[Source: Entertainment Weekly

“I’m not sure a lot of them know that they were nominated,” the actor joked.

Marlon Wayans is well aware that he flubbed several names while announcing the 2026 slate of Golden Globe nominations.

For the most part, Monday morning’s broadcast revealing the Golden Globes nominees went off without a hitch.

Wayans and actress Skye P. Marshall served as celebrity presenters, ushering in the major contenders in the ongoing awards race. But 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 joked to Variety, hours after the broadcast. The Him actor also shared that, in his defense, there wasn’t much time to familiarize himself with the nominees prior to the announcement. “We were given about three minutes beforehand.”

Among the names Wayans mispronounced were 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. Wayans also stumbled over 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.

After struggling to read those names, Wayans tried to lighten the mood, quipping, “Somebody’s mama at home right now going, ‘What, who?'”

Wayans’ partner on the broadcast, Marshall, told the outlet that she was worried about such flubs herself and practiced her pronunciations of top contenders ahead of the Monday announcement.

“I love the festival season, and 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,” she said. “So when the Golden Globes called to ask me to actually say the nominee names on television, I was extremely nervous.”

She added, “I just don’t like not knowing people’s names. Because I value the breakthrough, 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.”

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