Oscars 2021: British star Riz Ahmed is first Muslim Best Actor nominee

British actor Riz Ahmed today made history to become the first Muslim nominated for an Oscar for lead actor for his role in hit film Sound of Metal. 

The 38-year-old Londoner won rave reviews for his depiction of Ruben Stone, a rock-and-roll drummer and recovering alcoholic whose life goes into a free-fall when he loses his hearing. 

The US actor Mahershala Ali was the first Muslim to win an Oscar when he was named best supporting actor for Moonlight in 2017, and won the same prize in 2019 for Green Book. 

Ahmed tweeted today: ‘Wow! I’m honoured to be nominated by my fellow actors alongside such inspiring performances, and am grateful to the Academy for their support and encouragement.’ 

He was previously the first Muslim to win a lead acting Emmy in 2017 for his performance in The Night Of. 

Ahmed was praised for his ‘passionate performance’ on Sound Of Metal, which he prepared for by learning drumming and American Sign Language as well as attending Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. 

Last month, Ahmed announced he’d tied the knot with his wife Fatima in a ‘super intimate’ ceremony with only a few guests present.

He told Louis Theroux’s Grounded podcast that he tied the knot ‘not very long ago’ after being quizzed by the host about his marital status when he mentioned his ‘wife’s family.’ 

Ahmed , who was born in Wembley, was explaining he chose to stay in California after filming at the end of last year because his ‘wife’s family’ is from the Bay Area.

Theroux asked him if he was married as he stated he didn’t know the Venom star wasn’t single.

The actor replied: ‘I think it’s the first time I’ve mentioned it in an interview so congratulations on that incredibly exciting scoop.

‘I don’t really feel it’s generally that relevant [his private life], so I don’t delve into my personal life or dating history.’  

Ahmed said the ‘main reason’ he announced he is married is that he has been talking about his private life more recently. 

He said by speaking out more he hopes it will encourage others to take the pandemic seriously. 

He went onto reveal he and Fatima exchanged vows in a simple ceremony with only a few guests present due to COVID-19 restrictions.

He said: ‘Obviously, kept it super intimate, and socially distanced. There was just like, hardly anyone there really.

‘We did it in a backyard, which is nice in lots of ways. I think the nicest thing about it was you didn’t have 500 aunties hanging around you, pinching your cheeks.’

The Four Lions star joked: ‘No disrespect to the aunties, but Asian weddings are big.

‘You always got these people crawling out the woodworks, who I think are kind of probably impostors. They just smell the kebabs on the street and just wander in.’

Ahmed went onto reveal more about his wife while appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, explaining they met in 2019 while he was preparing to play a deaf drummer in Sound Of Metal. 

He said: ‘She’s an amazing novelist. We met so randomly while I was preparing for this role, for Sound Of Metal when I was in New York.

‘We both sat down at the same table in the cafe where we both turned up to write. We were both jostling over the same laptop plug points, like a very modern way of meeting.

‘And we struck up a friendship and reconnected down the line. But it’s weirdly like one of the many things about preparing for this role that was so special, it just brought a lot of goodness into my life.

‘Obviously I met Fatima for the first time and met so many people in the deaf community that have become friends.

‘There’s just something about this whole period around this film that was kind of life changing.’ 

Last year, Ahmed – who is also a rapper – announced he had lost two close family members to coronavirus.  

He told Theroux: ‘I felt like talking about it and saying, ‘Hey, look, this is a real thing. It’s affected me and my family’.’ 

Ahmed did add however he didn’t think it was ‘necessary’ to share with fans all aspects of his life as he continued: ‘If I was quite a private person, I wouldn’t be doing a podcast with you being like, ‘Hey, check out these films’, ‘I’m on Twitter.’ I guess it’s just about having boundaries.’ 

The Night Of star, who was born in London to a British Pakistani family, spoke about his heartache after losing two family members in an interview with GQ Hype last year.

