'Lion' director Garth Davis is among the Aussie invited to join AMPAS.
Joel Edgerton, Chris Hemsworth, Margot Robbie, Rebel Wilson, Garth Davis, Cate Shortland, Jocelyn Moorhouse and Eva Orner are among more than two dozen Australians who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
Tanna’s Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, writers John Collee (Tanna, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) and Luke Davies (Lion), film editors Alexandre de Franceschi (Lion) and Tania Michel Nehme (Tanna), make-up artists and hairstylists Shane Thomas (The Dressmaker, Hacksaw Ridge), Rick Findlater (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), and Kerry Warn (The Great Gatsby) are also admitted into the Oscars body.
Other Aussie invitees include designer Beverley Dunn (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), sound designers Peter Grace (Hacksaw Ridge), Robert Mackenzie (Hacksaw Ridge) Guntis Sics (Kong: Skull Island) and Andy Wright (Hacksaw Ridge), visual effects designer Jason Billington (Deepwater Horizon) and composers Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (Hell or High Water) and Lisa Gerrard (2.22, Jane Got a Gun).
A record 774 invitations were issued to new members, up from 683 in 2016 and 322 in 2015, as the Academy strives to diversify its ranks by bringing in more women, people of colour and filmmakers from around the world.
The list, which represents talent from 57 countries, is 39 percent female and 30 percent people of colour. Seven of the Academy branches – actors, casting directors, costume designers, documentary, executives and film editors – invited more women than men.
The ages range from Elle Fanning at 19 to showbiz legend Betty White, who is 95.
“It is a huge honour to be invited to join this organisation alongside outstanding filmmakers from around the world,” Eva Orner, who won an Academy Award for best feature documentary in 2008 for Taxi to the Dark Side, shared with Alex Gibney, told IF.
Orner, who won a daytime Emmy this year for Out of Iraq, is in Melbourne shooting a short documentary/commercial project, title under wraps, which will be launched in September.
Sunstar Entertainment’s Andrew Fraser, who was an executive producer on Lion, said of Garth Davis’ invite, “What a fitting honour for a creative genius.”
Among the actors admitted are Chris Evans, Adam Driver, Riz Ahmed, Domhnall Gleeson, Dwayne Johnson, Kristen Stewart, the newly crowned Wonder Woman Gal Gadot and Guardians of the Galaxy's Chris Pratt.
The executives include Shari Redstone, vice chair of the board of directors of Viacom and CBS, IM Global founder Stuart Ford and FilmNation founder Glen Basner.
The directors branch welcomed Moonlight's Barry Jenkins, Nocturnal Animals' Tom Ford, German helmer Fatih Akin (In the Fade), Chilean-born Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) and South Korea's Kim Ki-duk (3-Iron), among others.