Ryan Coogler has been making the rounds on the awards circuit this season in support of his acclaimed hit “Sinners,” which has already won several honors and been nominated for multiple Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. The Southern Gothic vampire drama is a frontrunner for a Best Picture Oscar nod — it’s currently tied for first place with “Sentimental Value,” “Hamnet” and “Frankenstein” on TheWrap’s Awards tracker. Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, the current cover stars of our awards magazine, are both widely expected to earn nominations for Best Director and Best Actor.
But Coogler still isn’t entirely at home with the glitzier side of the business. As reported by The New York Times on Wednesday, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited him to become a voting member in 2016, he declined. “It’s not out of animosity,” he told the Times, adding that his heart is with the “blue-collar folks” working their tails off on film sets for little to no recognition. “And I’m not good at judging things, bro. The act of ‘Hey, pick the best thing’ is very stressful for me, even when there’s no stakes involved.”
The Academy’s invitation came amid the tension stirred up by the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, a reaction to the persistent lack of diversity and inclusivity among Oscar-celebrated films and the people who make them. The Academy pledged to double the number of nonwhite and female members by 2020, a goal it ultimately achieved.
It should be noted that Coogler is not the only prominent member of the filmmaking community to turn down the Academy’s invitation. In 2007, yours truly spoke with Viggo Mortensen about saying “No, thank you” to the Academy in 2004, before he eventually joined in 2017. Hayao Miyazaki’s producer, Toshio Suzuki, has said that the animation master has turned AMPAS down three times, preferring to focus on his work at Studio Ghibli.
But there is still a long way to go. Should Coogler receive a Best Director nomination, he will join a short list of other Black filmmakers who have been recognized in the category but never won — among them, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele. Coogler’s genre-redefining “Black Panther” was nominated for Best Picture in 2019, but he did not make the cut for a directing nod.
As Coogler told TheWrap’s Steve Pond in the current cover story, he is still getting used to the reality that he has become an in-demand Hollywood auteur capable of making blockbusters. When asked how he has changed since his debut feature with Jordan, 2013’s “Fruitvale Station,” he said: “I think the biggest thing for me is just accepting that this is my life — working in this artistic business. And I want this to be my life for the foreseeable future. I think accepting that was difficult when I first met Mike.”
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