We told you the Oscars would be different this year.
Producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh previously announced that they were going to use the COVID induced restrictions to their advantage by treating the annual awards show as a “movie” going so far as to say that every “nominee, every person that gives an award, will feel like characters in a film.”
I mean, the very fact that they are eligible to present awards at the Oscars probably means that they are all characters in at least one film, but whatever — let’s not get caught up in semantics.
In the first television promo for the prestigious event, 15 former Academy Award winners and nominees are announced as presenters for the film industry’s night of nights, boasting some serious star power.
Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Bong Joon Ho, Don Cheadle, Bryan Cranston, Laura Dern, Harrison Ford, Regina King, Marlee Matlin, Rita Moreno, Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon and Zendaya will be among those who will be presenting awards across the various Oscars categories.
As previously reported, the show’s producers have been “weighing a plan that would rotate nominees and presenters in and out of the area where the awards are being handed out as a COVID precaution. Cleaning crews will then sanitize the area before the next batch of nominees and presenters take their seats.”
The logistical nightmare of this arrangement will no doubt be mitigated by the excitement of being able to have the award ceremony at all, and even more so by the utterly, outrageously lavish goodie bags which last year, were worth an eye-watering $294,536.
The line-up, sorry — cast — of presenters at the 2021 Academy Awards is also reflective of the historically diverse list of nominees up for various nods.
Nine of the 20 acting nominations went to BIPOC performers and two women were recognised in the category for Best Director — Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland. Zhao and Fennell’s films are also included in the Best Picture category along with The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari Sound of Metal, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Check out the trailer announcing the Oscars presenters below.
The 93 Academy Awards will be aired on Channel 7 on Monday, April 26 at 10 am AEDT.
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