Glenn Close announced she’s out as a presenter for the Oscars in what could’ve been an Air Force One reunion with Harrison Ford.
Sources confirm that the Academy had paired Close with Ford during Sunday night’s Oscars telecast on ABC. But the 75-year-old actress received a positive COVID test this weekend, according to the Associate Press.
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“Yes she has Covid and she is of course required to bow out. She was very much looking forward to taking part,” a representative for Close told EW via email.
Close and Ford starred in the pre-9/11 (1997) thriller about the hijacking of the U.S. president’s (Ford) aircraft. Close plays the Vice President, monitoring the action on the ground from the White House Situation Room. A rousing box office success grossing $315 million globally, the film received two Oscar nominations at the 1998 ceremony, for Best Sound and Best Film Editing.
Glenn Close enjoys a long, decorated history at the Oscars
As one of the most decorated and highly-revered living actresses left in Hollywood, Close is no stranger to Oscars Sunday. Altogether, Close has earned eight Academy Award noms for acting, including roles in iconic films like Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons. Her lates Oscar nomination came for his work in 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy.
Her first Best Supporting Actress nomination came for the 1982 comedy-drama The World According to Garp. She was nominated for the same category each subsequent year, for The Big Chill and The Natural. The 2011 film Albert Nobbs and 2017’s The Wife were the final Best Actress noms, before the supporting role in Hillbilly.
Bowing out of award ceremonies last minute isn’t new in this post-COVID era. Last year, Lin-Manuel Miranda similarly bowed out of the Oscars telecast at the last minute when his wife tested positive for COVID. He was up for the Best Original Song category for “Dos Oruguitas” from the film Encanto. He did not win, which, in a way was lucky, because the win would have cemented EGOT status.
Other presenters set to participate in Sunday’s Oscars include Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek Pinault, Nicole Kidman, Florence Pugh, Sigourney Weaver, Riz Ahmed, Emily Blunt, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, and Donnie Yen.
Jimmy Kimmel hosts again this year, his third time in the gig. The movie with the most overall nominations is Everything Everywhere All at Once, which has 11 total nods. (It’s followed by All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin, which both earned nine nominations.)
