The Oscar acceptance speech. A time-honored tradition that also happens to be… incredibly boring. Who wants to hear an actor spout a hundred names like they’re reading from a phone book? Not the Oscar producers, apparently.
Every year, big nominee Oscar winners and whoever runs that timer for acceptance speeches get locked in a battle of wills. Someone inevitably goes long, music starts playing, and the actor continues to recite names, just faster. It’s a time-honored tête-à-tête that’s probably outlived it’s welcome.
Producers Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss recently sat down with CNN and laid down the law, as well as provided insight on how they make the decision to cut people off.
“If you are giving a heartfelt, well-meaning speech, you will not get cut off,” Kirshner said. “If you start reading off your grocery list of what you need to do tomorrow, probably the music’s gonna come in.”
Kirshner said he’s in the game the same way a “coach and a quarterback” are, with “headsets all night” and the ability to call audibles. He also called out the notorious move to keep going after the music starts.
“To be honest, it’s kind of rude to the people that come after,” he said. “We’re all professionals trying to do our job. We’re not trying to be rude.”
The issue was front and center during the Golden Globes recently when the pianist Chloe Flower was targeted online because of a perceived bias against actors for playing them off.
There’s a countdown clock at the Oscars to help actors from running over their time, and before they play music a sign flashes “Please wrap it up.” When that fails it’s music o’clock.
“Nobody – to say it clearly – wants to play music,” he said. “We hope that everyone respects (the time allotted), and if everybody does, there’s no music playing.”
Here’s some trivia: who had the longest Oscar speech in history? That would be the golden era actress Greer Garson. She won best actress for the 1942 film Mrs. Miniver at the 15th Academy Awards, and her speech ran for six minutes. It was so long that the Academy was forced to establish a rule that speeches should only last forty-five seconds.
Other notable long speeches include Hilary Swank in 2000 for Boys Don’t Cry (three minutes); Adrien Brody for The Pianist (3:45); Cuba Gooding Jr. (1:45) and Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman, who has the distinction of the longest speech by word count at 475 words.
The 95th Academy Awards Oscars will air Sunday on ABC.