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| Peter Mullan plays golfer Tom Morris Photo: Courtesy of Edinburgh Film Festival |
Peter Mullan, long considered to be one of the most important figures in the Scottish film industry, was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week, it has been announced. The star of films like The Vanishing and Tyrannosaur, and director of NEDS, is one of the latest crop of stars to join the Oscar-voting body, alongside younger Scot Jack O'Connell, who burst onto screens in 2013 with Starred Up.
Other actors invited to join the Academy this year include Lady Gaga, who took home this year's Best Original Song Oscar and was praised for her performance in A Star Is Born, Elizabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale, Rocketman's Jamie Bell, veteran actor Kenneth Cranham and young Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland.
The directors' category saw invitations for Out Of Blue's Carol Morley and Stan & Ollie's John Baird, while Jimmy Chin, who made an extraordinary impression with his work on Free Solo and Meru, was included in the documentary category. Desiree Akhavan The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, John Ajvide Lindqvist (Border and Roman Coppola (Isle Of Dogs) are among the writers invited to join.
Overall, the new members are 50% female, with Academy membership 32% female overall. 16% of members are now people of colour, twice as many as in 2015 when the Academy first acknowledged that it needed to do more to reflect diversity.
