Great mates Fiona Crombie and Tony McNamara have travelled a long, winding and extraordinary path from the Sydney Theatre Company almost two decades ago to the 91st Academy Awards.
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They didn't plan it.
They didn't expect it.
"It's just the most incredible coincidence," Crombie told AAP.
If Hollywood's top awards analysts and Las Vegas bookmakers are correct, their story is about to reach a surreal level.
Crombie and McNamara are expected to win separate Oscar categories inside Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on Sunday (Monday noon AEDT).
"It is amazing for us to be nominated together," McNamara said.
Sydney-born, Adelaide-raised Crombie and Sydney's McNamara are nominated for their work on the British period comedy/drama, The Favourite.
Crombie was the production designer for the early 1800s set film.
McNamara is nominated for original screenplay after he was brought on by The Favourite's director Yorgos Lanthimos to do a major re-write of the script, which centres on a love triangle involving Queen Anne, played by Olivia Colman, and two cousins, portrayed by Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.
Crombie and McNamara first met at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2000.
Crombie was a wide-eyed recent National Institute of Dramatic Art graduate hired by director Robyn Nevin to create costumes for the McNamara penned play, The Recruit.
"I met Tony then but we didn't really talk to each other," Crombie said.
"He might dispute that, but I have no recollection of talking with him because I was the lowly, wide-eyed costume designer and he was the big deal writer."
They reunited in 2008 for the Sydney Theatre Company production of McNamara's play, The Great.
Crosbie and McNamara's wife, actress Belinda Bromilow, also became close friends and then, separately, they were hired by Lanthimos for the London production of The Favourite.
"We would be standing on set looking at each other and saying, 'What are the odds?'," Crosbie laughed.
"It was completely random and now we are at the Oscars together."
The Favourite and the Netflix Spanish language film Roma topped all films with 10 nominations each.
The Favourite's haul includes Best Picture, Directing for Lanthimos, Best Actress for Colman and Supporting Actress for Stone and Weisz.
Roma is frontrunner for Best Picture, the Viggo Mortensen-starring Green Book is second and The Favourite third.
The potential Best Picture gatecrasher and popular candidate is the Marvel superhero film Black Panther, which surprised at last month's Screen Actors Guild Awards with the ensemble prize win.
The other major category frontrunners are: Best Actor - Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody); Best Actress - Glenn Close (The Wife); Supporting Actor - Mahershala Ali (Green Book); Supporting Actress - Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk); Directing - Alfonso Cuaron (Roma).
Australian Associated Press