- Title: VARIOUS: ANNOUNCEMENT OF OSCAR NOMINATIONS AND REACTIONS
- Date: 11th February 1997
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (RTV - ) FILM DIRECTOR MIKE LEIGH, NOMINATED FOR BEST DIRECTOR FOR 'SECRETS & LIES' SAYING IT IS FANTASTIC, AND SURPRISING, WE THOUGHT IF LUCKY WE WOULD GET ONE NOMINATION FOR BRENDA BLEYTHN, BUT TO GET FIVE IS MAGIC
- Embargoed: 26th February 1997 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM/NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES/PARIS, FRANCE/ LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA7CTHTYFXPHLAXE8K64KOTCSM4
- Story Text: Britain's top directors and actors were celebrating on Tuesday (February 11) after winning more than 20 Academy Award nominations between them.
In a glittering pre-dawn ceremony, "The English Patient" captured 12 nominations, including best picture, best actor for Ralph Fiennes, best actress for Kristin Scott Thomas and best director for Anthony Minghella.
The other contenders for best film also fared well with other nominations. "Shine" and "Fargo" each claimed seven while "Jerry Maguire" and "Secrets & Lies" earned five apiece. Tom Cruise's "Maguire" is the only one of those from a true major studio, and the only one filmed in Los Angeles.
Nominated along with Fiennes and Cruise for best actor honours were Woody Harrelson for "The People vs. Larry Flynt", Geoffrey Rush for "Shine" and Billy Bob Thornton for "Sling Blade".
Rush said that "Shine" attracted the attention of the Academy because the real-life character on which is was based, Australian pianist David Helfgott, was such a extraordinary human being and director Scott Hicks had succeeded in conveying the emotions of Helfgott's performance.
Together with Scott Thomas, the nominees for best actress were Brenda Blethyn for "Secrets & Lies", Diane Keaton for "Marvin's Room", Frances McDormand for "Fargo" and Emily Watson for "Breaking the Waves".
Emily Watson, nominated for Best Actress in "Breaking the Waves," told how she discovered about her nomination during a charity lunch, and her agent ordered champagne for her.
Blethyn, little known outside her native Britain, said she had considered staying up all night to hear the nominations but then thought, "get real, you're not going to get an Oscar nomination" and went to bed early.
The big surprise was double-nominee Billy Bob Thornton, a relatively obscure actor and screenwriter who has finally made his mark with "Sling Blade", about a retarded man released from a mental institution 25 years after killing his mother and her lover.
Thornton, a former country singer who moved to Hollywood from Arkansas in 1983 and struggled for years to make a living at acting, admitted feeling strangely out of place on the list of nominees.
"It's great to be recognised," he added, "I think I'd rather be recognised now than is some of the things I've done earlier that could've gotten another kind of attention". He boasts a cult following for one of his more offbeat projects, "Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town", a spoof on horror films.
The contenders for best supporting actor are Cuba Gooding Jr.
for "Jerry Maguire", William H. Macy for "Fargo", Armin Mueller-Stahl for "Shine", Edward Norton for "Primal Fear" and James Woods for "Ghosts of Mississippi".
When the news reached Cuba Gooding Junior in London, He said he was on "cloud nine moving to cloud ten trying to make it back down from heaven once again." Film legend Lauren Bacall, a first-time Oscar nominee, was considered the sentimental choice for best supporting actress for the "The Mirror Has Two Faces". She is up against Juliette Binoche for "The English Patient", Joan Allen for "The Crucible", Barbara Hershey for "The Portrait of a Lady" and Marianne Jean-Baptiste for "Secrets & Lies".
In Paris Binoche said she heard about "The English Patient's" success when she the Oscars were great fun but at the same time they were a game that could pass very quickly, and then you had to go back to work which was the main game.
She added that she was delighted "The English Patient" had received 12 nominations as it was a great film.
Along with Minghella, the nominees for best director were Milos Forman for "The People vs. Larry Flynt", Joel Coen for "Fargo", Mike Leigh for "Secrets & Lies" and Scott Hicks for "Shine".
Milos Forman was nominated for best director for "The People vs. Larry Flynt".
"We have to pay some price for our freedoms. We don't want to be muzzled by censorship", he said, describing the message of his controversial film about the publisher of a pornographic magazine.
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Barbra Streisand and Madonna have been asked to sing the nominated songs from their respective pix, The Mirror Has Two Faces and Evita at the Oscar ceremonies March 24.
Nominations were unveiled Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. (PST) at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Acad president Arthur Hiller and 1995 supporting actress winner Mira Sorvino read the outcome of voting by the 5,000-plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. hosted by Billy Crystal, The Oscars will be handed out on March 24 at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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