Yahoo News The Rock joins Academy as part of Oscars diversity push
Gal Gadot, Riz Ahmed, Leslie Jones, Naomie Harris, Rami Malek, Priyanka Chopra and Dwayne Johnson have all been invited to join the Oscars' governing body as part of its continuing diversity push.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and its outgoing president Cheryl Boone Isaacs have been committed to doubling its diverse and female members by 2020 in response to the #OscarsSoWhite debate over the last two years.
AMPAS has continued working towards that goal by inviting a record 744 new members - up sharply from 683 last year and 322 in 2015.
The 2017 class includes stars from massive comic book movie blockbusters (Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Olsen, Margot Robbie, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans) to comedy favourites (Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Kate McKinnon), some Star Wars titans (Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson) and even huge stars you'd probably assumed were already in - like Betty White, Channing Tatum, Jon Hamm, Shailene Woodley and Amitabh Bachchan.
Aside from actors, Lin-Manuel Miranda has been invited because of his musical work with Disney and there were also nominations for directors Barry Jenkins (Best Picture winner Moonlight), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Guy Ritchie (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword), the Russo brothers (Captain America: Civil War) and Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones's Diary).
(Moonlight director Barry Jenkins at the 2017 Academy Awards)
All of these nominees are judged by the Academy on if they "demonstrated exceptional achievement in [their personal] field of theatrical motion pictures".
Noticeably missing from the invites was anyone working for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Academy-affiliated accounting firm who disastrously handed out the wrong winner's envelope in this year's Best Picture race.
As a result, La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner before the correct category victor Moonlight was eventually clarified moments later. The PricewaterhouseCoopers officials responsible were later banned from ever again working on the Oscars.
But let's leave the drama behind and take a look at the full list of the actors and actresses invited to join the Academy this year:
Riz Ahmed
Debbie Allen
Elena Anaya
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan
Monica Bellucci
Gil Birmingham
Nazanin Boniadi
Daniel Brühl
Maggie Cheung
John Cho
Priyanka Chopra
Matt Craven
Terry Crews
Warwick Davis
Colman Domingo
Adam Driver
Joel Edgerton
Chris Evans
Luke Evans
Fan Bingbing
Elle Fanning
Golshifteh Farahani
Anna Faris
Tom Felton
Rebecca Ferguson
Lou Ferrigno
Gal Gadot
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Jeff Garlin
Spencer Garrett
Domhnall Gleeson
Sharon Gless
Donald Glover
Judy Greer
Rupert Grint
Noel Gugliemi
Jon Hamm
Armie Hammer
Naomie Harris
Leila Hatami
Anne Heche
Lucas Hedges
Chris Hemsworth
Ciarán Hinds
Aldis Hodge
Bryce Dallas Howard
Bonnie Hunt
Jiang Wen
Dwayne Johnson
Leslie Jones
Keegan-Michael Key
Aamir Khan
Irrfan Khan
Salman Khan
Rinko Kikuchi
Zoë Kravitz
Sanaa Lathan
Carina Lau
Tony Leung
Rami Malek
Leslie Mann
Kate McKinnon
Sienna Miller
Janelle Monáe
Michelle Monaghan
Viggo Mortensen
Ruth Negga
Franco Nero
Elizabeth Olsen
Deepika Padukone
Sarah Paulson
Robert Picardo
Amy Poehler
Chris Pratt
Zachary Quinto
Édgar Ramírez
Phylicia Rashad
Margot Robbie
Maya Rudolph
Hiroyuki Sanada
Henry G. Sanders
Rodrigo Santoro
Rade Šerbedžija
Nestor Serrano –
Amanda Seyfried
Molly Shannon
Anna Deavere Smith
Hailee Steinfeld
Kristen Stewart
Omar Sy
Wanda Sykes
Channing Tatum
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Lauren Tom
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Paz Vega
Dee Wallace
Ming-Na Wen
Betty White
Rebel Wilson
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
BD Wong
Shailene Woodle
Donnie Yen
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