Los Angeles/Chennai: Popular Tamil star Suriya has been inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that presents the Oscars each year. With the invite, Suriya, becomes the first South Indian actor to be inducted into the Academy till date.


Apart from Suriya, Bollywood actress Kajol, award-winning filmmaker Nalin Kumar Pandya aka Pan Nalin, Oscar-nominated documentary makers Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, and Indian American 'Deadpool' and 'Murder on the Orient Express' producer Adiya Sood have been invited to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.


On Tuesday, the Academy released the list of 397 distinguished artistes and executives it had invited to join the organisation in 2022. The Academy said the new members had been selected on the basis of their professional qualifications and their "ongoing commitment to representation, inclusion and equity".


'Variety' notes that if all of this year's invitees accept membership, it will bring the total number of Academy members to 10,665, with 9,665 eligible to vote for the 95th Oscars set to take place on March 12, 2023.


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The new invitees, 50 per cent of whom are from 53 countries and territories outside the United States, include 71 Oscar nominees, including 15 winners.


Some of the big names invited are recent winners Ariana DeBose ('West Side Story]) and Troy Kotsur ('CODA'), and nominees Jessie Buckley ('The Lost Daughter'), Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee ('The Power of the Dog').


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Also invited, according to 'Variety', are a slew of global artistes such as Robin de Jes s ('Tick, Tick ... Boom!'), Olga Merediz ('In the Heights') and Vincent Lindon ('Titane'), director Reinaldo Marcus Green ('King Richard'), screenwriters Jeremy O Harris ('Zola') and Jon Spaihts ('Dune'), and pop star Billie Eilish, who also sang for 'No Time to Die'.


Lindon, incidentally, was the president of the competition section jury of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.