Oscar Nominees Luncheon: Most Nominated movie, ‘Everything Everywhere’ Cheered the Loudest
Tom Cruise, the producing nominee for Top Gun: Maverick — making his first appearance of the season on the awards circuit, was swarmed by virtually everyone in the Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom.
Nominees queued up and were greeted with Cruise’s eye-contact, a handshake and a selfie.
Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani Nobel laureate who attended the event, was escorted over to Cruise and greeted warmly.
Even veteran A-listers Spielberg, a producing, directing and writing nominee for The Fabelmans, and Guillermo del Toro, a best animated feature nominee for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, made their way through the crowd in order to say hello.
As Academy president Janet Yang welcomed the 186 nominees who were in attendance, telling them: “You are all winners.”
The Oscar ceremony, on March 12, will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and broadcast on ABC.
A dark cloud hovered over the upbeat gathering for just a moment when Yang referenced — without using any names — Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock that marred the 94th Oscars ceremony.
“Today, I feel it’s important to take this rare opportunity, while we’re gathered here together, to address some of the Academy’s recent challenges last year,” she said. “As I’m sure you all remember, we experienced an unprecedented event at the Oscars. What happened on stage was wholly unacceptable and the response from the organization was inadequate. We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions and particularly in times of crisis. We must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry. You should and can expect no less from us going forward. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards while creating the changes we wish to see in our industry.”
