An Oscars Producer Revealed Their “Only Hesitation” About Bringing Back Past Winners To Present The Acting Awards, And It Makes Complete Sense

“We wanted them to feel personal,” a producer revealed. “We wanted it to feel like a friend speaking on your behalf.”

By
Ellen Durney
by Ellen Durney

BuzzFeed Staff

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This year’s Oscars saw the comeback of the “Fab Five” presenting format — whereby five past winners returned to pay tribute to each acting nominee in the four acting categories before crowning the next recipient.

Five actresses with Oscars on stage, each spotlighted by historical winner portraits in the background
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If you’re familiar with the Academy Awards, you’ll know that the format was first and last used at the 2009 ceremony, where it was an absolute hit with those in the audience and viewers at home.

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Since then, fans have been begging for the “Fab Five” concept to make a return, and in February it was confirmed that the show’s producers were finally going to give the people what they’d been asking for.

Emma Stone accepting her Oscar the other five past winners
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Much to viewers’ delight, Sunday’s ceremony welcomed back 20 past winners to individually honor the acting nominees in the four categories, with each group led by last year’s recipient.

Five actors on stage at an awards show, each holding a trophy, with large portraits of them in the background
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Jamie Lee Curtis, Mary Steenburgen, Lupita Nyong'o, Rita Moreno, and Regina King presented the nominees for Best Supporting Actress, before Ke Huy Quan, Sam Rockwell, Tim Robbins, Christoph Waltz, and Mahershala Ali took to the stage to hand out Best Supporting Actor.


Later in the show, Brendan Fraser, Nicolas Cage, Matthew McConaughey, Ben Kingsley, and Forest Whitaker introduced the nominees for Best Actor, while former Best Actresses Michelle Yeoh, Sally Field, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron, and Jessica Lange presented the final acting award of the night.

After years of waiting, most viewers were thrilled to see the beloved format come back to life as each nominee shared a personal moment with a former winner. However, not everyone was so pleased with the concept, with some fans criticizing that the spoken tributes replaced the movie clips typically shown of each nominated performance.

Five standees of men in different outfits on a stage, from formal attire to casual and novelty wear
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“i get the idea behind this format of presenting the acting awards i’m sorry but i HATE it! where are the clips!” one person wrote on X.


“I miss the Oscar nominee clips, can’t be doing with the damn monologues thing,” added another.


“Show clips of the actors’ performances as you’re announcing the nominees!” demanded someone else.

And amid the mixed reactions, an Oscars producer has explained the decision to skip the performance clips in favor of the “Fab Five” concept, revealing that it was their primary concern about reviving the format.

Emma Stone takes a group photo with her five presenters
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“I was fully on board with it because I remember loving it,” producer Molly McNearney told Variety after the ceremony. “Our only hesitation was length and not using clips.”


Being that viewers have historically complained about how long the ceremony can be, Molly said they didn’t want the show to be “too clip-heavy.”


“It starts to become a little overwhelming,” she said.

If you’ve watched this year’s ceremony, you’ll know that each former winner spoke a few lines about each nominee, honoring their performance, life, and career. And according to Molly, most of the presenters wrote the tributes themselves.

Five actors take a group photo with winner Cillian Murphy
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“We wanted them to feel personal, and we let most of those presenters write their own copy because we wanted it to feel intimate,” she revealed. “We wanted it to feel like a friend speaking on your behalf.”


“I think they succeeded at that,” she added.

The "Fab Five" concept delivered a ton of sweet moments throughout the ceremony, though one of the most talked-about tributes was Lupita N’yongo’s heartfelt speech about Best Supporting Actress nominee Da’Vine Joy Randolph — who, of course, went on to win the award a few moments later.

Group of six people at an event, one person holding a trophy, all dressed in formal attire
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While presenting on stage, Lupita reduced Da’Vine to tears as she praised her winning performance in The Holdovers, describing it as a “tribute to those who have helped others heal in spite of their own pain.”


“Your performance is…also in tribute to your grandmother whose glasses you wore in the film,” Lupita highlighted in her emotional tribute to Da'Vine, who's actually one of her former classmates at Yale School of Drama.

And according to Oscars showrunner Raj Kapoor, it was moments like those that made them want to revive the "Fab Five" format in the first place.

Cillian Murphy hugging Matthew McConaughey as he accepts his Oscar as Nicholas Cage looks on
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"It came down to connection. It was past winners speaking to present nominees, and just that lovely connection and that human interaction," he said during a press conference ahead of the ceremony last week.


"We thought we’d love to try it again," he added, saying that they hoped it would make viewers "root for your favorite actor or actress in this really personal way."

You can read Molly’s full interview with Variety here. And this is where you can check out all of our other Oscars content.

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