Organisers have promised this year’s Oscars will be the “most diverse ever” despite the ongoing row over the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ failure to nominate a single actor of colour for the second year running.
At the annual Oscar nominees luncheon on Monday, the ceremony’s producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin told Variety that they had been working to ensure this year’s event “will have true diversity and will represent what the world looks like” since September. The Academy has previously said the musician, composer and producer Quincy Jones, the Django Unchained star Kerry Washington, Indian-born actor Priyanka Chopra, and South Korea’s Lee Byung-hun, will present awards, while Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Hart, Benicio del Toro and Pharrell Williams are also expected to attend.
Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith and Tyrese Gibson are among African American stars to have called for a boycott or signalled that they will not be attending this year’s ceremony despite the Academy’s promise last month to introduce radical rule changes aimed at doubling voting representation among female and ethnic minority demographics by 2020. A number of Oscar nominees in attendance at Monday’s event, including Creed’s Sylvester Stallone, Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy and Carol’s Rooney Mara, were happy to discuss diversity in Hollywood and how the issue affected their own films.
It was also revealed that nominees will be asked to submit their full list of “thank you” recipients in advance of the ceremony for the first time this year. The move is designed to allow producers to scroll names beneath the screen so that Oscar winners can use their allotted 45 second speeches for other purposes, and is designed to avoid prize recipients being unceremoniously “played off” by the orchestra at inopportune moments: last year a winner of the best documentary short film prize, Dana Perry, was interrupted by music just as she had begun to discuss the suicide of her son and its impact on her as a film-maker.
This year’s Oscars takes place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 28 February, with Chris Rock set to host. Alejandro G Iñárritu’s grim western The Revenant is the bookmakers’ favourite in the best director and best cinematography categories, with star Leonardo DiCaprio also widely expected to win best actor for his turn as a vengeful 19th century frontiersman. Catholic abuse drama Spotlight remains the favourite to take best film in a tight race with Iñárritu’s movie and financial crisis comedy drama The Big Short.
