Oscars 2021 Producer Says Ending Ceremony With Best Actor Was a “Calculated Risk”

A producer behind the 2021 Oscars says it was a “calculated risk” ending the ceremony with the presentation of the Best Actor Oscar, which was awarded to an absent Anthony Hopkins over a posthumously nominated Chadwick Boseman. After Sunday’s broadcast ended with last year’s Joker winner Joaquin Phoenix accepting the award on behalf of Hopkins, who won his second Oscar for his role in The Father, viewers took to Twitter with criticisms that the ceremony was seemingly built around a Boseman win that didn’t happen. Many expected Boseman to be awarded the Oscar after the late actor was honored with a Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the SAG Award for his performance as Levee in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

“It wasn’t just the final categories, the whole show was mixed up,” Rob Mills, executive VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, told Variety after ABC’s latest Oscars presentation. “Screenplay, that usually comes in Act 5 or 6, one of the later acts. And Best Director was also very early. I think the point was, sometimes you watch the show and you feel like, ‘Gosh, I’ve seen this every year.’ So, it really was the ‘Wow, I really don’t know what’s coming next.’”

“It was not meant to end on somebody who was not present. It was a calculated risk, that I think still paid off because everybody was talking about it. Similarly, nobody wants the wrong envelope to happen, like it did three years ago,” Mills said, referring to the infamous La La Land and Moonlight Best Picture mixup at the 89th Academy Awards, “but everyone was talking about it. I think some people thought maybe they missed some awards. ‘Why is Best Picture early?’ or, ‘What’s happening, this is crazy,’ almost like, ‘How can this possibly happen? Best Picture has to end it!’ Some people were upset, some people loved it and that was really the point that there was no apathy.”

Mills also pointed out the muted ending is a reminder that Oscars producers are not aware of the winners beforehand. “Although imagine that they did, and they still did that,” Mills said. “That would have been very bold.”

After Hopkins became the oldest actor to win an Oscar at the age of 83, he said in a video published to Instagram that he “did not expect to get this award” before paying tribute to Boseman, who “was taken from us far too early. I really did not expect this, so I feel very privileged and honored.”

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, also starring Viola Davis and Colman Domingo, is now streaming on Netflix. The Father, also starring Olivia Colman and Imogen Poots alongside Hopkins, is available to rent wherever digital movies are sold.