Dear Gossips,   

My colleagues at etalk are probably super annoyed with me today because they have to deal with my gloat. Months and months ago, at the meeting table, I told them that Top Gun: Maverick would be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. And, well, it happened. TG:M is among the ten films contending for the Oscar Academy’s biggest award. Here at LaineyGossip we’ve been following the Maverick odds since the movie came out. This morning made it official – Tom Cruise is heading to the Oscars. Unless he decides he’d rather jump out of a plane. 

 

You know who else is heading to the Oscars? Ana de Armas. 

Yesterday Blonde was making headlines for its Razzie nominations as one of the worst films of the year. Today its star is among the five actresses contending for the Best Actress Oscar. That’s quite a turnaround for Ana, but maybe not a shock, not after she was nominated for a BAFTA last week and as Sarah noted, they’re a decent preview for Oscar nominations considering that there’s so much overlap. 

It's also an indication of how popular Ana probably is with the actors’ branch of the Academy, perhaps helped too by the endorsement of Brad Pitt who produced Blonde. Still, this film was not well-received, never mind the Razzies, the critics were not supportive at all. And yet somehow the voters were able to separate the quality of the film from the quality of her performance. It tells you something about Ana’s status among her peers. And it tells you something about her peers. We’ll get into more of that later in our coverage of the Oscar race and the nominations. 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey