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Neil Patrick Harris reflects on bumpy Oscar night – not sure he would want to host again
Neil Patrick Harris sure looked great in his tighty whities on Oscar night and I thought his Birdman parody was a hoot.
But was talking to one of my brothers the other day and he had not seen Birdman and did not get it at all.
One of the hurdles of hosting the Oscars during a year when the only major box office hit among the best picture nominees was American Sniper.
NPH did a great opening musical number but several jokes fell flat (“It takes balls to wear a dress like that”) and the ratings were down.
So does the four-time Tony Award host and two-time host of the Emmys hope for a chance to do better by hosting the Oscars again?
‘I don’t know that my family nor my soul could take it,’ he tells Huffington Post.
‘It’s a beast. It was fun to check off the list, but for the amount of time spent and the understandable opinionated response, I don’t know that it’s a delightful balance to do every year or even again.’
He insists he has not been following the Oscars feedback ‘obsessively’ but he hasn’t been on a social media blackout either.
‘It was interesting to see just what people thought landed and didn’t,’ he says. ‘It’s so difficult for one who’s simply watching the show to realize just how much time and concession and compromise and explanation has gone into almost every single thing. Every joke. Wording of joke. Placement of joke. Canceling of joke. Embellishment for just one line.
‘And I’m not saying that to defend everything I said as if it was the absolute best choice, but it’s also an award show, and you’re powering through 14 acts filled with 20 plus awards. So my job was to try and keep things as light and specific to this year’s set of films as possible. And if people are critical of that, it’s a big giant platform, so I would assume that they would be.’
He adds: ‘I was glad we got through it.’
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
K. Martinez says:
He did fine, but I don’t blame him if he doesn’t want to host the Oscars again. It seems like being the host of that show is the most overly criticized and thankless job in Hollywood. I think he’d be better off channeling his energy elsewhere. He’s very talented and has the potential to go onto greater things with his acting and stage career.
David says:
Billy Crystal was the gold standard that’s hard to live up to.
Charlie says:
It seems like tradition to draw and quarter anyone who dares host the Oscars. I’m not sure what the critics are looking for. I think NPH got stuck with a sucky hear to host. There were few really outstanding movies this year. I don’t think he had much to work with. Personally I would like to see Ellen host again.