress nomination, but the category was stacked with great contenders from other films.
"I talked with Amy earlier and she's someone who has a lot of grace," Villeneuve said.
"She's very noble and she's just happy for the film. But honestly, the film owes her a lot."
"Arrival" picked up best picture and best director nominations and also racked up a number of other nods in the technical categories.
Villeneuve is in the midst of cutting "Blade Runner 2049," a widely anticipated follow up to the sci-fi classic directed by Ridley Scott.
"I'm glued to my screens in the editing room," he said.
Villeneuve took a moment to credit his Quebecois production crew for making "Arrival" stand out.
"If you take apart the main actors and producers, the rest of the crew ... was from Quebec," he said.
"We were able to do it with the skills of the French-Canadian technicians that are able to do more with less."
Meanwhile, champagne was flowing Tuesday morning in Montreal as key members of the "Arrival" sound team celebrated the film's nominations.
"It was a lot of joy," said Bernard Gariepy Strobl, whose name appeared on the list of sound mixing nominees alongside his collaborator Claude La Haye.
As one of cinema's modern auteurs, Villeneuve wanted "Arrival" to stand out from the typical alien-invasion thriller.
Even the sound design had to strike a unique tone, from the subtle hums of the spaceship to the vocalization of the aliens' mysterious language.
"Denis never wanted to do any kind of an action film," said Sylvain Bellemare, who was nominated in the sound editing category.
He noted the movie is primarily about the personal journey of Adams's character.
"This is a story about one person."
