Music's Biggest Night and the film industry's biggest night are a little more intertwined than one might think.
The GRAMMYs have four Categories that tie in with the Hollywood machine, from Best Song Written For Visual Media to Best Music Film. And the Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording award has offered thespians such as John Gielgud, Viola Davis, and Mike Nichols a route to EGOT glory.
The Academy Awards, meanwhile, gives both composers and songwriters their dues in the Best Original Score and Best Original Song categories, respectively. And the latter's nominees will often be performed to help break up all the drama at the podium, no matter how un-Oscar-like the track may be. Who can forget the fever dream that was The Lego Movie's "Everything Is Awesome," for example?
The 2024 Oscars bring both ceremonies even closer together, with 12 nominees walking in as previous GRAMMY winners. Half of them were even victorious at the 2024 GRAMMYs, including Billie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell, and Mark Ronson, who all took home golden gramophones for their Barbie contributions (and are all up for the same film at this year's Oscars).
Ahead of the March 10 ceremony, take a look at the GRAMMY stories of 2024 Oscar nominees — from celebrated composers to iconic directors to a few of this year's performers.
2024 Oscars: Watch Performances & Highlights
Jon Batiste
Jon Batiste has had quite the GRAMMY run as of late, picking up 19 nominations in just the last three years alone; he scored five wins for 2021's We Are in 2022, including the prestigious Album Of The Year. The jazz maestro, formerly the bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has also enjoyed Oscars glory in the same time frame.
Firstly, in 2021, he shared the Best Original Score Oscar with Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor for their work on Pixar animation Soul. And this year, he's nominated in the Best Original Song category for "It Never Went Away," a track featured in his own powerful documentary biopic, American Symphony.
Danielle Brooks
Two years into her memorable run as prisoner Taystee in "Orange Is the New Black," Danielle Brooks proved her talents extended far beyond the walls of the Litchfield penitentiary with an acclaimed turn in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple. After the Juilliard graduate picked up a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 2016, she became a GRAMMY winner in 2017, when the cast won Best Musical Theater Album.
The all-singing, all-dancing film adaptation of the Alice Walker novel earned Brooks her first Academy Award nod, too. For she once again stole the show in its Hollywood transfer as the strong-minded Sofia, a character first played on the big screen by Oprah Winfrey.
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper spent six years practicing conducting just six minutes of music for his portrayal of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein in acclaimed biopic Maestro. And the multi-talent's admirable commitment paid off when he received Academy Award nods for Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Actor.
Cooper was also nominated in the latter two categories, along with Best Adapted Screenplay, five years ago for another musical, A Star Is Born, and earned two GRAMMYs for the same project. In 2019, he shared Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Lady Gaga for "Shallow," the spellbinding ballad which also picked up a Record Of The Year nod. A year later, the same film triumphed in Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Billie Eilish
Like Batiste, Billie Eilish has made an impressive GRAMMYs run in a short span of time. The alt-pop phenomenon has already picked up nine awards from 25 nominations (and she's only just turned 22!). And at her first GRAMMYs just four years ago, Eilish already cemented herself in GRAMMY history: not only did she become just the second artist to claim Best New Artist and Record, Song, and Album Of the Year, but she became the youngest artist to do so at 18 years old.
Eilish added to her GRAMMY legacy with two more wins at the 2024 ceremony, for "What Was I Made For?" [From The Motion Picture *Barbie*], which won the star her second golden gramophones for Song Of The Year and Best Song Written For Visual Media; her James Bond theme, "No Time To Die," won the latter in 2021.
"What Was I Made For?" — played during the poignant scene where Margot Robbie's titular character meets her creator — has also enamored Oscar voters. In fact, it's the predicted favorite to clinch Best Original Song, which "No Time to Die" helped Eilish claim in 2022.
Ludwig Göransson
Ludwig Göransson is predicted to win his second Best Original Score Oscar this year thanks to his suitably intense arrangements for Oppenheimer; his first win came in 2019 for Black Panther. The Swedish composer has already won Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for the same projects at the GRAMMYs.
But it's in the realm of socially conscious hip-hop where Göransson has been a GRAMMYs awards trailblazer. Childish Gambino's "This Is America," a powerful state of the nation address which he co-produced, picked up both Song and Record Of The Year at the 2019 ceremony — marking the first time a rap track had won either accolade. Göransson's fruitful partnership with Gambino has also seen him receive nods for Album Of The Year and Best R&B Song.
