Ariana Grande, Kieran Culkin, Jimmy Kimmel among 534 invited to join Oscars academy
The Oscars' voting body is growing again with a glittering list of new recruits that includes pop superstar Ariana Grande, newly minted Oscar-winner Kieran Culkin and late-night veterans — and past Oscar hosts — Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien.
On Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it had invited 534 new members across its 19 branches. This year's class includes Oscar nominees, below-the-line craftspeople and rising international voices — among them 'Wicked' star Grande; 'Succession' actor Culkin, who won the supporting actor Oscar for 'A Real Pain'; and late-night hosts Kimmel, a four-time Oscar emcee, and O'Brien, who hosted the ceremony for the first time this year. In all, the group features 91 Oscar nominees and 26 winners, including Mikey Madison, who took the lead actress Oscar for the best picture winner 'Anora.' Madison's co-stars Yura Borisov and Karren Karagulian were also invited to the actors' branch.
The latest invitations reflect the academy's ongoing push for greater inclusion, even after meeting its post-#OscarsSoWhite diversity benchmarks. Of the 2025 class, 41% identify as women, 45% as members of underrepresented ethnic or racial communities and 55% are from outside the United States. Across the total membership, 35% identify as women, 22% as members of underrepresented groups and 21% are based internationally.
Read more: Inside the 'Wicked' musical number that could win Ariana Grande an Oscar
After years of rapid expansion — peaking with a record-setting incoming class of 928 in 2018 — the academy has shifted toward more sustainable growth. Still, this year's tally represents a modest increase over last year's 487 invitees.
Other additions to the acting branch — the academy's largest — include 'The Apprentice' co-stars Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan, who drew nominations for their portrayals of Roy Cohn and Donald Trump, respectively, in the controversial biopic, along with supporting actress nominee Monica Barbaro ('A Complete Unknown'), Aubrey Plaza, Jason Momoa, Jodie Comer, Dave Bautista and 'Emilia Pérez' star Adriana Paz. (Notably, 'Emilia Pérez' lead Karla Sofía Gascón, who made history this year as the first openly transgender performer nominated in the lead acting category, did not receive an invitation — a decision that follows backlash over past controversial remarks.)
New recruits to the directors branch include this year's nominees Coralie Fargeat ('The Substance') and Brady Corbet ('The Brutalist'), as well as Gints Zilbalodis, who directed the Oscar-winning animated feature 'Flow.' Invitees in the documentary branch include the team behind this year's Oscar-winning 'No Other Land': Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor.
'We are thrilled to invite this esteemed class of artists, technologists and professionals to join the Academy,' academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang said in a joint statement. 'Through their commitment to filmmaking and to the greater movie industry, these exceptionally talented individuals have made indelible contributions to our global filmmaking community.'
If all invitations are accepted, the academy's total membership will rise to 11,120, including 10,143 voting members.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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Mission: Impossible' won Grammys for best instrumental theme and best original score from a motion picture or a TV show. In 2017, the theme was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 7 Hans Zimmer took over scoring for the second film, and Michael Giacchino scored the next two. U2 members Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. covered the theme while making the soundtrack to 1996's first installment; that version peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 with a Grammy nomination. A 2010 commercial for Lipton tea depicted a young Schifrin composing the theme at his piano while gaining inspiration through sips of the brand's Lipton Yellow Label. Musicians dropped from the sky as he added elements. Early life filled with music Born Boris Claudio Schifrin to a Jewish family in Buenos Aires — where his father was the concertmaster of the philharmonic orchestra — Schifrin was classically trained in music, in addition to studying law. After studying at the Paris Conservatory — where he learned about harmony and composition from the legendary Olivier Messiaen — Schifrin returned to Argentina and formed a concert band. Gillespie heard Schifrin perform and asked him to become his pianist, arranger and composer. In 1958, Schifrin moved to the United States, playing in Gillespie's quintet in 1960-62 and composing the acclaimed 'Gillespiana.' 7 Lalo Schifrin appears at the Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 2018. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Advertisement The long list of luminaries he performed and recorded with includes Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dee Dee Bridgewater and George Benson. He also worked with such classical stars as Zubin Mehta, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim and others. Schifrin moved easily between genres, winning a Grammy for 1965's 'Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts' while also earning a nod that same year for the score of TV's 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' In 2018, he was given an honorary Oscar statuette and, in 2017, the Latin Recording Academy bestowed on him one of its special trustee awards. Later film scores included 'Tango,' 'Rush Hour' and its two sequels, 'Bringing Down The House,' 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey,' 'After the Sunset' and the horror film 'Abominable.' Writing the arrangements for 'Dirty Harry,' Schifrin decided that the main character wasn't in fact Clint Eastwood's hero, Harry Callahan, but the villain, Scorpio. Advertisement 7 'Mission: Impossible' won Grammys for best instrumental theme and best original score from a motion picture or a TV show. 'You would think the composer would pay more attention to the hero. But in this case, no, I did it to Scorpio, the bad guy, the evil guy,' he told the AP. 'I wrote a theme for Scorpio.' It was Eastwood who handed him his honorary Oscar. 'Receiving this honorary Oscar is the culmination of a dream,' Schifrin said at the time. 'It is mission accomplished.' Beyond film and TV Advertisement Among Schifrin's conducting credits include the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Mexico Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed music director of Southern California's Glendale Symphony Orchestra and served in that capacity from 1989-1995. Schifrin also wrote and adapted the music for 'Christmas in Vienna' in 1992, a concert featuring Diana Ross, Carreras and Domingo. He also combined tango, folk and classical genres when he recorded 'Letters from Argentina,' nominated for a Latin Grammy for best tango album in 2006. 7 Lalo Schifrin attends 34th Annual BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Awards attends at Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel on May 9, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. Getty Images for BMI Schifrin was also commissioned to write the overture for the 1987 Pan American Games, and composed and conducted the event's 1995 final performance in Argentina. Advertisement And for perhaps one of the only operas performed in the ancient Indigenous language of Nahuatl, in 1988 Schifrin wrote and conducted the choral symphony 'Songs of the Aztecs.' The work premiered at Mexico's Teotihuacan pyramids with Domingo as part of a campaign to raise money to restore the site's Aztec temple. 'I found it to be a very sweet, musical language, one in which the sounds of the words dictated interesting melodies,' Schifrin told The Associated Press at the time. 'But the real answer is that there's something magic about it. … There's something magic in the art of music anyway.' In addition to his sons, he's survived by his daughter, Frances, and wife, Donna.
