While "Shallow" nominee Lady Gaga is getting much of the buzz for the best original song category at this year's Oscars, another songwriting nominee would break a long record if she wins Sunday night.
Diane Warren is nominated for the song "I'll Fight" from the documentary "RBG" about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If Warren wins, it will be her first-ever Oscar after 10 nominations.
"I'll probably pass out," Warren said Friday on "Good Morning America" when asked what her reaction will be if her name is called. "I'll probably faint."
Warren is competing against Gaga at the 91st annual Academy Awards but she also co-wrote one of the songs on the "A Star Is Born" soundtrack with Gaga, who also scored a best actress nomination this year.
"I think the money is probably on her this time, not that I want to bet against myself," Warren said, adding, "You never know."
Warren's best original song nomination will be performed at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday by Jennifer Hudson, who sings "I"ll Fight" in "RBG" as well.
"If Ruth Bader Ginsburg could sing, in my mind it would be Jennifer Hudson," Warren said of picking the Oscar winner. "I thought she’d be the perfect casting to capture this."
Warren's song for the best documentary-nominated film includes the lyrics, "So I'll fight, fight that war for you. I'll fight, stand and defend you. Take your side, that's what I'm here to do."
The songwriter said she was most inspired by the "fighting spirit" of Ginsburg, the 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice who has developed a reputation for her toughness and strength, both because of her longevity on the court and because of the strides she's made for gender equality in the workplace.
Ginsburg was one of nine women in her class at Harvard Law School and in 1993 became the second woman to ever serve on the highest court in the land. She returned to the bench for oral arguments earlier this month for the first time since her surgery to remove cancerous nodules from her lung.
"She speaks so softly but what she says is so powerful and I wanted to write a song that captures that," Warren said of Ginsburg. "Having someone like Jennifer Hudson sing it became her vocal avatar."
If Warren wins an Oscar, the songwriter said she will do the same thing she has done each of the nine times she's lost at the Oscars: eat French fries.
"I'll just have more to celebrate," she said.
(MORE: Oscars 2019: Experts share their predictions on who will win the Academy Awards)