He said:  ‘I have lost two family members to Covid. I just want to believe their deaths and all the others aren’t for nothing. We gotta step up to re-imagine a better future.’

He previously revealed that his uncle Shakeel had died on the weekend of April 4, describing him as a ‘legend in his community who will be missed by so many’. 

As an actor, Ahmed has won a Primetime Emmy Award and has received nominations for a Golden Globe and three British Independent Film Awards. 

In 2016, he appeared in the action film Jason Bourne, and played Bodhi Rook in the Star Wars Anthology film Rogue One.

He also starred as a young man accused of murder in the HBO miniseries The Night Of, earning critical acclaim. 

For his guest role in Girls; he won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for the former, becoming the first Asian male to win an acting Emmy, and the first Muslim and first Asian to win a lead acting Emmy. 

Oscar nominations 2021: Mank leads with 10 nods including Best Leading Actor and Best Film – with a record number of nominees of color following push for diversity

By Ciara Farmer and Eve Buckland for MailOnline  

This year’s Academy Awards are officially the most diverse yet with a record-breaking number of actors of color being nominated and two female directors receiving nods for the first time. 

Biographical drama Mank led nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards on Monday with 10 nods, including best actor and best film. The Father followed closely behind with seven nominations.  

Nine of the 20 acting nominees this year are actors of color and it is the first time in history that the best actor category isn’t majority white.

Nominations in the Best Actor in a Leading Role category include Steven Yeun (Minari) who is the first Asian American to receive a nod; Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) who received a posthumous nomination; and Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) who is the first Muslim actor to be given a nod in the category.  

It is also the first time two female directors have ever been nominated in the best director category, with Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) both receiving nods. Only five women have ever been nominated in the category before.

Zhao is also the first woman of color to ever be nominated for best director. She also got nominations for the film’s adapted screenplay, editing and as a producer in the best picture category. 

The nine people of color nominated in acting categories include Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Steven Yeun (Minari), Best Actress in a Supporting Role nominee Youn Yuh-jung (Minari), Best Actress in a Leading Role nominees Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role nominees Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah), Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami) and Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah). 

The last record for non-white actors being nominated was back in 2017 when seven actors of color were nominated, including Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Ruth Negga and Octavia Spencer. 

Viola Davis, who won for her performance in 2016’s Fences, landed her fourth Oscar nomination, making her the most nominated black actress ever. 

It follows a push from the Academy to diversify its membership following the #OscarsSoWhite race row back in 2015 and 2016 when only white actors were nominated. 

Last year’s Oscars also prompted outrage after only one non-white actor, British star Cynthia Erivo, was nominated for her role as anti-slavery icon Harriet Tubman in Harriet. 

The voting body has vastly expanded in the past year with more than 800 new members.  New inclusion and representation rules, which were first announced last year, for the best picture category have not yet come into effect. 

Following on from Mank and The Father in numbers were Nomadland, Sound Of Metal, Minari, Judas And The Black Messiah and Trial Of The Chicago Seven, which were all named in six categories.

Promising Young Woman and Ma Rainey received five nominations and Borat came in with two. 

After receiving BAFTA nods earlier this month, late star Chadwick Boseman received a Best Actor in a Leading Role nomination for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, alongside Riz Ahmed for Sound of Metal, Anthony Hopkins for The Father, Gary Oldman for Mank and Steven Yeun for Minari.

Anthony became the oldest Best Actor nominee at 83.   

The Best Actress list includes: Viola Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Andra Day for The United States vs Billie Holiday, Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a Woman, Frances McDormand for Nomadland and Carey Mulligan for Promising Young Woman.

Opening up the nominations was Actress in a Supporting Role with Maria Bakalova for Borat, Glenn Close forHillbilly Elegy, Olivia Colman for the Father, Amanda Seyfried, for the 93rd Academy Awards which were announced by actress Priyanka Chopra and musician husband Nick Jonas in a livestream. 

