Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, H.E.R., Riz Ahmed Nominated For Oscars
Ten years ago, Nine Inch Nails bandmates Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won an Oscar on their first time out. Reznor and Ross had made their film-scoring debut on David Fincher’s The Social Network, and that work won the duo an Oscar for Best Original Score. Now, Reznor and Ross have a very good chance at repeating. Just hours after this year’s Grammys ceremony wrapped up, this year’s Oscar nominations were announced. As widely predicted, Reznor and Ross have been nominated twice in the Best Original Score — once for Fincher’s Mank and once for the Pixar film Soul. (They already won a Golden Globe for their Soul score.
In the Best Original Score category, Reznor and Ross are up against film score veteran James Newton Howard, nominated for his work on the Paul Greengrass/Tom Hanks Western News Of The World, and jazz musician and longtime Spike Lee collaborator Terence Blanchard, nominated for Da 5 Bloods. The other Best Original Score nominee with rock-band experience is Emile Mosseri, a member of the band the Dig, whose work on Minari is also nominated.
In the Best Original Song category, the wildcard is “Husavik,” which Will Ferrell sang in the Netflix comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga. (It’s a duet between Ferrell and Molly Sandén; Rachel McAdams lip-synced Sandén’s part in the movie.) The other nominees are all pretty standard prestige-heavy end-credits ballads: H.E.R.’s “Fight For You” from Judas And The Black Messiah, Celeste’s “Hear My Voice” from The Trial Of The Chicago 7, Leslie Odom Jr.’s “Speak Now” from One Night In Miami, Lauren Pausini’s “Io Sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead. H.E.R.’s Oscar nomination comes immediately after she won the Song Of The Year award for “I Can’t Breathe” at the Grammys. Diane Warren is one of the co-writers of “Io Sì (Seen),” and Warren has now been nominated for Best Original Song 12 times. She has never won.
Leslie Odom Jr. co-wrote “Speak Now” with Nashville songwriter Sam Ashworth, so he’s nominated for Best Original Song. Odom has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actor after playing Sam Cooke in One Night In Miami. He’s now the third person to be nominated in the song and acting categories in the same year, after Mary J. Blige and Lady Gaga.
A lot of actors were nominated this year for playing musicians. The Best Actress nominees include Viola Davis, who played blues great Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Andra Day, who played Billie Holiday in The United States Vs. Billie Holiday. In Best Actor, the late Chadwick Boseman is up for playing the fictional jazz trumpeter Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, while occasional rapper Riz Ahmed is up for Best Actor for playing fictional metal drummer Ruben Stone in Sound Of Metal. Sound Of Metal, a film partially inspired by the story of sludge-metal duo Jucifer, has also been nominated for Best Picture. Riz Ahmed is now the first person ever to be nominated for an Oscar where he wears a Youth Of Today hoodie.