Irish stars who are up for gongs at the Oscars will not need to be vaccinated as organisers will only insist on negative antigen tests at this year’s ceremony.
Best Supporting Actress nominee Jessie Buckley, multiple nominated Belfast director Kenneth Branagh and the cast of Belfast, as well as singer Van Morrison won’t need to show proof of vaccination at this year’s 94th Academy Awards on March 27 at the Dolby Theater.
But according to US reports, Hollywood’s biggest A-listers will have to provide a negative rapid antigen test or a negative PCR test to get onto the red carpet – but it is not yet known if masks will be a requirement at the glitzy Los Angeles event.
Attendees are encouraged to be vaccinated and those who are not will have to comply with stricter testing requirements in order to attend.
The Academy Awards will be the first televised event changing the rules - this weekend’s Super Bowl, Lakers and Kings Games at Crypto.com Arena all want proof of vaccination before entertaining stadiums.
The Screen Actors Guild awards and the Critics Choice awards have both mandated that those in attendance show proof of vaccination and negative tests.
The Sag awards require guests to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination, as well as a booster, a negative PCR test within 48 hours of the event and a negative rapid test that day.
The Los Angeles County Health Department has mandated attendees at such indoor & outdoor “mega-events” (defined by an audience of over 500 indoors and over 5,000 outdoors) be either vaccinated or present and negative test result.
According to US sources, discussions are still ongoing about masks and crowd size. There may be some wiggle room if the Academy decides to whittle the event’s guest list below 500 attendees.
The County Public Heath Department requirement for masks at mega-events states that “masks are required to be worn by everyone, 2 years age and older, regardless of Covid-19 vaccination status, in…all indoor public settings, venues, gatherings, public and private businesses.” That includes so-called indoor mega-events with crowds of more than 500 people.
County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said earlier this week: “This is not the right time to stop wearing our masks indoors and in crowded outdoor settings.”
She then went on to outline a framework for reducing Covid mitigation measures as the current Omicron surge fades. The requirements in that framework may be achievable by late March.
But on Wednesday Ferrer added a new requirement.
That newest condition for loosening masking rules at indoor mega-events (and many other settings) is FDA approval of vaccines for children under 5 years old.
Ferrer estimated that that would happen toward the end of the month.
She said that once there has been adequate time for those children to get vaccinated and then have the vaccines take effect, the local strictures will be loosened. Ferrer estimated that time period would be eight weeks. That’s eight weeks after the vaccine becomes available for kinds under 5. Basic math indicates, then, that the rules around mega-events would be altered in late April.
All of that could be moot by Sunday, March 27, however.
Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast has scooped seven nominations for the Oscars 2022 awards with nods for Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture as well as Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor.
Speaking at the time, he said: “It’s a long way from the streets of Belfast to the Academy Awards.
“Today, I think of my mother and father, and my grandparents – how proud they were to be Irish, how much this city meant to them. They would have been overwhelmed by this incredible honour, as am I.
“Given a story as personal as this one, it’s a hell of a day for my family, and the family of our film. I thank Academy voters for their incredible and generous recognition.”
Judi Dench has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Branagh’s Belfast and Ciarán Hinds has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Hinds, who was born in Belfast, is nominated in the best supporting actor category alongside The Power Of The Dog’s Smit-McPhee and Plemons, Troy Kotsur for Coda, and JK Simmons for Being The Ricardos.
Van Morrison has a nomination for Best Original Song for “Down To Joy” from Belfast. He’s up against Beyoncé, who’s nominated for co-writing “Be Alive” from King Richard and Billie Eilish who is nominated for her Bond theme “No Time To Die,”
And Kerry star Jessie Buckley picked up a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her part in The Lost Daughter.
She said of the honour: "I am in complete shock! To be recognised for anything connected to it is just a wild dream come true."
