83rd Academy Awards

The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2010 in the United States and took place on February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST). During the ceremony, Academy Awards (commonly called the Oscars) were presented in 24 competitive categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States on ABC, was produced by Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, with Mischer also serving as director. Actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosted the ceremony, marking the first time for each.

In related events, the Academy held its second annual Governors Awards ceremony at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center on November 13, 2010. On February 12, 2011, in a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Marisa Tomei.

Inception and The King's Speech won four awards each, with the latter film winning Best Picture. Other winners included The Social Network with three awards, Alice in Wonderland, The Fighter, and Toy Story 3, with two awards, and Black Swan, God of Love, In a Better World, Inside Job, The Lost Thing, Strangers No More, and The Wolfman with one. The telecast garnered almost 38 million viewers in the United States.

Academy Awards

The Academy Awards, or "Oscars", is an annual American awards ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognise excellence in cinematic achievements in the film industry as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname "Oscar". The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

The awards ceremony was first broadcast to radio in 1930 and televised in 1953. It is now seen live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards.

88th Academy Awards

The 88th Academy Awards ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre on February 28, 2016 and hosted by Chris Rock. A total of 2,947 Oscars have been awarded since the inception of the award through the 87th. The 88th awards ceremony has become the target of a potential boycott, based on critics' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflects bias. In response, the Academy has initiated "historic" changes in membership by the year 2020.

James Franco

James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. His first prominent acting role was the lead character Daniel Desario on the short-lived cult hit television program Freaks and Geeks. He later played the title character in the TV biographical film James Dean (2001), for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He played Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007). He is also known for his roles in the films Flyboys (2006), Pineapple Express (2008), Milk (2008), 127 Hours (2010), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Spring Breakers (2013), This Is the End (2013), and The Interview (2014). He had a recurring role in the ABC soap opera General Hospital. For his role in 127 Hours (2010), Franco was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In 2014, he made his Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men.

Franco volunteers for the Art of Elysium charity and has taught a class at New York University in feature filmmaking and production. In 2013, he began teaching a course in short film production at the University of Southern California and a course in screenwriting at his alma mater, University of California, Los Angeles. In September 2015, Franco began teaching a film class to high school students at Palo Alto High School.

Anne Hathaway

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress and singer. After several stage roles, Hathaway appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. She came to prominence after playing Mia Thermopolis in the Disney film The Princess Diaries (2001) and in its 2004 sequel. Since then, Hathaway has starred in dramatic films such as the 2005 movies Havoc and Brokeback Mountain. She has also starred in The Devil Wears Prada in 2006 and in Becoming Jane (2007) as Jane Austen and also in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises (2012) as Selina Kyle/The Cat, and Interstellar (2014).

In 2008, she won several awards for her performance in Rachel Getting Married, also earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2010, she starred in the box office hits Valentine's Day, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and Love and Other Drugs and won an Emmy Award for her voice-over performance on The Simpsons. In 2011, she had a voice role in the animated film Rio. In 2012, she portrayed Selina Kyle/Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises and Fantine in Tom Hooper's Les Misérables. Her performance in the latter earned her rave reviews and several accolades, including the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag; Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג‎; June 9, 1981) is an actress, film producer and film director with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was in the 1994 action thriller Léon: The Professional, opposite Jean Reno, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).

Born in Jerusalem to an Israeli father and American mother, Portman grew up in the eastern United States from the age of three. She studied dancing and acting in New York, and starred in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace while still at high school on Long Island. In 1999, Portman enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology, alongside her work as an actress; she completed a bachelor's degree in 2003. During her studies she starred in a second Star Wars film and opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 2001.

Portman starred in the 2004 drama Closer, appeared in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the following year, and won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and also appeared in Thor (2011) and its 2013 sequel. In 2010, Portman starred in the psychological horror film Black Swan. Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress, her second Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011.