National Post (National Edition)
— ACTOR LESLIE ODOM JR. ON GREATER GOLDEN DIVERSITY IN GLOBE NOMINATIONS,
GLOBE NOMINATIONS BEGIN TO SHOW GREATER DIVERSITY
Without question, things are changing. The table is getting longer, the room is getting larger, and the lens is finding new people and new interesting stories to tell.
Hollywood period drama Mank led a list of Golden Globe nominations with six on Wednesday that were strong on diversity and dominated by Netflix in a reflection of the upheaval wrought by the pandemic on the traditional film industry.
From the movie version of rap-infused musical Hamilton to LGBTQ musical The Prom and director nods for three women, the nominations — which begin the Hollywood awards season — recognized multiple stories and performers in an industry that critics have long complained is dominated by white men.
The contest for the best drama movie will also include modern Great Recession story Nomadland, 1960s Vietnam War protest drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, #MeToo revenge story Promising Young Woman and aging family drama The Father.
Sacha Baron Cohen's satire on former U.S. president Donald Trump's America, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm; Hamilton; The Prom; autism story Music; and time-loop comedy Palm Springs will compete in a separate category for musicals and comedies.
For television, British royal family drama The Crown, whose season focused on the late Princess Diana, led the way with six nods. Right behind with five nominations was Canada's own Schitt's Creek.
The quirky CBC comedy wrapped its sixth and final season last April — won in all seven major Emmy Awards comedy categories last fall, and could pull a similar sweep at the Golden Globes.
The show is up for best TV musical or comedy series, and all four of its Canadian leads — Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, co-creator Daniel Levy and Annie Murphy — are up for acting prizes.
“What a way to wake up!” Daniel and Eugene Levy said Wednesday. “We are so proud of the entire cast and crew of Schitt's Creek, and we are thrilled to celebrate the end of this series with the show's first Golden Globe nominations.”
New Brunswick-born Donald Sutherland also earned a nomination for his role as the father of Nicole Kidman's character in the HBO miniseries The Undoing. Kidman and star Hugh Grant are also nominated for the psychological thriller — which is up for best TV limited series or motion picture made for TV.
Streaming service Netflix beat all comers in both film, with 22 nods, and TV, with 20, after a year in which the coronavirus pandemic led Hollywood studios to push back dozens of their film releases or put them on streaming services, and many movie theatres were closed for months. Amazon Studios was a distant second with seven nominations in the movie field.
Three of the five directors nominated Wednesday were women, including Regina King for the story of a meeting of four Black icons in the 1960s in One Night in Miami, Britain's Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland.
Among the acting nominees were Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman, in his last film role, in jazz period piece Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed as a drummer losing his hearing in Sound of Metal, Andra Day for her role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and Dev Patel for the modern twist on Charles Dickens's The Personal History of David Copperfield.
“Without question, things are changing,” said actor Leslie Odom Jr., who was involved in Hamilton, Music and One Night in Miami, where he played A Change is Gonna Come singer Sam Cooke.
“The table is getting longer, the room is getting larger, and the lens is finding new people and new interesting stories to tell,” Odom said.
The Globes are to be handed out at a virtual ceremony on Feb. 28, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The winners are selected by the small Hollywood Foreign Press Association.