We know that entertainer extraordinaire Neil Patrick Harris landed himself the gig of Oscars host for next year’s ceremony – the 87th Academy Awards – and upon learning this fact we all nodded and grunted and as one declared “Well, of course he is.” But what might surprise you is that, despite having hosted just about every other awards ceremony under the sun, he wasn’t even on the podium when it came to producer’s primary preferences.
In fact, NPH was in actuality the fourth choice for the gig, after producers were spurned by their top three draft picks.
After the most recent ceremony’s ratings records annihilation, the dudes in charge – Craig Zadan and Neil Meron – unsurprisingly went straight back to Ellen DeGeneres to try and convince her to head back to the scene of the crime where she momentarily took down Twitter. DeGeneres was somewhat reluctant to fill the role for 2014, and was firmly against heading back for another stint this time around.
Pick number two was another former host of the ceremony in Chris Rock, who had previously held the job back in 2005, but he too turned down another shift at the helm.
Thirdly, and perhaps the most interesting choice of the bunch, producers turned to Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Which we think we can all agree that it would have been absolutely awesome. We just hope that, in a fair and just world, she turned the job down in a manner similar to this.
But while all of that is something of a missed opportunity, the fact that we get NPH instead is definitely exciting – and more than likely means the ceremony will be entertaining as hell.
On top of that, it also means that Neil Patrick Harris is now three-quarters of the way to a rare Hosting EGOT. All we need now is for the pesky Grammy‘s to fall into line and everything will be right with the world.
Photo: Handout via Getty Images.
