Following last year’s shocking incident in which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences formed a crisis team, gistpeople reports
Bill Kramer, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ chief executive officer, stated that the award ceremony will be “prepared for anything” with its new crisis team.
The announcement follows last year’s infamous Oscar incident, in which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the telecast of the ceremony.
‘We’ve opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars because of last year,’ Academy CEO Bill Kramer told TIME on Tuesday.
Kramer stated that the institution has organized a group focused on dealing with emergency situations at the annual event.
The Academy’s “crisis team,” according to Kramer, consists of communications teams that can “gather very quickly” to act as a spokesperson or issue statements.
“So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we are planning for just in case,” the CEO added.
The Academy’s president, Janet Yang, expressed regrets about last year’s response to the unexpected slap during the Oscars luncheon on Feb. 17.
“I’m sure you all remember we had an unprecedented event at the Oscars,” Yang said during her opening remarks to a crowd that included Tom Cruise, Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett, and Steven Spielberg. “What happened onstage was completely unacceptable, and our organization’s response was inadequate.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did little in the immediate aftermath of Smith storming the stage and slapping Rock during last year’s telecast. It took nearly two weeks for the Academy’s board of governors to vote to bar Smith from attending the Oscars and all other academy events for ten years. Smith had already resigned as a member of the academy.
Yang, who was not president at the time of the incident, was interrupted by a mild round of applause and did not elaborate further, instead shifting the conversation to happier topics.
The 95th Academy Awards will be held on March 12 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. The ceremony will begin at 8 p.m.
