Bollywood actor Vidya Balan and producers Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor are among the 395 new members of artists and executives who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.Other celebrities who will be joining Vidya, Ekta and Shobha are Oscar award winners Yuh-Jung Youn, Emerald Fennell and Florian Zeller. Other artists like Henry Golding, Vanessa Kirby, Robert Pattinson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II also have been invited to join the league this year.The Academy announced the names of the ‘Class of 2021’ on their website. Their tweet read, “It’s time to announce our new members! Meet the Class of 2021. #WeAreTheAcademy”This year, the Academy has invited 395 people in comparison to last year when it invited 819 members.
The Academy said in a statement, “To enable steady future growth and to ensure the necessary infrastructure, staff resources and environment to support all Academy members, the number invited to membership was limited to roughly half that of recent years. ”Last year’s class included actors Alia Bhatt and Hrithik Roshan, documentary filmmakers Nishtha Jain and Amit Madheshiya, designer Neeta Lulla, casting director Nandini Shrikent, visual effects supervisors Vishal Anand and Sandeep Kamal. Talking about the limited number of executives this year, the Academy shared in a statement, “To enable steady future growth and to ensure the necessary infrastructure, staff resources and environment to support all Academy members, the number invited to membership was limited to roughly half that of recent years.”In the past, several Indian stars such as Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Irrfan Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Salman Khan, filmmakers Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta had also joined the Academy to vote in the Oscars.