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The Oscars bet big on Chadwick Boseman winning Best Actor. It really, really backfired.

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3 years ago

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There are a few things guaranteed to happen at any Oscars ceremony, even a pared-down one at the tail end of a long pandemic year. There will be cringey sketches starring game veteran actors. There will be a charming speech from an overexcited Brit. And there will be upsets.

Once Glenn Close had done Da Butt and Daniel Kaluuya thanked his parents for banging, it was hard to imagine there’d be a more awkward moment still to come. But then Best Picture was announced before the lead acting awards, and it was clear the usual night-ender had been bumped up to make room for an emotional climax that seemed a sure bet. Chadwick Boseman, the beloved actor who in his too-short career played more Black icons than possibly anyone else, died in 2020 after secretly being treated for colon cancer for years, and was up for a posthumous Lead Actor Oscar for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He’d already won the equivalent Golden Globe, and his widow Taylor Simone Ledward gave a heartrending acceptance speech.

It couldn’t be clearer that the Academy’s producers were hoping for a repeat of that moment — a teary, cathartic climax to a year of family, fans, and peers honouring Boseman — when they broke with tradition and moved the Best Actor presentation to be the last one of the night. 

And then Sir Anthony Hopkins, god-tier Welsh thespian and wholesome Twitter chaos gremlin, won instead. 

Hopkins hadn’t even shown up, so Joaquin Phoenix accepted the statuette on behalf of the Academy on behalf of Hopkins. (The man is 83 and it was four in the morning in the UK, folks.) And then the show was over.

Upsets are common at the Oscars: whether votes get split between multiple favourites, voters go for traditional or showy roles over understated underdogs, or some other statistical quirk, the favourite doesn’t always get the little gold dude. And as we’re reminded every year, only the independent accountants of PricewaterhouseCoopers know who’s going to win; sometimes underdog winners are seated further from the stage, or cameras not pointed at the right person, because producers and organisers have to gamble on who they think will be the centre of a particular moment.

But the fact that the show was rejigged so noticeably in order to showcase a moment that was never guaranteed and then fell flat on its face when it did not, in fact, happen…it was a huge swing and a miss.

The moment was swiftly compared to the Moonlight/La La Land snafu at the 2017 ceremony…

…and to other disappointing endings in recent entertainment history.

From NFTs in the gift bags to one of the few slides in the In Memoriam segment that lasted longer than a nanosecond, the late actor was certainly remembered throughout the night. Nobody is under any obligation to vote for a deceased nominee just because it’s their “last chance”; and while Hopkins’ performance in The Father as an old man struggling with dementia is a, let’s say, traditional choice for Best Actor, none of this is to say that he didn’t deserve to win on his own merits.

But those caveats don’t make the loss any less disappointing for those who were hoping to see Boseman’s final performance awarded — nor does it make the show producers’ choice to shuffle the order in the hopes of a Big TV Moment any less exploitative.

Anyway, good morning to Anthony Hopkins, whom I hope slept very well indeed.

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