Margot flies Aussie flag
AUSSIE actor Margot Robbie has scored her second Oscar nomination.
The 29-year-old was nominated for best supporting actress yesterday for her role as a sexually harassed journalist in Bombshell.
The Queensland-born star was nominated two years ago for her stunning turn as disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, which she also produced.
But Robbie will face stiff competition, with Laura Dern picking up a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice award for her scene-stealing role as a divorce lawyer in the story of a relationship gone awry, Marriage Story.
Fellow Australian Lee Smith, who was expected to get the fourth nod of his career for his editing on World War I war epic 1917, was an unexpected omission.
New Zealand has plenty to celebrate with Taika Waititi’s comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit up for best picture.
Waititi also scored a nomination for best adapted screenplay, but missed out in the directing category.
Todd Phillips’s Joker led the nominations with 11, while Martin Scorsese’s crime epic The Irishman scored 10, as did Quentin Tarantino’s 1960s Los Angeles dark fairytale Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and Sam Mendes’s 1917.
Those four films were among nine nominated for best picture. The others were: Parasite, Little Women, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit and Ford v Ferrari.
Scarlett Johansson, 35, made Oscars history with nominations in two acting categories — for her leading role in Marriage Story and supporting role in Jojo Rabbit.
Johansson is the first actor in more than a decade to pick up a double nomination, following Aussie Cate Blanchett in 2008.
Joaquin Phoenix, who has dominated the awards season so far, was nominated for lead actor alongside Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory, Leonardo DiCaprio for Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, rising star Adam Driver for Marriage Story and veteran Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes.
While Joker was expected to do well, the academy’s overwhelming support for a movie that was far from a critical favourite was unexpected.
The 92nd Academy Awards will be held on February 9 in Hollywood.