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Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments

Neil Patrick Harris

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

Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments

Neil Patrick Harris

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