Andrea Riseborough to keep Oscar nomination after campaign controversy

After a campaign controversy, Andrea Riseborough will remain an Oscar nominee.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Riseborough will keep her Best Actress Oscar nomination for the film To Leslie following an investigation into controversial campaign tactics.

"Based on concerns that surfaced last week around the To Leslie awards campaign, the Academy began a review into the film's campaigning tactics," a statement from Academy CEO Bill Kramer said. "The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film's nomination should be rescinded."

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However, Kramer said the Academy "did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern," and "these tactics are being addressed with the responsible parties directly."

Riseborough received a nomination for Best Actress following numerous celebrity endorsements on social media, surprising pundits given her film had almost no prior presence in the race. But Puck subsequently reported that the Academy was looking at whether the effort to secure Riseborough a nod may have broken Academy rules.

For one, there were questions of whether emails sent by the director's wife, Mary McCormack, asking friends to spread the word about the movie may have violated rules about lobbying. A post from the film's Instagram account quoting a critic who deemed Riseborough's performance superior to Cate Blanchett's also raised eyebrows, as the Academy's rules ban "any tactic that singles out 'the competition' by name or title." An actress who isn't in To Leslie, Frances Fisher, also may have run afoul of this rule by encouraging followers on Instagram to vote for Riseborough with the assurance that other candidates, whom she mentioned by name, "are a lock."

But while Riseborough will keep her nomination, the Academy said this controversy made clear that "components of the regulations must be clarified to help create a better framework for respectful, inclusive, and unbiased campaigning." So changes to the rules will be made "after this awards cycle."