Finneas O'Connell
Finneas O'Connell might have eight fewer GRAMMY nominations than his sister (Billie Eilish), but he does have one more win under his belt. Indeed, having masterminded Eilish's blockbuster breakthrough, 2019's When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, and hit the studio with artists such as Tate McRae, Camila Cabello, and Selena Gomez, the Californian picked up Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical at the 2020 ceremony. (Alongside the nine golden gramophones he's shared with his younger sibling — and primary collaborator — that takes his overall tally up to 10.)
As a co-writer on Eilish's James Bond theme "No Time to Die," Finneas and his sis will have two Oscars a piece should their co-written song, "What Was I Made For?" [From The Motion Picture Barbie], win Best Original Song as predicted.
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson first caught GRAMMYs attention for his behind-the-scenes efforts, winning Best Pop Vocal Album, Record Of The Year, and Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical in 2008 for his work on Amy Winehouse's seminal Back to Black. But eight years later, he scooped two GRAMMYs for his very own throwback, the Bruno Mars-featuring "Uptown Funk," and in 2019, picked up Best Dance Recording as part of the supergroup Silk City alongside Diplo and Dua Lipa.
Ronson and Lipa were once again nominated together at the 2024 GRAMMYs for their global chart-topper, "Dance the Night" [From The Motion Picture Barbie], which didn't receive a Best Original Song Academy Award nod. The DJ-turned-hitmaker still notched an Oscar nomination, though, thanks to a different Barbie number he co-wrote: the Ryan Gosling-sung "I'm Just Ken."
Martin Scorsese
Here's a staggering fact: Martin Scorsese, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers in Hollywood history, has as many GRAMMYs to his celebrated name as he does Oscars: one.
The auteur received his GRAMMY in 2006, when his Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, won in the Best Long Form Music Video Category. (He had been nominated the previous two years, in the same Category in 2005 for his PBS series Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey, and in the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media Category in 2004 for Gangs Of New York.)
His sole Best Director victory at the Academy Awards came not for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or Goodfellas, but for his 2006 remake of The Departed in what many interpreted as a career win. He earned his tenth nomination in the coveted category at the 2024 Oscars, for Killers of the Flower Moon.
Diane Warren
Diane Warren is responsible for some of the all-time great movie power ballads: see the late '90s holy trinity of Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me," LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live," and Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing." However, the prolific songwriter has never won an Oscar outright (she was awarded an honorary one in 2022). She has another shot at the 2024 Oscars thanks to Becky G's "The Fire Inside" from the Cheetos-inspired Flamin' Hot, which earned Warren her 15th Best Original Song nomination.
The songwriting dynamo has received the same number of nods at the GRAMMYs, and celebrated a win in 1997, when "Because You Loved Me" (from 1996's Up, Close and Personal) took home Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television.
John Williams
Where to start with John Williams? The veteran composer received his 54th Academy Award nod this year, with his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny recognized in Best Original Score. He remains second only to Walt Disney for the most Oscar nominations ever, he's the only individual to be recognized across seven decades in a row (his first came back in 1968 for Valley of the Dolls), and he became the oldest nominee ever in 2023 — a record which he topped again this year at 91.
And Williams has been even more successful at the GRAMMYS, picking up a remarkable 26 golden gramophones from 76 nominations. His latest came only last month when "Helena's Theme," the piece of music composed for Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character in Dial of Destiny, was crowned Best Instrumental Composition.
Dan Wilson
Dan Wilson picked up the first of his six GRAMMY nominations with his own band Semisonic's anthemic "Closing Time." But following the alt-rock trio's initial split in 2001, all of his other nods have been for his work as an in-demand songwriter. Wilson has won two of the General Field GRAMMYs, first for Song Of The Year for Dixie Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice" in 2006 and Album Of The Year for his work on Adele's 21 in 2012.
And he added a third GRAMMY to his trophy haul this year, as his co-written Chris Stapleton track "White Horse" won Best Country Song. Thanks to his contribution to the aforementioned Batiste ballad, the hitmaker can also now call himself an Oscar nominee, too.
Andrew Wyatt
Ronson co-produced and co-wrote "I'm Just Ken" [From The Motion Picture Barbie] with longtime collaborator Andrew Wyatt. The pair won the 2019 Best Original Song Oscar for their co-write on A Star Is Born cut "Shallow," and also picked up Best Song Written for Visual Media with the same tearjerker (alongside Cooper) at the GRAMMYs.
Wyatt, who first found fame as one-third of electronic trio Miike Snow before launching a solo career, has also enjoyed a taste of GRAMMY recognition elsewhere. The New Yorker's first nod came in 2012 when Bruno Mars' "Grenade," the emotive heartbreak anthem that counted him as one of six songwriters, was nominated for Song Of The Year.
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