Christina Ricci has added her thoughts on the storm building around Andrea Riseborough’s Best Actress nomination at the 2023 Academy Awards. The nod for Riseborough has gained a lot of attention in the last few days after her inclusion was brought into question due to a social media campaign launched by the wife of To Leslie director Michael Morris in the weeks leading up to the nominations. Combined with complaints about other stars that “should have been nominated” in Riseborough’s place, Ricci has called the whole debacle something that the Academy should be shamed about if they end up canceling Riseborough’s nomination. Writing on her Instagram account, Ricci said:
“Seems hilarious that the ‘surprise nomination’ (meaning tons of money wasn’t spent to position this actress) of a legitimately brilliant performance is being met with an investigation. So it’s only the films and actors that can afford the campaigns that deserve recognition? Feels elitist and exclusive and frankly very backward to me. And I’m sure she had nothing to do with the campaigning. These things aren’t controlled or decided by the actors themselves and yet now her nomination will be tainted by this. And if it’s taken away shame on them.”
What Has Caused The Issues With Andrea Riseborough’s Oscar Nomination?
The Oscars rarely pass without controversy, and this year it started before the actual ceremony. Following the announcement of this year’s nominations, which included very few surprises, it was revealed that the unexpected nomination of Andrea Riseborough in the Best Actress category was being investigated for having potentially broken the strict guidelines the Academy has around “lobbying.”
The crux of the issue comes down to whether a last-minute campaign that saw Morris’s wife, Mary McCormack, was in breach of the Academy’s guidelines. McCormack was reported to have sent out emails arranging private screenings for friends, who were also members of the Academy’s actors branch, such as Courteney Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Amy Adams, who then shared praise for the movie on their social media account. Along with criticisms that stars like Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis were snubbed in the category, it has been hard for the Academy to brush the issues aside without being seen to fully investigate.
Although they did not name Riseborough, the Academy released a statement saying they were “conducting a review of the campaign procedures around this year's nominees to ensure that no guidelines were violated.” They added that the investigation is to “inform us whether changes to the guidelines may be needed in a new era of social media and digital communication.”
From the statement, it sounds like the investigation's purpose will be to redefine the rules of nominations going forward and may not apply to Riseborough’s nomination, whatever the outcome. However, the likelihood is that it will lead to a re-writing of some of the existing guidelines to prevent this kind of controversy from arising again in the future.