First, the good news: Asian actors turned in the best performance at the 95th Oscar nomination, with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu (all from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Hong Chau (“The Whale”). ”). representing a fifth of the actors nominated this year. (Had supporting actress Dolly De Leon made the cut in her category, that number would have gone up to a quarter.) Yeoh is the first Asian actress to be nominated in the leading category since Merle Oberon in 1935 for “The Dark Angel,” and is the second-oldest Asian nominee after Youn Yuh-Jung, who won a supporting actress trophy in 2021 for “Minary”.
Brian Tyree Henry earned a surprise first Oscar nomination for his moving role in “Causeway,” Angela Bassett earned her first nomination in 29 years for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas earned one for “Blonde.” ,” bringing BiPOC’s total acting nominations to 7 out of 20 across the four acting categories, an improvement from last year. (The lead actor category is, sadly, five white males, as is actor distribution was the last ceremony).
Still, it was a bit of a harrowing morning for black women other than Bassett, especially since “The Woman King” lead and director Viola Davis and Gina Prince-Bythewood were left empty-handed (as was the movie overall). The same goes for Danielle Deadwyler and hers “Till” director, Chinonye Chukwu.
However, the directing category (with its notable shortage of women after Jane Campion won an Oscar in March) includes co-director Daniel Kwan, who was also nominated for film and screenplay, making him the third Asian director to win. landing the trifecta, after past and recent winners Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”) and Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”).
Asian representation extended beyond the mainstream categories this year, with Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro earning a nomination for his screenplay “Living” (itself an adaptation of master Asian filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru”), and in the animated feature category, “Turning Red” director Domee Shi marks the 10th consecutive year that an Asian artist has been represented in this category.
And while women were left out of the directing category this year, the cinematography lineup features its third nominated cinematographer, “Elvis” lens Mandy Walker, who joins Rachel Morrison for “Mudbound” and Ari Wegner for “The Power of the Dog” as the only films with a female DP nominated. To date, a woman has not won this category.
