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An Oscar is required for playing a real person: NPR

Aunjanue Ellis, Mikayla Bartholomew, Will Smith, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton and Daniele Lawson in King Richard.

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Aunjanue Ellis, Mikayla Bartholomew, Will Smith, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton and Daniele Lawson in King Richard.

Warner Bros.

Listen, I know the Oscars trying to streamline This year, it even went as far as pre-recording a series of award speeches in the hope of freeing up space for montages that celebrate the magic of movies. (“Continued: Hello to… Movies! Remember Casablanca? Guess who’s going to come and join me? Fascinating? City Slickers 3? Well, you know what they all have in common, right? All movies! “)

But I have a humble suggestion that 1) make the Oscars better; 2) add a category that is definitely packed with A-list headers; and 3) solve a problem that has plagued me for years, all at once. If that makes the Academy feel any better, they might even remove some of the vulgar, pointless items to make up for it. I mean, people who need to film with all the fancy cell phone cameras they have these days, right?

That new category: best tuned performance.

You may have heard me talk about this in previous episodes of Happy hour pop culture. But if I could just send one message to the Academy voters, it would be nine simple words: “They don’t give MacArthur Genius Grants to Frank Caliendo. ” Little rich never won an E, let alone EGOT. The Emmys celebrated the occasional celebrity impersonation, cough often doesn’t explain Alec Baldwin orbut the Oscars often go a step further in awarding their highest acting honors to historical imitation.

Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem in It’s Ricardos.

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Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem in It’s Ricardos.

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This year alone, five nominations for best actress include Nicole Kidman (as Lucille Ball in the film). Being a Ricardian), Jessica Chastain (as Tammy Faye Bakker in Tammy Faye’s Eyes) and Kristen Stewart (as Princess Diana in Spencer), while nominations for best actor include Will Smith (as Richard Williams in King Richard) and Javier Bardem (as Desi Arnaz in Being a Ricardian). Those five performances include some real highlights: Tammy Faye’s Eyes is flawed, to put it mildly, but Chastain’s take on Bakker is deep weird and extravagant commit, while Smith takes on Williams that certainly goes beyond mere impersonation.

But if you have seen Being a RicardianAsk yourself: Have you ever, for even a nanosecond, forgotten that you were watching Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem play a game of imitation?

This first appeared in NPR’s Happy hour pop culture news. Sign up to receive new mail so you don’t miss the next, and get weekly recommendations on the things that make us happy.

Impersonating a celebrity uses a completely different skill set than creating a new character, and it often involves generous support from the makeup and hairstyling department. Gary Oldman won a 2018 Oscar for his turn as Winston Churchill in Darkest hour, but what percentage of the chin augmentation do (also Oscar winners) do the heavy lifting? Meanwhile, the other nominations for Best Actor that year – Timothée Chalamet in Call me by your nameDaniel Day-Lewis in Ghost themeDaniel Kaluuya in Get out and Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq. – had to create their characters without prosthetics, without any preconceptions about how their characters should look or behave, and without the benefit of historical footage history to study. Oldman works well in Darkest hourbut he has a completely different job to do.

When I first suggested changing the category by these lines, I suggested removing the gender binary in favor of reordering the best native performance and best tuned performance. Several people tweeted towards me warning of unintended consequences – especially a heavyweight lineup in which different Key Men lure women out of major acting awards. . I’m not 100% sure that’s true, but I concede the point and instead propose a rearrangement with three main actor categories: best actress and best actor. best – awarded specifically for performances by fictional characters – and gender neutral “best tuned main performance.”

Scrutinizing this year’s best actress lineup, the decision to move Chastain, Stewart and Kidman (or maybe Jennifer Hudson into the cast) Respect) into the best-adapted lead performance that could free up her spot at Best Actress alongside Olivia Colman and Penelope Cruz: let’s say like Renate Reinsve in World’s ugliest personRuth Negga in PassEmilia Jones in CODA and/or Alana Haim in Licorice pizza. There’s nothing wrong with having an extra chance to win new A-list slots, right?

I know we still have a lot of work to do here: for example, whether it’s necessary to recreate this system in the supporting actress/actor categories, or the specifics of how you define an original performance versus an adaptation. But it’s time for the industry to at least reflect on the idea that not all actor jobs are created equal.

Does it solve all the problems with the Oscars – like their nagging tendency to favor gritty dramas over any other genre, year after year, even when the movies excellent comedian harder to succeed? Is not.

But it would be a welcome start.

This essay first appeared in NPR’s Happy hour pop culture news. Sign up to receive new mail so you don’t miss the next, and get weekly recommendations on the things that make us happy.

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