Variety partners up with PBS So Cal for Actors on Actors for their ninth season. The Oscars have always been non-stop promotion but it seems like nowadays, with the frontrunners decided during the festival season, the lead up to the Oscars is NOTHING BUT promotion. Constantly. Promotion. Promotion. Promotion. Promotion. There is so much promotion, in fact, that it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between promotion and deserving accolades. Either way, some of it can be enriching. I watched a few of these that are informative. Here are those who will be participating:

Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) with Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns)

Mahershala Ali (Green Book) with John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman)

Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place / Mary Poppins Returns) with Hugh Jackman (The Front Runner)

Emma Stone (The Favourite) with Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy)

Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) with Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther)

Nicole Kidman (Destroyer / Boy Erased) with Amy Adams (Vice)

Charlize Theron (Tully) with Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)

Armie Hammer (On the Basis of Sex / Sorry to Bother You) with Dakota Johnson (Suspiria)

Glenn Close (The Wife) with Sam Elliott (A Star is Born)

Viggo Mortensen (Green Book) with Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther)

Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) with Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Kindergarten Teacher)

John Krasinski (A Quiet Place) with Rosamund Pike (A Private War)

Felicity Jones (On the Basis of Sex) with Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians).