USA TODAY International Edition
Diverse contenders could make history
This Oscar season looks like one for the record books – and not just because of COVID- 19- era unpredictability.
After years of # OscarsSoWhite controversy, the 93rd Academy Awards ( airing live April 25 on ABC) could be historic in terms of representation.
Key films such as “One Night in Miami,” “Minari” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” put an emphasis on stories of people of color with diverse storytellers at the helm.
Sure, Meryl Streep might break her own record of 21 Oscar nominations. But there are bigger deals at play.
According to awards site GoldDerby. com, six Black actors are in the top five of their respective categories: Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey”) and Zendaya (“Malcolm & Marie”) for best actress, Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey”) and Delroy Lindo (“Da 5 Bloods”) for best actor, and Boseman (“Da 5 Bloods”), Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) and Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) for supporting actor.
That would be a record seven nominations for Black performers, breaking the precedent of six in 2017.
And although Asian heritage in Oscar history has been debated over the years, 2021 could see Asian actors breaking significant ground in the wake of a “Parasite” best- picture win last year.
Here are eight actors and filmmakers who could make history when Oscar nominations are announced March 15:
Riz Ahmed
The first Asian and first Muslim to win a lead acting Emmy ( for “The Night Of ”), Ahmed impressed critics and pundits alike as a rocker drummer forced to deal with being deaf in “Sound of Metal.”
The British star would be only the third Asian performer to be nominated for best actor – the others being Yul Brynner (“The King and I”) and Ben Kingsley (“Gandhi” and “House of Sand and Fog”) – plus Ahmed would be the first nominee of Pakistani heritage in the category.
Chadwick Boseman
Boseman, who died in August at age 43, has two high- profile roles this awards season: as a self- absorbed musician in “Ma Rainey” and the charismatic U. S. Army squad leader of “Da 5 Bloods.”
If nominated for both, Boseman would be the first posthumous double nominee in Oscar history. And were he to win, it’d be the third posthumous win by an actor, after Peter Finch for “Network” and Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight.”
Viola Davis
A fourth nomination for Davis for “Ma Rainey,” in which she plays the fiery title blues singer, would make her the most nominated Black actress in Academy history.
Davis previously won supporting actress for “Fences,” and a victory for “Ma Rainey” would make Davis the
first Black actress with multiple wins and the eighth actress in history to snag both lead and supporting Oscars.
Regina King
The actress- turned- filmmaker is earning many kudos for “One Night in Miami,” her directorial debut focusing on Black icons Cassius Clay ( Eli Goree), Jim Brown ( Aldis Hodge), Sam Cooke ( Odom) and Malcolm X ( Kingsley BenAdir).
Garnering a best- director nomination would make King the first woman of color, the first Black woman and only the seventh Black person in the category.
Spike Lee
After winning his first Oscar two years ago for the “BlacKkKlansman” screenplay, Lee is back in the awards conversation for “Da 5 Bloods,” about a crew of African American Vietnam vets who return to the battlefield years later. A best director nomination would make Lee the first Black filmmaker to compete in the category twice ( he also was nominated for “BlacKkKlansman”).
Steven Yeun
Yeun, best known to audiences for the TV series “The Walking Dead,” has a career- defining turn in “Minari” as a Korean American farmer who moves his family from California to Arkansas in search of the American dream.
Yeun would be the second Asian American nominated for best actor ( after Brynner, who was an American citizen at the time of his win) – and like Ahmed, he’d be among only a handful of Asian performers in the category and the first of Korean descent.
Yuh- jung Youn
Playing a scene- stealing grandmother in “Minari,” the 73- year- old South Korean actress is finally finding recognition in America after decades of film and TV work overseas. She would be the fourth Asian nominated for supporting actress and would be only the second to win, after Japanborn Miyoshi Umeki (“Sayonara”) became the first Asian actor to receive an Oscar in 1957. And like her co- star Yeun, Youn would be the first Korean actor with a nomination.
Chloe Zhao
Zhao revealed the nomadic world of older Americans who hit the road to make a living in “Nomadland,” a bestpicture contender starring Frances McDormand. With King, the filmmaker would share the designation of being the first woman of color in a category in which only five female directors have been nominated.
Just one, Kathryn Bigelow, has won, for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010.