Marlon Wayans is responding to critics after misspelling several Golden Globe nominees’ names.
Wayans, along with actress Skye P. Marshall, served as celebrity presenters on Monday (December 7). More than once, Wayans had trouble pronouncing the names of this year’s nominees.
“I’m not sure a lot of them know that they were nominated,” Wayans said to Variety.
Wayans also shared that he didn’t have much time to go over the names.
“We were given about three minutes beforehand,” Wayans explained.
Wayans had trouble pronouncing the name of Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson, who was nominated for his work on Sinners, and Elle Fanning, who got a Best Supporting Actress nod for Sentimental Value. Also, several of the contributors to the KPop Demon Hunters-nominated track, “Golden.” The composers included “Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Park Hong Jun, Kim Eun-jae (Ejae), and Mark Sonnenblick.”
“Somebody’s mama at home right now going, ‘What, who?’” Wayans said during the presentation.
Marshall said she practiced pronouncing the contenders’ names before she announced the names on stage.
“I love the festival season. So a lot of the buzzworthy projects and creatives were already top on my list as far as my projections, because I’m a fan,” Marshall said. “So when the Golden Globes called to ask me to actually say the nominee names on television, I was extremely nervous.”
“I just don’t like not knowing people’s names. Because I value the breakthrough,” she continued. “I want to make sure I’m saying Lee Byung-Hun properly and with confidence. Because I know his work, not just because I learned the pronunciation.”
Marlon is so comfortable and so confident, and he understands that this is all for fun,” she added. “And maybe I need to lighten up. He’s a veteran, right? And I’m arriving to this stage for the first time.”
Glen Weiss, a Golden Globes executive, supported Wayans.
“I was sitting there so uneasy, thinking to myself, ‘Wow, she got some really easy names, and he got all the hard names together!’ But, you know, that’s proof that we don’t know what the nominations are,” Weiss said.