Will Smith’s “banishment” was a problem for an Oscars tradition, but Halle Berry has solved it again

The Oscars ceremony had a problem this year: Will Smith. To be exact, his absence. Punished for 10 years to stay home on the big day in Hollywood for his absurd slap to Chris Rock live a year ago, his status as winner of Best Actor at that same ceremony raised a question: and now who was going to present the Oscar? for Best Actress? Traditionally, Hollywood puts the winning actor from the previous year to award the winning actress the following year, but Smith, of course, was not going to be there this year.

The co-producer of the ceremony Ricky Kirshner counted to Los Angeles Times that the solution was simple: “When I arrived everyone said ‘this is what we used to do.’ Now, there is no longer ‘this is what we used to do'”. And that solution has been to move the chips. The Oscar for Best Actor in brendan fraserwhich should have presented Jessica Chastain alone, she has done it accompanied by Halle Berrywho had already done a trick on previous occasions (in 2010, when he came out with Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Shirley McLaine to give the Oscar to Kate Winslet). And both have doubled to deliver the Oscar for Best Actress: michelle yeoh.

There was a closer precedent. casey affleck he was absent from the 2018 ceremony amid allegations of sexual abuse. And the Academy opted for other winners to replace it: Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence. It was a year in which there was more movement: Emma Stone presented the award for Best Director instead of Best Actor, as it would have corresponded by that same tradition, and in her place appeared Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda. A Solomonic solution that had already happened in other editions, and that today has returned to recover when it comes to delivering the Oscar to Yeoh.

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