EW's 2021 Oscars issue: Your guide to Hollywood's biggest night

The Sound of Metal star, 38, on inhabiting a demanding role — and how the film uses sound to take the audience on his character's harrowing journey: I spent seven months, every day, just full-time learning [American Sign Language and how to play drums].… When I started becoming more fluent in ASL, I found myself getting much more emotional talking about things than I would if I was just using words. We [also] had Nicolas Becker, who is one of the most brilliant sound designers in the world. [He came] up to me with this weird contraption that he's made in his lab. Puts it against my chest and says, "Blink and breathe. And now hold your breath so I can hear your heartbeat. Now lick your lips. Now swallow." So much in the auditory landscape of this film is actually constructed from [my character] Ruben's body. It's like literally being inside his head. And it's something that's necessary as well. Because often when people are in that liminal space of losing their external hearing, they still have a lot of their vibrational hearing of their internal bodily processes. So it very much places you in the cockpit with Ruben as he's going through this experience. That, paired with the camerawork, turns it almost into a first-person movie experience, which I think helps really make it feel so visceral. —AS TOLD TO CLARISSA CRUZ

The Promising Young Woman nominee, 35, reveals how she broke the film's tension with costar Bo Burnham — singing a rendition of Paris Hilton's "Stars Are Blind": The prep was like, "Here's a printed sheet of the words, go and learn it!" [Director Emerald Fennell] put Bo on one side of an aisle and me on the other [and said], "We have clearance for all of these products, so do what you want with them!" We just went into it. I was very resistant at the beginning and kept hiding behind my character, saying, "Cassie would never do this!" But two takes in, Emerald came and gave me a telling-off, and told me that I needed to enter into the spirit of what we're doing, so I was like, "Okay, fine, I'll do it." And it was very good fun! We were popping potato chip bags, but the most exciting thing that day was that Bo had, in an earlier take, picked up a tin of Spam and danced with the Spam. Then we were all in a crisis because we didn't know if we could get clearance for Spam, so the producers were ringing the people from Spam. Word went out on set like, "Guys, we got permission to use Spam!" [Laughs] It was very exciting. The whole crew was humming "Stars Are Blind" for a week afterwards....From the offset, this film has meant a huge lot to me. —AS TOLD TO JOEY NOLFI

The two-­time Oscar nominee, 32, on the power — and responsibility — of taking on revolutionary icon Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah: I took this one because it spoke to me. I read the script; that's my North Star in a lot of decisions — how does it make me feel? And I felt [Fred Hampton] as a man: brilliant, wiser than his years. I'd always wanted to take a deep dive into the Black Panther party. It was an incredible opportunity to have the personal meaning about what they represented as opposed to what has been told to me, or what has been tried to be conditioned into me, about who they are. When I was on set, it was a different kind of pressure than I imagined going into it, because [Hampton's partner] would come to set once in a while and his son was there every day. His son never met his dad because he was assassinated weeks before he was born. Just having that every day was a reminder of what we were doing. There's a legacy, there's a family story, there's a community of people who have actively been erased. It keeps you focused and zeroed in on what's the truth. What are we saying here? How are we giving ourselves? Always searching for the truth — I felt that responsibility. —AS TOLD TO DAVID CANFIELD

How the Bulgarian breakout, 24, unleashed her inner wild child — and found her character's heart — during a pivotal scene in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: I think there's a lot of craziness inside of me. I wasn't sure I'd be able to match Sacha [Baron Cohen], because he's one of a kind. I had some difficulties when I was with the amazing Jeanise Jones, my babysitter[in the film]. Production had a lunch break, and they were supposed to take me with them, but I stayed with her. Something inside of me was like, "This woman is such an angel. Should I keep trying to make her feel worried about Tutar?" But [then I told myself] "Okay, stay there, it's going to make an impact. We need examples like her." We're living in a new world where everything is supposed to be possible, and women shouldn't be seen as sexual objects....Through all of the silliness, we can show some issues that aren't quite right, and it's supposed to make us think and act, not only react. I didn't need training, but I tried to learn as much from Sacha as I could. He was my mentor and teacher. [He'd say] "When you start to think people are getting suspicious, just go deep inside the character and focus on what is the most important message of the scene." So maybe Sacha trained me! —AS TOLD TO JOEY NOLFI