The Actor In a Supporting Role nods went to Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Kaluuya, Leslie Odom Jr and Paul Raci.  Adapted Screenplay nominees include Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, The Father, Nomadland, One Night In Miami and The White Tiger. 

Best Adapted Screenplay nods went to Judas And The Black Messiah, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Sound Of Metal, while Best International Feature Film gongs are going for Another Round, Better Days, Collective, The Man Who Sold His Skin, Quo Vadis Aida.  

Best Film Editing went to The Father, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal and The Trial of the Chicago 7, while Best Production Design includes The Father, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mank, News of the World and Tenet. 

After a pandemic year that shuttered most movie theaters, the best-picture nominees had hardly any box office to speak of. The Oscars won’t just lack blockbusters, it’s going forward with many movies that have barely played on the big screen at all. That leaves streaming services set to dominate Hollywood’s biggest and most sought-after awards.

Netflix, as expected, led the pack with 35 nominations. The service is still gunning for its first best-picture winner, and this year has two shots in Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7 – a movie Paramount Pictures sold off during the pandemic. Netflix led last year, too, with 24 nominations, but came away with just two wins.

Other streamers were in the mix. Amazon, in particular, was well represented with Sound of Metal, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and One Night in Miami.

The nominations were announced from London by presenters Nick Jonas and wife Priyanka Chopra Jonas. 

The Academy Awards would typically have happened by now but this year were postponed by two months due to the pandemic. 

They will instead be telecast April 25.

The film academy confirmed on Monday that the show will be held at both its usual home in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and the city’s railway hub, Union Station.    

The 93rd Academy Awards will be ‘an Oscars like none other, while prioritizing the public health and safety of all those who will participate,’ a spokesperson said.

No further new details were offered on the ceremony, which caps Hollywood’s lengthy award season.   

The film academy and ABC will hope that the nominees can drum up more excitement than they have elsewhere. Interest in little golden statuettes has nosedived during the pandemic. Ratings for a largely virtual Golden Globes plunged to 6.9 million viewers – a 64 percent drop from 2020 – last month. 

Though on Sunday the Grammys managed to break through the Zoom trap that has bedeviled other awards shows.

With the notable exception of fueling streaming subscriber growth, the pandemic has been punishing for the movie industry. Production slowed to a crawl, blockbusters were postponed or detoured to streaming and thousands have been laid off or furloughed.

But the outlook for Hollywood has recently brightened as coronavirus cases have slid and vaccines have ramped up. Movie theaters are reopening in the U.S.’s two largest markets, New York and Los Angeles. And several larger movies — including the Walt Disney Co.’s Black Widow (May 7) — are scheduled for May and beyond. 

Television’s Emmys in September were broadcast from a near-empty Los Angeles theater, with nominees and winners dialing in from their homes and socially distanced gatherings via video call.

With Covid-19 shuttering movie theaters and wreaking havoc on Hollywood’s release calendar, the all-important Academy Awards have already been postponed by two months to April 25.  

Because many studio blockbusters and indie arthouse movies have been forced to push back their release dates until theaters reopen, the cut-off date for Oscar-eligible films was also extended by two months, to the end of February.

Contagion director Steven Soderbergh will produce this year’s Oscars ceremony, which has been billed as ‘the perfect occasion for innovation and for re-envisioning the possibilities for the awards show’ by Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson.

‘We’re thrilled and terrified in equal measure,’ said Soderbergh in an earlier joint statement with co-producers Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher of Django Unchained.

 The event was scheduled for February 28, 2021, but after the coronavirus pandemic caused chaos in Hollywood and put the movie industry on hold, the governors decided to move the ceremony to April 25, 2021, according to Variety.  

‘For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times,’ began a statement from Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson.

‘They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control.’   

The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who organize the annual ceremony, met via Zoom on Monday to discuss the date the 93rd Oscars will take place on.   

‘For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times,’ began a statement from Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson.

‘They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control.’  

She added, ‘This coming Oscars and the opening of our new museum will mark an historic moment, gathering movie fans around the world to unite through cinema.’ 

