Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, and Rubina Ali, 9, the child actors from the slums of Mumbai who appeared in Slumdog Millionaire, will be taking their first airplane trip to Los Angeles to attend the 81st annual ceremony.
Two fresh faces will be making their red carpet debut at the Oscars tomorrow night.
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, and Rubina Ali, 9, the child actors from the slums of Mumbai who appeared in Slumdog Millionaire, will be taking their first airplane trip to Los Angeles to attend the 81st annual ceremony.
The rags-to-riches story has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.
All nine actors who play the three main characters in three stages of their lives will attend the ceremony. They include 18-year-old Dev Patel, who was known for his role in Channel 4 drama Skins before he won the lead part in Slumdog, and the glamorous Freida Pinto.
But also attending will be Azharuddin and Rubina, both of whom were plucked from their homes in a Mumbai slum by Danny Boyle, the director who launched his career at the helm of two of the most critically acclaimed films ever made in Scotland, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, and his team.
"I'm very happy that I'm going to the Oscars," Rubina said in her home in India, hours before she was to leave for the United States. "My friends are saying: Your fate is so good.'"
"I'm not scared," said Rubina, who will be traveling with her uncle. "I'm going to go and take a lot of pictures and show them to people over here."
She said she planned to go shopping for a dress to wear to the ceremony while her uncle, Mohidden Khan, 40, laughed when he was asked what he would wear.
"I'm thinking maybe jeans and a T-shirt," he said.
James Finn, of Fox Searchlight Pictures, said the company had been making visa and travel arrangements for the children and their relatives up until the last minute. Securing visas and passports in India can be a difficult process, especially for impoverished Indians who often don't have the necessary identification forms and documents.
"Everybody is really excited about it," said Finn, who added that the actors would be staying in a five-star hotel. "It's nice the whole gang will be together."
Slumdog Millionaire is widely considered the bookmakers' favourite to scoop the Oscar for Best Picture after winning five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes and seven Bafta Awards.
Its closest rival for Best Picture is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which received 13 nominations. But Button, starring Brad Pitt, has yet to win a major prize other than three technical trophies at last week's British Academy Film Awards.
Kate Winslet, who is nominated for an Oscar for the sixth time, is expected to win her first Academy Award as Best Actress for her role in The Reader. She lost out on her previous five times and another defeat would tie her with Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter as the only actresses to be nominated six times and never win.
"I have been here so many times and lost so many times, that quite honestly, I have a really good losing face," Winslet said. "I've sort of perfected that strange, zen, blank calm that you have to have in that moment that they don't call out your name."
