Will Smith Returns To Oscars Spotlight After 15 Years With Best Actor Nomination For ‘King Richard’

The 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards was filled with surprises and emotional moments — and Will Smith was particularly moved when he took home one of the night’s coveted trophies.

Will Smith is singing praises after picking up the Best Male Movie Actor honor at the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night (February 27).

2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards was filled with surprises and emotional moments — and Will Smith was particularly moved when he took home one of the night's coveted trophies.After delivering a heartfelt acceptance speech on stage at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, on Sunday — when he earned the award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for his role in  -- Smith opened up to ET's Nischelle Turner backstage and reflected on the honor.«I'm here tonight with Saniyya [Sidney] and Demi [Singleton], the girls who play Venus and Serena, and Aunjanue Ellis, and Venus is here with her sister Isha, who's an executive producer,» Smith said, as he began to choke up. «It's all of these, all of these Black women that I get to protect and shine a light on, you know, across the generations.»Smith, after taking a moment to compose himself, explained he feels «such a responsibility» to them to tell their story.Fresh off his #SAGAward win, an emotional Will Smith breaks down in tears while reflecting on his #KingRichard family: «It's all of these Black women that I get to protect and shine a light on… I just feel such a responsibility.» pic.twitter.com/hNFFrGQF8MIn the biopic, Smith portrays Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams, who has a singular vision of helping his young daughters become legends on the court.When asked what he feels about the real-life figure he portrays in the film, Smith said, «It's just like I get him.

2022 Oscars was officially released last week. And while the scope of awards season has changed pretty dramatically over the last few years, the talent and unique storytelling present in this year's pack of nominees is perhaps more impressive now than ever before. Leading the way for Oscar favorites is Netflix's which racked up12 total nominations including those in major categories like Best Picture, Best Director for Jane Campion, Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, and supporting acting nods for Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

EXCLUSIVE: French American actor Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman, The Forgiven) has signed with Buchwald for representation.

NAACP Image Awards has officially been kicked off! As usual, this year's ceremony honoring people of color across television, music, literature and film is preceded by a week-long celebration, with five nights of virtual awards leading up to Saturday's live telecast.Hosted by returning emcee and seven-time NAACP Image Awards winner Anthony Anderson, the ceremony will include Issa Rae, Kerry Washington, LL Cool J, Morgan Freeman, Questlove, Tiffany Haddish, Zendaya and more presenting awards, while Samuel L. Jackson accepts the NAACP Chairman's Award and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project, receives the Social Justice Impact Award.The preceding non-televised nights will be hosted by actor and comedian Affion Crockett, with awards presented by Cory Hardrict, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Khleo Thomas, Lori Harvey, Wendy Raquel Robinson and more.

Angelique Jackson Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios and David Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon have partnered with Netflix to produce the film adaptation of “Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun.”Based on the upcoming book by British-Nigerian author, journalist and hair care educator Tọlá Okogwu, “Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun” tells the tale of a teenager who learns she has powers and travels to Nigeria to learn more about her origins, where she discovers a threat to her newfound magical community.Described as “Black Panther” meets “X-Men” or “Percy Jackson,” the book is the first in an action-packed series for middle-grade children and will be published by Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and U.K.

After learning that ‘Belfast’ had been nominated in seven categories, he said: “It’s a long way from the streets of Belfast to the Academy Awards. “I think of my mother and father, and my grandparents – how proud they were to be Irish, how much this city meant to them. They would have been overwhelmed by this incredible honour – as am I.

2022 Oscar nominations, and Andrew Garfield was among the five talents picked in the Best Actor category. No, he didn’t get a nomination for his incredible long-game lie about returning to play Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home (even though that’d be totally deserved). Garfield is being recognized for portraying Rent playwright Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick… Boom!, and funny enough, a bunch of other former Spider-Man actors also picked up Oscar nominations this year alongside him.

Peacock’s adaptation of NBC’s iconic sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”That series (1990-96) launched then-rap star Will Smith into superstardom, and his onscreen character, also named Will Smith, into TV lore when he’s sent to Bel Air, Calif. to live with his rich relatives after getting into trouble in his West Philadelphia neighborhood.

Will Smith scored his third and fourth Oscar nominations this morning as the star and producer of King Richard, doubling his Oscar nominations haul and becoming only the ninth producer-actor to nab both nominations for the same film. “It’s six nominations total,” Smith tells Deadline, “and this is rarefied air for me. I’ve been nominated two other times, but it’s never been this kind of blanket love, you know?”

2022 Oscar nominations were announced on Tuesday — and it was a big day for Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz!The two were nominated for top acting awards, with Bardem earning his third career Best Actor nod for his performance as Dezi Arnaz in and Cruz garnering her second Best Actress nomination for her role in Pedro Almodóvar's The pair, who married in 2010 and share a son, Leo, and a daughter, Luna, are the first married couple to both be nominated for the Academy's top acting awards since Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were nominated together in 1967 for (Taylor won, Burton didn't, and they would divorce a few years later.)However, they're not the only acting couple to be nominated together this year. Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst, who announced their engagement in 2017 and share two children together, both scored supporting nods for Bardem and Cruz are each one-time Oscar winners; Bardem won Best Supporting Actor in 2008 for his role as assassin Anton Chigurh in  and Cruz won Best Supporting Actress the following year for in which Bardem was her co-star.Following his nomination, Bardem released a statement to ET, which reads, «To embody Desi Arnaz’s spirit was a privilege and an honor and to be connected to his energy and legacy is something I will never forget.

Denzel Washington’s nomination for best actor in the Joel Cohen film The Tragedy of Macbeth marks him as the most nominated Black actor in Oscar History, with ten nominations and two wins. 

Angelique Jackson Following a record-breaking year for diversity at the Academy Awards, with nine actors of color nabbing nominations in 2021, the 2022 lineup featured just four actors of color: Ariana DeBose, Aunjanue Ellis, Will Smith and Denzel Washington.With this latest nomination for “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” Washington extended his lead as the most-nominated Black actor at the Oscars, with a total of 10 nods and two wins. Smith earned his third best actor nomination and his first nod as a producer for “King Richard.” The sports drama landed six nominations in all, as Ellis represented the film in the supporting actress category, where she was joined by fellow first-timer “West Side Story” star DeBose, who becomes the first Afro-Latina actor (and the first openly queer woman of color) ever nominated.