Academy Awards 2023: Milton's Jenny Slate has two chances to take Oscars stage

In the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 95-year history, only two winners have been South Shore natives, and both hail from Quincy. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar as supporting actress in 1968 for "Rosemary's Baby." Peter Del Vecho, producer of the Disney animated princess tale "Frozen," took home the region's second statuette in 2014.

On Sunday, Milton native Jenny Slate could become the third homegrown talent to win an Oscar. Chris Cooper, a Kingston resident by way of Kansas City, Missouri, won an Academy Award in 2003 as best supporting actor for his work in “Adaptation.”  Geena Davis, a native of Wareham, which is almost the South Shore, won her supporting actress Oscar in 1989 for “The Accidental Tourist.”

Slate's film "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" is nominated for best animated feature. The 95th Academy Awards ceremony will be held at 8 p.m. Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and aired on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel hosts.

Slate, who was valedictorian of her Milton Academy class in 2000, has another reason to celebrate on Sunday. She plays a supporting role in the awards-season juggernaut “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which leads Oscar nominations with 11, including best picture, and is the heavy favorite to win the major categories. At the Feb. 26 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Slate joined her castmates onstage to collect their best ensemble award, a significant bellwether in the race for best picture.

But it's teeny Marcel that has kept Slate big-time busy on the awards trail since nominations were announced Jan. 24. She's been a guest on "The Kelly Clarkson Show," "TODAY," "The Late Late Show with James Corden" and "CBS This Morning," and she presented the award for best new scripted series at the Film Independent Spirit Awards on March 4. Slate also presented fellow South Shore native Jennifer Coolidge, a Norwell native, with the SAG award for her performance in "The White Lotus."

"Marcel" earned nominations from all the major outfits on the circuit: BAFTA, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit and a bunch of film festivals and guild groups. It took top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. (If you still haven't seen it, "Marcel" is available to stream via video on demand rental.)

Slate is no stranger to winning awards. Last month, she won a prestigious Annie Award for best voice acting in an animated film, but “Marcel” is her first Oscar nomination. She not only lends her distinct voice to Marcel − a fearless, 1-inch-tall gastropod with googly eyes and orange sneakers − but she also helped create him with her ex-husband, Dean Fleischer-Camp, and co-wrote the script.

The movie, which was released last June, is a feature adaptation of the popular stop-motion shorts and best-selling books Slate wrote with Fleischer-Camp, who directs in addition to playing the role of a camera-shy documentary filmmaker.  A mix of live action and stop motion animation, "Marcel" has tallied $6.8 million at the box office and has a 98% “fresh score” on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It faces tough competition in the animated category, going up against “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” which won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, Annie Award, BAFTA and more; “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”; “The Sea Beast”; and “Turning Red.”

Slate plays Debbie the Dog Mom in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'

Though she's credited as just “Big Nose,” which was later changed to “Debbie the Dog Mom,” Slate appears in some pivotal parts of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which is still playing in a handful of local theaters and is available to rent via video on demand.

No spoilers here, but Slate gets to show off her comedic chops and martial arts skills in the multiverse-hopping indie hit.  She first shows up as a patron at Michelle Yeoh’s laundromat. Later, the two actresses square off with Slate’s character using her toy Pomeranian as a weapon.

Among the Academy Award nominations for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” are best actress for Yeoh and best supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan, the former child star who played Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” The film also nabbed supporting actress nods for Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu.

A ubiquitous voice actress: 'Zootopia,' 'Secret Life of Pets'

Slate's voice work includes the part of the bouncy Pomeranian, Gidget, in “The Secret Life of Pets” movies and Harley Quinn in “The Lego Batman Movie.” She also voiced characters in the hit animated films “Zootopia,” “Despicable Me 3″ and “The Lorax.”

On television, Slate has appeared in supporting and guest roles in comedies such as “Married,” “Brooklyn Nine Nine,” “Parks and Recreation,” “House of Lies,” “Bored to Death,” “Girls,” “Kroll Show” and “Hello Ladies.” She also appeared on “Saturday Night Live” during the 2009-10 season, drawing laughs for impersonations of Lady Gaga and the Olsen twins.

Her film work also includes "I Want You Back," "On the Rocks," “Venom,” “Hotel Artemis,” “Landline,” “Gifted" and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.” Slate won a Critics Choice award for her turn as a comedienne facing an unplanned pregnancy in 2014′s “Obvious Child.”

Slate splits time between Los Angeles and Dartmouth, where she lives with her husband, writer Ben Shattuck, and daughter Ida. She returned to Milton Academy to deliver the commencement address in 2013 and to offer graduates good-humored pointers for life, including always be optimistic and search for “a thing of beauty” every day.

"Being bouncy and hopeful is not for idiots," Slate said in her 2013 speech. "Fools and cowards act like grumps and lemon suckers."

She also told graduates not to worry if they weren't good at math or sports.

"I forget why the War of 1812 started, and I'm OK with that," she said.

Massachusetts ties to Oscars 2023

No other South Shore talent or locally filmed titles received nominations this year, but there are still some Massachusetts connections to the Hollywood's biggest night.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is up for nine awards, including best picture and adapted screenplay for director Edward Berger, who will helm the adaptation of the true-crime book "Hell Town," which was written by Marshfield resident Casey Sherman. ... Boston-born documentarian Laura Poitras earned a best documentary nod for "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed," about filmmaker and activist Nan Goldin, who grew up in Swampscott and Lexington. ... Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster sequel "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is up for five categories, including best costume design for Ruth E. Carter, a Springfield native. She made history in 2019, becoming the first Black person to win an Academy Award for costume design for her Afrofuturistic designs in the original movie. Also, many of the movie's key scenes were shot in Boston, Cambridge and Worcester. ... Five-time Oscar winner John Williams, the maestro of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993, is nominated for best original score for his work on Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama, "The Fabelmans." With 52 Oscar nominations, Williams is the academy’s most-nominated living person. ... Emerson College alumni Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as "The Daniels," are nominated for best directors for "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Milton's Jenny Slate appears in two Oscar nominees 'Marcel the Shell'