The 87th Annual Academy Awards air on Sunday, and while I’m nowhere near as invested in awards season as back when I was on the movie beat (I still need to see too many of the nominees), I did want to share two previous stories of mine that are worth taking another look at before the big show on Sunday.

The first is this Daily Beast chat with Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris, where he looks back on his favorite emcee moments over the years. This story ran before he hosted the Emmys in 2013, but it’s just as relevant now in the walkup to his biggest hosting gig yet — and a wonderful reminder of what a gifted emcee he is. There’s even a story about the last time he appeared on the Oscar stage!

Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments

The second Oscar piece worth looking back on is this Quartz story from last year about the silly, yet annoyingly persistent, myth that one billion people worldwide watch the Oscars ceremony. I look into where that billion-viewer figure first came from, and why people continue to reference it today, despite all factual evidence to the contrary.

No, one billion people do not watch the Oscars

Happy Oscar viewing!

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Today, Neil Patrick Harris was named to host pretty much the only awards show he has yet to emcee: the king of them all, the Oscars. In light of the news, I suggested that the Daily Beast dust off my interview with him from last year about his best and worst hosting moments, and that’s exactly what they did:

Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments

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As he prepared to emcee the Emmys, awards show host extraordinaire spoke with me for this Daily Beast story about his best (and worst) hosting moments from over the years. One of his favorites was the magical opening number to this year’s Tonys:

I have watched a lot of You Tube performances of Harry Blackstone Jr. and his unfortunate halftime show at the Orange Bowl [in 1987] where all the tricks were exposed and everything went terribly wrong. It’s one thing to say, “Sure, I’ll do a magic trick, I’ll be in this box and I’ll reappear over here … I know how to do it,” but then doing it live, you can’t redo it. If you screw it up, everyone knows not only how it was done but it becomes its own disaster footage. So I was more wrought with nerves about that than almost anything in that number. 

I don’t think he’ll do any magic tricks at the Emmys, but you never know!

Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments

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