Taylor Swift, The Weeknd invited to join Oscars panel

LOS ANGELES

Taylor Swift, best supporting actor Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, “Elvis” star Austin Butler, “Nope’s” Keke Palmer and The Weeknd have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The organization behind the Oscars said Wednesday that it extended invitations to 398 individuals to join its ranks this year.

Among those invited are 22 Oscar winners and 76 nominees, like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” writer-director-producers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who must choose one of the three branches, as well as actors Paul Mescal, Stephanie Hsu and Kerry Condon.

A majority of this year’s invitees hail from countries outside of the U.S., including “RRR” actors Ram Charan and NT Rama Rao Jr., “Holy Spider” star Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, “Triangle of Sadness” breakout Dolly De Leon, “Shoplifters’” Sakura Ando, “Phantom Thread” star Vicky Kreips and “Decision to Leave’s” Park Hae-il. Other Hollywood actors on the list include Lashana Lynch, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Hader, Paul Reiser, Selma Blair and “The Goonies” actor Robert John Davi.

Those invited to join the director’s branch include Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick), Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), Santiago Mitre (“Argentina, 1985”), Michael Showalter (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and Carlos López Estrada (“Raya and the Last Dragon”).

Among the executive branch invitees are Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente and SXSW director emeritus Janet Pierson.

In the music branch, in addition to Swift who recently penned a song for “Where the Crawdads Sing,” and Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (“The Weeknd”), other notables include David Byrne, “RRR’s” M.M. Keeravaani and Son Lux’s Ryan Lott and Ian Chang.

Some directors were invited to other branches. “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” director Dean Fleischer-Camp scored an invitation to the animation and short film branch, while “Aftersun’s” Charlotte Wells’ invitation was for the writer’s branch, which Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro was also invited to.

The academy has continued to make progress diversifying its ranks. Should all the invitees accept their invitations, the makeup of the Academy’s ranks will be 34 percent women, 18 percent from underrepresented ethnic or racial communities and 20 percent from non-U.S. countries.