Yahoo Lifestyle Diane Warren on Her 16th Oscar Nomination: ‘Yes, I Would Like to Break My Decades-Long Tradition and Win’
Diane Warren has never won an Oscar. But she has a lot of nominations.
The songwriter is up for her 16th nod in the original song category for “The Journey” from Tyler Perry’s Netflix movie “The Six Triple Eight” performed by H.E.R. And while she does have an honorary Oscar, which the Academy awarded her in 2022, she has yet to land a competitive one.
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Of course, she would like that to finally, at long last, happen: “Yes, I would like to break my decades-long tradition and win.”
Could this finally be her year?
Warren’s song is up against two songs from “Emilia Pérez,” “El Mal” and “Mi Camino,” as well as “Never Too Late” from the documentary “Elton John: Never Too Late” and “Like a Bird” from A24’s prison drama “Sing Sing.”
“The Six Triple Eight” producer Keri Selig was the one who pitched Warren on the gig and went a step further to secure the songwriter’s talents. “She had the sizzle reel, and she walked me through the movie scene by scene,” Warren says. “I had never written a song that way.”
Perry’s film tells the story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only troop of Black women and women of color to serve in Europe during World War II. Warren remembers being so moved by the material she was shown that she sat at her piano and immediately came up with the chorus. She says she surprised herself with how easily the song came to her.
“It doesn’t usually happen,” she said. “Sometimes a teeny piece will come, but that whole chorus came with those chords.”
After putting pen to paper, Warren had to find the right singer to deliver her melodic prose. She compares the process to casting. “You have to be authentic to the movie and the song,” Warren explains.
Warren considers her collaboration with Gabby Wilson, as H.E.R. is known professionally, a full-circle moment. The two share the same lawyer and first connected over a decade ago.
“We actually met when she was 15. She was a kid, but she came into my office, and I said, ‘Oh my God, you’re 15 and you’re that good,'” Warren remembers. “Here we are back together, so this song is our journey of coming back together and creating this beautiful work.”
They lost touch after that initial meeting but began exchanging DMs on social media as Warren had completed the writing of “The Journey.” H.E.R. came to Warren’s Hollywood studio to hear the song.
“By the time she left, she had already played the piano, guitar and sang one of the best vocals I’ve ever heard in my life,” Warren says. “That vocal is right up there with Whitney [Houston]. It’s a master class.”
Warren is among the few who have accumulated this many Oscar nominations without a win. Her notable nods include “Because You Loved Me” from “Up Close & Personal” (1996), “How Do I Live” from “Con Air” (1997), “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from “Armageddon” (1998), “There You’ll Be” from “Pearl Harbor” (2001) and most recently, “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” (2023).
How does Warren feel about never having won? “Maybe I wasn’t sweet?” she posits with a laugh. But like her song and the movie, she says she remains hopeful and determined that maybe the Academy will turn this one into a Sweet 16.
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