The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences isn’t taking any chances with this year’s Oscars ceremony after the absolute fiasco in 2022.
During an interview, the organization’s CEO Bill Kramer told Time that the group has diligently prepared for all kinds of drama ahead of the Academy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12.
“We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” he told the publication. “We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen.”
It’s all being done as a response to the viral moment during the 2022 ceremony when award nominee Will Smith strode onto the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who was also in the audience.
Rock responded by saying, “Wow, Will Smith just smacked the s*** out of me,” while an irate Smith returned to his seat, saying, “Keep my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth.”
A short time later, Smith was invited onstage to accept the Best Actor award for his work in “King Richard.” The Academy has since been criticized for allowing Smith to stay in the audience.
The Academy issued a statement later in the evening saying it does not “condone violence in any form.” Smith apologized to Rock and the audience the day after the incident and resigned from the Academy the same week. AMPAS eventually banned Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years.
The organization’s CEO is adamant that nothing like the slap can happen again, thanks partly to the crisis team being in place.
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“Because of last year, we’ve opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars,” Kramer said of this year’s show.
“But these crisis plans — the crisis communication teams and structures we have in place — allow us to say, ‘This is the group that we have to gather very quickly. This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement.’ And obviously, depending on the specifics of the crisis, and let’s hope something doesn’t happen and we never have to use these, but we already have frameworks in place that we can modify.”