Jon Batiste, Becky G, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, Scott George and the Osage Singers, and Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson will perform this year’s nominated songs on the 96th Academy Awards, executive producer and showrunner Raj Kapoor and executive producers Molly McNearney and Katy Mullan announced today.
This will be Eilish and O’Connell’s second Oscar performance, having won best original song in 2022 for the Bond theme “No Time to Die.” This year they are nominated for the Grammy-winning Barbie song, “What Was I Made For?”
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Barbie star — and supporting actor nominee — Gosling will perform the scene-stealing song “I’m Just Ken,” with an assist from co-writer Ronson (who wrote the song with collaborator Andrew Wyatt).
Batiste will perform his nominated tune “It Never Went Away” from Netflix’s American Symphony, the doc directed by Matthew Heineman that follows Batiste during his meteoric year in which he took home the Grammy for album of the year and prepared a new composition at Carnegie Hall — all while supporting his wife Suleika Jaouad in her battle with a rare form of cancer. The film, which did not earn an Oscar nom for best documentary feature, took the respective prize on Sunday at the Producers Guild of America Awards.
The Diane Warren-penned “The Fire Inside” from Searchlight’s Flamin’ Hot, which earned the prolific songwriter her 15th nomination in the category, will also be part of the lineup, with singer Becky G making her Oscars debut with the song.
Finally, Scott George and the Osage Singers will perform the Osage-language tribal song “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon. George’s composition is the 12th non-English language song to the nominated for an Oscar (last year, RRR‘s “Naatu Naatu” took home the prize).
George confessed to THR earlier this month that he didn’t expect to be in the Oscar running. “We didn’t really understand what we were in for,” said George. “When I’ve talked to other people and they said, ‘Well, there were over 200 songs in [consideration], and the people judging this were the composers and musicians,’ it really shed a different light. Because in the beginning, I thought, ‘Well, we’re tied to the movie and, kind of rough to say, but they’re just throwing us a bone.’ Then when they said that, I said, ‘Wow, maybe there’s something to this.’ So I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s just crazy.’”
The 96th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 10 at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC.
