The Academy Awards will apparently avoid a looming embarrassment for this year’s show and won’t be asking any past winners to take to the stage and speak glowingly about “Emilia Pérez” star and Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón.
Ever since the Oscar campaign for Gascón began to crumble over her history of racist and anti-Muslim tweets, Oscar-watchers have been wondering how the Academy was going to deal with her on the show.
Of particular concern was the fact that the Oscar producers previously announced that they would bring back the “Fab 5” format, which was first used in 2009, in which five previous winners present an award together, with each of the past winners praising one of this year’s nominees.
When that format has been implemented in the past, it was used in the four acting categories, with past Oscar winners speaking directly to and heaping praise on the nominees sitting in the audience in front of them. And in the wake of the widespread condemnation of Gascón’s old tweets, the question was obvious: Who would they get to stand on stage and say nice things about the disgraced “Emilia Perez” star?
Now it turns out that the Academy has a way out. When it announced the return of the Fab 5 format, the news was deliberately kept vague, without any mention of the categories in which it would be used. TheWrap has learned that the Oscars will indeed bring back Fab 5 — just not in the acting categories.
Instead, it will be used in categories to highlight below-the-line talent, with notable Oscar winners speaking out about the contributions of people behind the scenes.
In the acting categories, the format will most likely be the usual one, in which last year’s winners — all of whom were announced as presenters on Wednesday — will speak generally and then name the nominees, without lavishing specific praise on any of them.
If that’s the case, it will most likely fall to last year’s Best Actor winner, “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy, to read the list of names that includes Gascón’s, and to give the award to the winner.
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