Melissa McCarthy to Honour Glenn Close at Oscar Wilde Awards

Glenn Close will be honoured by the US-Ireland Alliance at the 14th Annual Oscar Wilde Awards, it has been announced. The Oscar Wilde Awards ceremony will be held at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot in Santa Monica, on 21 February 2019.

Melissa McCarthy, who was the recipient at the Oscar Wilde Awards in 2012, will present Close with her award. The Alliance has previously announced that Irish actor Aidan Gillen – of Game of Thrones and The Wire fame – would be an honoree this year. Irish band VINCI will perform at the ceremony, and Abrams, also a previous honoree, will be the emcee for the night.

The Oscar Wilde Awards is an annual occasion, which occurs on the run-in to the Academy Awards every year.

Glenn Close is clearly a Woman of the Moment. Last weekend, she shared the Best Actress gong at the Critics' Choice Awards with Lady Gaga, for their roles respectively in The Wife and A Star Is Born.

• A six-time Academy Award nominee, Glenn Close stars in the title role of the film adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s bestselling novel, The Wife, with Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater for Swedish director Bjorn Runge. The film opened in August of 2018. Ms. Close has already won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama, as well as the aforementioned Critics Choice Award. She has also received multiple international nominations for her performance, including from SAG, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards, BAFTA, the London Film Critics and Australian Academy International Awards (AACTA).

Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill's celebrated The World According to Garp, earning her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review, as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee).

Close received her sixth Academy Award nomination in 2012, along with Golden Globe and SAG nominations, for Albert Nobbs. She wrote the screenplay with the Irish-born, Man Booker prize-winning, novelist John Banville. Close was also a producer on the film and composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtrack-nominated song, 'Lay Your Head Down'. For Albert Nobbs, she received the Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA) as Best Foreign Actress, was voted Best Actress at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival, and was honoured for her performance by the San Sebastian Film Festival (Donostia Award), Hollywood Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival and the Palm Springs Film Festival.

• Melissa McCarthy received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the worldwide hit comedy Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow. She also received BAFTA, Critics’ Choice, and SAG Award nominations for this role and won the MTV Movie Award for Comedic Performance of the Year. She was recently awarded the Inaugural People’s Icon Award at the 2018 People’s Choice Awards and the Comedic Genius Award from MTV.

McCarthy can currently be seen starring in Fox Searchlight’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? for which she has earned Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and SAG Award nominations. She recently starred in Life of the Party, which she co-wrote and produced with husband Ben Falcone, who served as the film’s director. She previously starred in The Boss, which she also co-wrote with Falcone. She also received awards and nominations for her roles in Spy for director Paul Feig; St. Vincent opposite Bill Murray; and Tammy, which she co-wrote with Falcone, who also served as the film’s director.

McCarthy's previous film credits include The Heat opposite Sandra Bullock for director Paul Feig; Identity Thief alongside Jason Bateman; This is 40 for director Judd Apatow; Todd Phillip’s The Hangover Part III and Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig, alongside Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. She recently wrapped The Kitchen alongside Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss and Super-Intelligence, with Falcone at the helm.

On television, McCarthy starred in Gilmore Girls and Samantha Who?. She won an Emmy Award and People’s Choice Award for her role on the hit CBS comedy Mike & Molly. She also won an Emmy Award for Saturday Night Live, which she has hosted multiple times.

“We’re thrilled to honor Glenn, and to have Melissa present," Trina Vargo, founder and president of the US-Ireland Alliance, said. "Both women gave Oscar-worthy performances this year with The Wife and Can You Ever Forgive Me? respectively.”

Previous recipients of the Oscar Wilde Awards include Saoirse Ronan, Ruth Negga, Jim Sheridan, Fiona Shaw, Neil Jordan, Paul Rudd, James Corden, Stephen Colbert, Michelle Williams, Colin Farrell, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Caitriona Balfe, Paula Malcomson, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, James L. Brooks, Hylda Queally, Brendan Gleeson, Seamus McGarvey, Conan O’Brien, Sarah Greene, Snow Patrol, Lenny Abrahamson, Daisy Ridley, Zachary Quinto, and Barry Keoghan.

The US-Ireland Alliance was created to build contemporary ties between the United States and the island of Ireland, and is known for its George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, a nationwide competition that selects 12 future American leaders to pursue graduate study on the island of Ireland.