Academy award winner Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams announced a more diverse list of this years Oscar Nominations on ABC TV. March 12, 2023. The awards ceremony will air on ABC starting at 8 pm.
This years Oscar nominations have set a record for Asian representation, as for the first time ever, four Asian actors have been nominated.Top of Form Bottom of FormThe bulk of the four acting nominations come from one film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, which had a successful day with 11 Oscar nominations in total across performing categories as well as best picture, director, best screenplay and more. Michelle Yeoh received her first-ever Oscar nomination for actress in a lead role and in doing so became the first woman identifying as Asian to be nominated for the award. Yeoh’s cast mates, Ke Huy Quan (actor in a supporting role) and Stephanie Hsu (actress in a supporting role) are also first-time nominees and have helped contribute to the milestone for Asian actor representation at the Oscars.
The fourth performer that has helped surpass 2004’s record of three Asian actors being nominated, namely Indian and Iranian actors Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo for their performances in House of Sand and Fog and Japan’s Ken Watanabe for his performance in The Last Samurai is Hong Chau in the actress in the supporting role category.
All four of the Asian performers nominated have had a successful awards season thus far. Chau’s nomination backs up her previous nominations for this year’s BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards. Yeoh, whose storied career and incredible talent is finally reaping well-deserved benefits, has also received a BAFTA and SAG nomination for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, along with a Critics Choice Award nomination and Golden Globe win. Hsu’s incredible performance in Everywhere All at Once was also recognized by SAG and Quan is now a Golden Globe and Critics Choice award-winner and has picked up nominations from BAFTA and SAG as well.
Angela Basset also got a historic first best supporting actress nominee for a black person for Wanakanda Forever which got five Oscar nominations including best picture. She also won the Golden Globe and Critics choice for the same category and is sure to win the Oscar this time.
India’s RRR failed to get the nomination for best foreign picture for which it won the Critics Choice Award for the same category. But RRR did get the best song nomination for Naatu Naatu for which it won the Golden Globe award and is sure to get the Oscar. Two documentaries from India also got Oscar nominations. Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes and Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers have also been nominated in the Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories respectively. Pakistan’s entry for the Oscars Joyland which has received critical acclaim also did not get the Oscar nomination for which it was short listed.
Afghani Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai also got a nomination for her documentary short film Stranger at the Gate as executive producer. The film, which charts the surprising change of heart of a PTSD-suffering former U.S. Marine who set out to bomb a mosque but instead converted to Islam, was a prize winner at the 2022 Tribeca Festival.
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