One of the biggest head-scratchers (and there were A LOT) of last night’s Ambien Fest ’21 known as the 93rd Academy Awards was that they didn’t present Best Picture at the end of the show like they usually do. Best Picture, which was presented by Rita Moreno and won by Nomadland, was pushed before Best Actress and Best Actor. Some figured that the Academy thought the late Chadwick Boseman was going to win Best Actor, since his performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom has been sweeping this awards season, and so they wanted to end the show with a big tribute to him. BUT PLOT TWIST! When Joaquin Phoenix presented the Best Actor Oscar, he mumbled out something about acting being weird and then called out Anthony Hopkins’ name and Anthony Hopkins wasn’t even there. He was asleep at home! You and everyone else, Sir Tony!
Chadwick Boseman seemed poised to be the second person ever to posthumously win Best Actor at the Oscars. He was nominated for his portrayal of trumpet player Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, an adaptation of August Wilson’s 1982 play. He won at the Golden Globes, the NAACP Awards, and also the SAG Awards–accepted by his wife, Taylor Simone Ledwar. Actor Peter Finch won Best Actor for the 1976 movie Network and Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor at the 2008 Oscars for the iconic Joker in The Dark Knight which will inspire emo-boys and girls for decades to come. So it seemed that Chadwick’s win was a lock. But that didn’t happen and Anthony Hopkins’ performance in The Father won over Chadwick, Riz Ahmed (The Sound of Metal), Gary Oldman (Mank), and Steven Yeun (Minari). And at 83 years old, Anthony Hopkins is the oldest actor to ever win an acting Oscar. It’s his second Oscar. He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1992 for Silence of the Lambs.
And of course, Twitter reacted to the weird ass ending to a weird ass ceremony:
didn’t think we’d ever see another #Oscars ending as bizarre as the Moonlight // La La Land mixup, but its like i’ve always said: if a man can form a friendship with an octopus then i guess anything is possible!
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) April 26, 2021
Holy shit Anthony Hopkins beating the late Chadwick Boseman AND Riz Ahmed AND Steven Yeun for Best Actor is just some go home with your heart in your belly stuff. What is even happening #Oscars
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) April 26, 2021
The Oscars were so sure that Chadwick Boseman was going to win that they REARRANGED THE ENTIRE CEREMONY so his category could be last, and then they gave the award to Anthony Hopkins instead…the most chaotic and unhinged thing I've ever seen.
— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) April 26, 2021
That’s why you end with Best Picture. I think it takes away from Nomadland and Hopkins honestly because the changed order felt like a bait and switch when everyone was expecting a Chadwick Boseman tribute at the end.
— Richard Newby (@RICHARDLNEWBY) April 26, 2021
Anthony Hopkins was at home in Wales during the Oscars. So not only did he not travel during a pandemic, but he also posted a video this morning and said he was grateful to the Academy. He also mentioned Chadwick Boseman since he knows that everyone had their money on Chadwick winning:
“Good morning. Here I am in my homeland of Wales, and at 83 years of age I did not expect to get this award, I really didn’t and I’m very grateful to the academy and very thankful. And I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman who was taken from us far too early, and again, thank you all very much. I really did not expect this, so I feel very privileged and honored.”
Here’s Anthony’s speech:
View this post on Instagram
Maybe this was all a set-up? Could it be the Hollywood Foreign Press switched out the cards to take some of the bad publicity off of them?!! Whatever the case may be, that ending was so weird that I kept waiting for Rob Lowe and Snow White to dance onto the stage for an encore performance. Actually, that would’ve been a better ending.
Pic: Wenn.com
