ABC exec defends awkward Oscars ending: 'It was a calculated risk'

The 93rd Academy Awards broadcast was building up to end on an emotional high, memorializing Chadwick Boseman with a posthumous Oscar for best actor—until it wasn't.

Best lead actor went to Anthony Hopkins (The Father), which was separately momentous seeing as he is now the oldest actor to win any Oscar at 83 years old, but the moment was deflated because the Wales native was not present at the ceremony.

Rob Mills, ABC executive VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment, shed insight into the awkward conclusion in a new interview with Variety's Michael Schneider: 

"It wasn't just the final categories, the whole show was mixed up. Screenplay, that usually comes in Act 5 or 6, one of the later acts. And best director was also very early. I think the point was, sometimes you watch the show and you feel like, 'Gosh, I’ve seen this every year.' So, it really was the 'Wow, I really don’t know what’s coming next.'

"It was not meant to end on somebody who was not present. It was a calculated risk, that I think still paid off because everybody was talking about it. Similarly, nobody wants the wrong envelope to happen, like it did three years ago, but everyone was talking about it. I think some people thought maybe they missed some awards. 'Why is best picture early?' or, 'What's happening, this is crazy,' almost like, 'How can this possibly happen? Best picture has to end it!' Some people were upset, some people loved it and that was really the point that there was no apathy."

The best picture category is typically saved for last, but this year, it was slotted ahead of best actress and best actor by producers Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins. Once that happened, viewers largely assumed Boseman was going to win best actor for his leading role of Levee in Netflix's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It was the 43-year-old's final role before passing away last August after secretly battling colon cancer for four years.

Instead, the Academy accepted the award on an absent Hopkins's behalf: