Oscar nominees have been told by the show’s producers that they are not allowed to give their acceptance speeches remotely via Zoom next month during the Academy Awards, and clothing like hoodies and loungewear will be banned at the ceremony.
Producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins, and Stacey Sher told attendees in an email on Thursday that an on-site coronavirus-related safety team will be present for the event at the Los Angeles Union Station.
“We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and ENJOYABLE evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts,” the producers wrote in their email to nominees.
The producers said guests must follow a strict dress code, saying it will be a “fusion of Inspirational and aspirational, which in actual words means formal is totally cool if you want to go there, but casual is really not.”
The news comes after actor Jason Sudeikis went viral on social media after he accepted his Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards in a tie-dye hoodie last month.
I'm not sure if this is *officially true* but I'm pretty sure that Jason Sudeikis is the first person to accept a #GoldenGlobes in a hoodie https://t.co/gMrpbjjqwe pic.twitter.com/xUq890Muht
— Variety (@Variety) March 1, 2021
Producers also said there will be “additional show elements live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood,” and acknowledged that some celebrities might be hesitant to gather in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Of course, your first thought is CAN THAT BE DONE SAFELY? The answer is YES, IT CAN,” the producers wrote. “We are treating the event as an active movie set, with specially designed testing cadences to ensure up-to-the-minute results, including an on-site COVID safety team with PCR testing capability.”
Guests who are “unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about travelling” were told “there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show.”
In a letter emailed to the Academy’s nearly 10,000 members, Academy president David Rubin said all in-person events that usually occur around the Oscars — including the Nominees Luncheon and the Governors Ball — were canceled, according to a report by the Hollywood Reporter.
“Though we’d hoped the pandemic would be more in our rearview mirror by the month of April, the health and safety of our members and Oscar nominees are our primary concern, so we’ve had to make some necessary decisions about some of our highly anticipated Oscar-week events,” Rubin wrote.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.
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