Mira Sorvino calls Paul Sorvino’s exclusion from Oscars’ In Memoriam “baffling beyond belief”
The Goodfellas actor, who died in July 2022, was not featured in the televised portion of the 95th Academy Awards' tribute to late industry luminaries
Aux News Sorvino
Mira Sorvino and her late father Paul Sorvino share an exceedingly sweet history in show business, perhaps exemplified by Paul’s tearful response to Mira thanking him in her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech at the 1996 Academy Awards. But Paul’s surprising omission from the televised In Memoriam segment at Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony provided a new and decidedly less heartwarming chapter in the duo’s history with the awards specifically—one Mira herself has now called out publicly.
“It is baffling beyond belief that my beloved father and many other amazing brilliant departed actors were left out,” Mira tweeted on Monday afternoon, alongside an article from USA Today’s For The Win titled “The Oscars forgot about Paul Sorvino, but we didn’t.” Later that day, she shared a longer statement, emphasizing that she and her family hope the Academy “does something to put this right.”
“Incredibly hurt and shocked that my father’s lifelong, irreplaceable, enormous contribution to the world of cinema was overlooked by whomever made that list,” Mira wrote. “We, his adoring family, and you, his adoring public, know just how unique and incredible he was.”
Paul’s wife Dee Dee Sorvino also decried the Academy’s choice to exclude him from the televised segment, sharing a statement on the matter with Entertainment Tonight.
“Paul Sorvino was one of the greatest actors in cinematic history in Hollywood. It is unconscionable that he would be left out of the In Memoriam segment of the Oscars,” Dee Dee shared. “It’s a three-hour show, they can’t give a couple more minutes to get it right? Paul Sorvino gave decades to this industry and was loved by all. Paul was not the only deserving soul left out, and a QR Code is not acceptable. The Academy needs to issue an apology, admit the mistake and do better. Paul Sorvino deserves better, the audience deserves better, is the Academy so jaded they forget people who are loved, who have given their hearts to this industry? Shame on the Academy if this is not corrected. Mistakes are made, this was a big one. Please do something to make it right.”
As Dee Dee mentions, Sorvino was not the only notable omission from Sunday’s In Memoriam segment: Triangle Of Sadness star Charlbi Dean also didn’t make the cut, despite the fact that the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay that night. Anne Heche, Lindsey Jordan, Sacheen Littlefeather, Leslie Jordan, Melinda Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Tony Sirico and Tom Sizemore were also all excluded.
Michael Imperioli—who worked with Paul, Sirico, and Sizemore throughout his career—also shared a statement on Instagram lamenting the Oscars’ decision not to televise a tribute to the three performers’ legacies.
“SORVINO, SIRICO and SIZEMORE,” Imperioli wrote. “These three brilliant actors were forgotten by the Academy last night at the Oscars. I was proud and honored to have worked with all three of these men and it saddened me to see Hollywood ignore them on its biggest night.” Way to go, Academy—you somehow found a way to make Dominic Di Grasso feel even worse.
27 Comments
Nothing against Lenny Kravitz, but during “In Memoriam,” every cutaway to him playing the basic piano chords as his sang was time for another few faces. In fact, his song was repetitive enough that he could have added a whole extra bar.
“Nothing against Lenny Kravitz”
Do you think Lenny insisted on having closeups of himself rather than pictures of people who died?
I was included and I’m not an actor nor am I dead. I think.
Still, if the AV Club comments section isn’t purgatory, I don’t know what is.
Papist!
Who was even in the list? I’ve seen like a half dozen different complaints about various people being left off it.
I did notice one PR person on the list which means he probably made sure a movie executives cocaine fueled orgy with underage prostitutes didn’t make the newspapers.
If a publicist doesn’t make the Dead Reel, they probably weren’t very good at their job.
Accurate.
“baffling beyond belief”I mean sure, I guess it’s baffling if you haven’t ever watched an Oscars broadcast. This type of shit happens literally every year.
Given the number of high profile omissions including a lead from one of the Best Picture nominees, this was especially terrible even by their low standards. This happens every single year and they seem to be determined to not improve at all (this year’s a big slide).I mean it’s not hard, have a couple of people to note every entertainment death of note as it happens during the year as a small part of their job where they mostly do other things, compare and cross reference lists with each other and then double check a few more times including with Wikipedia and a few other people. Also add five minutes to the Memoriam segment by dropping other useless sketches and jokes of which there’s way more of that.Do all of the above (it’s really simple) and you’ll avoid at least 80% of the resulting mess than happens Every. Single. Year.(I’d like to give a higher percentage but did I mention these people are useless?)
including a lead from one of the Best Picture nomineesThis one was crazy to me. Charlbi Dean was in a film that was nominated for Best Picture at the same damn awards show and still got relegated to the “scan this QR code for more dead folks” list.
The audience sketches, which are usually the lamest, are apparently there to kill time while they’re changing the stage. I think some of the mini-monologues are the same.So they can’t really just cut useless jokes/sketches for more show. They could do pre-taped stuff though, which would probably be an improvement.
There’s no need to constantly be changing the stage though.
They could have cut the Little Mermaid commercial and added the time to the “In Memoriam” segment.
Yeah, you tell that to Mr. Mouse and see what happens.
Also to reiterate, no Fred Ward?? Fred Ward???
I know, right? The number and prominence of the omissions were just staggering this year.
Especially given how much effort they put into expanding the roster to include a whole bunch of people who I’d venture 99.9% of movie fans have never heard of. You want to do that, fine, but it can’t be at the expense of people who appeared in some of recent memory’s most indelible films. Major characters in Goodfellas, Heat, Private Ryan don’t rate so much as a mention??
I’m curious how they select which non-actors to include in the tribute. This year they had costume designers, special effects artists, make-up artists, etc. included. Obviously, they didn’t include all the people that work in these fields that passed away in the past year so why does one costume designer merit inclusion in this while another doesn’t?
I’m going to venture a wild-ass guess that academy members probably get included over non-members.
Sizemore’s death was too recent, I’m guessing. And Littlefeather wasn’t in the entertainment industry – I’m not sure why you would include her just because she was part of one of the more notorious moments in Oscar history.
Hey, Academy, we got some nice coats over there for you, right around the corner.
They could Paragon or Renegade this situation:
1. I feel like the only way to make everyone happy is to have a much longer list. Always feels like there are some glaring omissions.
2. Or they could make everyone equally unhappy and scrap the In Memoriam segment.
And that’s cool because she’s got absolutely no bias here.
In the end it doesn’t matter. The people that get omitted get remembered on social media later for being omitted
The telecast’s credits do reveal which team was in charge of the In Memoriam segment, right? Find them and ask them why. A 50 year old producer and editor will definitely do a better job than a 20 year old intern for such projects.