The Oscars in Wartime

The Missing

Stars drop out of wartime Oscar show. Will Smith says no, Cate Blanchett says maybe not

This year's wartime Oscar show is not only going to be low on glitz and glamour – having scrapped the red carpet arrivals – but possibly low on stars as well. At least one star, last year's Best Actor nominee Will Smith, has dropped out of his role as presenter and is staying home. Another former nominee, Cate Blanchett, may not show either, and at least one of this year's nominees isn't coming.

Smith, who demonstrated his priorities at last year's ceremony by leaving before his category was announced in order to care for his ailing daughter, didn't specify why he was dropping out of this year's show. ''He felt uncomfortable in attending and respectfully asked to be excused,'' his publicist told Variety. ''There's no agenda, there's no speeches. He just felt uncomfortable in attending.''

According to the Los Angeles Times, Blanchett was also quitting her presenter's role because she didn't want to travel from her home in London. However, her publicist told Variety she was actually in New Mexico, shooting Ron Howard's western ''The Missing,'' and that she still planned to attend. However, the spokesperson said, there was still a possibility that she'd be among the missing, ''due to her fluctuating filming schedule.''

One nominee who is not coming is Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, whose ''The Man Without a Past'' is up for best foreign language film. The Associated Press reports that he wrote a letter to the Academy saying that, because of the war, neither he nor anyone from his film ''can participate in the Oscar gala event at the same time the government of the United States is preparing a crime against humanity for the purpose of shameless economic interests.'' Kaurismaki staged a similar boycott of last fall's New York Film Festival because the U.S. failed to grant a visa to Abbas Kiarostami, the acclaimed Iranian director and a fellow festival entrant. At the time, Kaurismaki said in a statement, "If international cultural exchange is prevented, what is left? The exchange of arms?''