Pharrell Williams, Charlize Theron, Lady GaGa, and The Weeknd are also set to take the stage either as presenters or performers.
- Jan 29, 2016
AceShowbiz - The first presenters for the upcoming 88th annual Academy Awards have been announced. Whoopi Goldberg, Benicio Del Toro, Ryan Gosling, and Kevin Hart are among the stars enlisted to help announce the winners during the live telecast on February 28.
Other celebrities confirmed to lend helping hands for the movie's biggest night are Lady GaGa, Sam Smith, Charlize Theron, Jacob Tremblay, The Weeknd, and Pharrell Williams. There is no official word just yet, but GaGa, Smith and Weeknd are expected to perform their Oscar-nominated songs.
The Mother Monster gets a Best Original Song nomination for "Til It Happens to You", a song she wrote with Diane Warren for documentary "The Hunting Ground". Smith is nominated for "Writing's on the Wall" from "Spectre" and The Weeknd for "Earned It" from "Fifty Shades of Grey".
The Academy is facing backlash this year for its all-white nominees. On her daytime talk show "The View", Goldberg commented on the issue, "I won once. So it can't be that racist. Even if you fill the Academy with black and Latino and Asian members, if there's no one on the screen to vote for, you're not going to get the outcome that you want."
"You wanna boycott something? Don't go see the movies that don't have your representation," she added. "That's the boycott you want. To me, we have this conversation every year. It pisses me off."