The rules have also changed. A feature film must have been released between January 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021. 

December 1, 2020 was the deadline for the ‘specialty categories’ such as animated feature film.  

January 15, 2021 became the new deadline for ‘general entry categories,’ such as  best picture. 

The Academy also decided the annual Governors Awards gala has been postponed to a later unspecified date. 

And the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will now open in April 2021 to line up with the Oscars rather than December 2020.

The Oscars were previously delayed on three occasions, due to flooding in Los Angeles in 1938, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and again in 1981, following an assassination attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan.

In 1934, the Oscars had a 17-month eligibility window, which ran from 1 August 1932 until 31 December 1933 so thereafter the eligibility period would be a full calendar year.

This follows news that the Academy Awards are setting up a special task force ‘to develop and implement new representation and inclusion standards’ for Oscars eligibility by July 31, 2020.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday that there will be now be a fixed number of 10 best picture nominees beginning with the 94th Academy Awards in 2022. 

The organization is also planning to implement new eligibility requirements with an eye toward diversity in collaboration with the Producers Guild of America that will be finalized by the end of July.  

The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was created by activist April Reign in January 2015 to call out the awards ceremony for their lack of diversity, as that year, only two people of color were nominated in major categories.

Since then, the Academy has sought to double the number of women and people of color among its membership. The Academy is now said to have 26 women and 12 people of color on its 54-person board of governors – a first for the organization – which includes director Ava Duvernay. 

The most recent changes will not impact the 93rd Academy Awards set to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2021, because it is already deep into the eligibility calendar.

The film academy has shifted the number of best picture nominees several times in its history. 

In 2009, it was expanded from five to 10, which many thought at the time was in response to the lack of a nomination for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.  

In 2011, the field was allowed to fluctuate from five to 10, which led to some years having more than others. 

Last year there were nine. In the Academy’s early years, anywhere from eight to 12 films could be nominated for best picture.

The organization that puts on the Oscars is also committing to a new phase of diversity and inclusion initiatives, which it calls Academy Aperture 2025. The first phase, which ended this year, was in response to the #OscarsSoWhite criticisms.

Academy President David Rubin said that the organization had surpassed the goal to double the number of women and diverse members by 2020.   

The Emmys ceremony in September was a hybrid event that had some in-person elements with host Jimmy Kimmel and most nominees watching the show from home over Zoom.

It’s not clear how many of the nominees will be able to – or will agree to – in-person attendance. In the acting races, many seasoned actors include Anthony Hopkins, 82; Ellen Burstyn, 88; Sophia Loren, 86; Meryl Streep, 71; David Strathairn, 72; and Yuh-Jung Youn, 73. 

Andra Day won best actress at the first ever bi-coastal Golden Globes for her role in The United States Vs BIllie Holiday.

She faced heavy competition including Viola Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a Woman, Frances McDormand for Nomadland, Carey Mulligan for Promising Young Woman.

According to projections, Day had the smallest chance to win in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama category when it came to betting odds as she was a sizable underdog.

The late Chadwick Boseman won  Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for his role in  Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – as well as the Critics’ Choice Award.

Jodie Foster won  Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for The Mauritanian while Daniel Kaluuya won in the Best Supporting actor category for Judas and the Black Messiah. 

Nomadland was directed, written, edited and co-produced by Chloé Zhao, with actress Frances McDormand (who also produced the film) starring as a woman who leaves her small town to travel around the US.

The film, which was based on the 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, began a one-week-only streaming release on December 4, 2020.

It has already picked up Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, along with Best Adapted Screenplay at the latter awards.

Nomadland and Rocks lead the way with seven nods each at the BAFTAS 2021, while late star Chadwick Boseman has scored a posthumous Leading Actor nomination in a historically diverse list. 

In a historic moment for the Academy, four women have been nominated in the director category for the first time ever, while 15 of the 24 actors announced in the main categories are Black or Asian.