LONDON — Michelle Williams won critical acclaim for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical coming-of-age drama, The Fabelmans, and her portrayal of the director’s mother secured her a best actress Oscar nomination on Tuesday.

Co-written by Mr. Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the movie is set in the 1950s and ’60s and follows the fictional character Sammy Fabelman, based on Mr. Spielberg as a young man, as he falls in love with the moving pictures and discovers a family secret that changes the way he views the world.

Ms. Williams and Paul Dano play Sammy’s mother Mitzi and father Burt, inspired by Mr. Spielberg’s parents, the late Leah Adler and Arnold Spielberg.

In an interview with Reuters earlier this month, Ms. Williams spoke about the role, seeing an emotional Mr. Spielberg on set and awards season.

Below are excerpts, edited for length and clarity.

Q: What was it like to essentially play Steven Spielberg’s mother and take on this high energy role?

Williams: Very high energy! Honestly, it was a beautiful thing to inhabit for a period of time. I loved being her. I loved burning that brightly and having that much to give, to the point I really missed her… when it was all over.

Q: As a mother and artist, how much did your character Mitzi and Mr. Spielberg’s mother Leah Adler resonate with you?

Williams: She really did and she continues to honestly, the way that she was an artist. She was an incredible pianist, could have been a concert pianist, could have travelled the world. But she used all of that energy and she put it into her family and she made her family this huge creative act. She made their childhoods so full of imagination and whimsy and play and joy and fun.

Q: I understand Mr. Spielberg got quite emotional when she saw you and Paul Dano on set in character as his parents?

Williams: It’s such an interesting moment because here’s this man in front of you weeping because he’s so moved to see the presence of his parents again, which is really why he made the movie, because he loved them so much and he wanted to bring them back and honor them and tell their story.

So your heart goes out to him because he’s emotional, but also inside, as an actor, you’re thinking: “Oh, thank God, like, it’s working. We’re on the right track.”

Q: There’s a lot of excitement over your performance. How do you approach awards season at this stage of your career?

Williams: You make your work because you want people to see it and you want them to connect to it and so when something connects like this, it’s really rewarding. — Reuters

LOS ANGELES — “Naatu Naatu,” the standout song in the Indian period film RRR, has won a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award, garnered hundreds of millions of views on YouTube and spawned a TikTok challenge. On Tuesday, it received an Oscar nomination for best original song, making history as the first Indian feature film to be nominated for anything other than best international film at the Academy Awards.

Composer M.M. Keeravani is confident the Oscar statuette is within reach at the ceremony in Hollywood on March 12.

“Yeah, I can see the moment taking its root to the road high and higher, so all fingers crossed and I have full confidence in Oscar too,” he said during a recent interview with Reuters.

Mr. Keeravani found out about his nomination on Tuesday while at a recording studio in India doing a session with a programmer and some of his singers.

“They were all very excited and they were jumping out of joy,” Mr. Keeravani said with a laugh. “I wasn’t jumping because I was surrounded by them and they were suffocating me with their congratulations and their hugs.”

“Naatu Naatu” and Mr. Keeravani are competing with some big household names in the best song category, including Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick and Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

In the action-Bollywood epic directed by S.S. Rajamouli, “Naatu Naatu” begins when the two leads, played by Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr., flaunt their dance skills after being bullied as the only Indian people invited to a British party in colonial times.

When a young British man aims racist insults at the leads, they decide to educate him using the song “Naatu Naatu.”

During the scene, which was shot at Ukraine’s grand Mariinskyi Palace, everyone at the party, including the scoffing British man, tries to master the moves.

“Naatu means ethnicity, ethnic,” said Mr. Keeravani. “Whatever I do is purely mine. It’s my own experience, it’s my own way of expression. These are my words, this is my style, look at me, this is who I am.”

“Naatu Naatu” is the first song from an Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar and the first nominated song in the Telugu language. In 2008, Indian composer A.R. Rahman won the Oscar for the Hindi song “Jai-Ho,” but that was for the US-British production of Slumdog Millionaire, which was set in India. — Reuters