Bryan Alexander

USA TODAY

Shirley MacLaine felt her younger brother Warren Beatty's pain during Sunday's big Oscar flub.

Beatty was given the wrong envelope and thus co-presenter Faye Dunaway read the wrong winner for the best picture award. There was an historically chaotic scene and MacLaine, who had presented an award just before, was in the audience watching.

“I think we’re all processing the horror of it," MacLaine tells USA TODAY. “I’m still dealing with it.”

“I’m concerned with how (Beatty) must have felt being so close to him. I’m three years older and I’m protective," MacLaine says. “We know how difficult it was for him, but it was also for me.”

After Dunaway announced La La Land as the winner of the best picture , the film's representatives started giving thank you speeches onstage before the error was dramatically pointed out.

Amid chaos, the rightful winners, the Moonlight filmmakers, accepted the award. The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has taken responsibility for the "human error" of giving Beatty the wrong envelope and has apologized.

Beatty released a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press in which he declined to comment further on the debacle. Instead, he urged the academy to answer questions.

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"I feel it would be more appropriate for the president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, to publicly clarify what happened as soon as possible," said Beatty.

MacLaine, 82, says she called Beatty, 79, "immediately" after the show.

"He was backstage dealing with what he was going through. He didn’t answer his phone," MacLaine says. "And then I called the home and (wife Annette Bening) answered and we talked. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

MacLaine stopped briefly at the Governors Ball party after the show. But ended up heading out.

"I just wanted to go home. It’s something to really think about, what if it happened to you?" MacLaine says.

MacLaine was speaking as part of an upcoming interview for her new movie The Last Word. She and Charlize Theron presented the Oscar for best foreign language film. Even for veteran actors, that moment is nerve-wracking.

“It is an awe-inspiring when you are in front of all of those people you respect so much. Anyone who does the Oscars is nervous if they have a brain," says MacLaine. “I was absolutely nervous.”

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MacLaine said it would be "wonderful” if Beatty was asked to give the best picture award next year to make up for the error. But she was still reflective on what took place.

“I’m basically a mystic. And I’m wondering what was that all about? And I am not sure yet. I have to think about it some more," says MacLaine. “The one thing you learned about what occurred at the Oscars is that every instant of life is important. And anything like that can happen to you, driving in a car, leading a seminar, working at your desk and presenting an award."

Maria Puente contributing