The Oscars have always ended the same way. Always, it is Best Picture that caps off the night, coronates the best film of the year, streamers and tears fall, and that’s the end of it, usually with the credits running quickly across the screen as things have gone way, way over time. One time we had the wrong movie read out as the winner, sure, but still, it always ends the same way.
The ending of the 93rd Academy Awards was a bit blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, so let’s recap. For some reason, Best Picture did not go on last. Nope, instead, it was awarded with Best Actress and Best Actor still to be given out. Director Chloe Zhao and company came on for the top award, only for Frances to come on again after for her own contributions to the film, before Joaquin Phoenix sauntered on to the stage and mumbled through the final category of the night—Best Actor.
“The Academy congratulates Anthony Hopkins and accepts the Oscar on his behalf. Thank you,” Phoenix mumbled.
And with that the show was over, leaving the audience both in the room and at home confused and not sure how hard they should be clapping.
This was supposed to be Chadwick Boseman’s night. The late actor, who passed away from cancer last year at the age of 43, was nominated for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in what was perhaps the best performance of an all-too-short career.
Though there were arguably better performances both on the nomination list and off, a posthumous Oscar, much like Heath Ledger’s, is a way to honour the memory and cement the legacy of a great artist.
That is the only realistic explanation why Best Actor was even supposed to go on last, for the whole show to build to Boseman’s moment, and what a moment it would have been.
Instead, Hopkins, a tenured actor and past Oscar winner who was not at the show nor available for a Zoom-in, was given the award in absentia. It was a heartbreaking moment that made the lack of a celebration for Boseman all the more painful, for not only were we denied the rest of his career, we didn’t have the chance to say goodbye on the grandest stage of them all, as we had all anticipated for months.
But here’s the thing—don’t blame Anthony Hopkins.
His performance in The Father is not a boring pick for Best Actor, nor proof on its own that the Academy is stuck in the past and unable to recognize the achievements of not only Boseman, but other actors of colour that were nominated, including Steven Yuen for Minari and Riz Ahmed, the first Muslim to ever be nominated, for Sound of Metal.
Ok, wait—they actually might be both of those things, but they still got it right this year. He was just that good.
Hopkins became the oldest actor to ever win the award at 83, and he did it with the best performance of his career. This was a much deserved honour for a nuanced performance that is one of the best we’ve ever seen in movie history, a terrifying and heart-shattering journey into the mind of a man who is losing track of himself as he descends into dementia and his own inevitable demise. It’s a performance for the ages, and though it may be the sort of loud and obvious bit of acting that is easy for awards bodies to notice was great, that doesn’t diminish its quality or effectiveness.
Anthony Hopkins is one of the greats, and at 83, who’s to say if he’ll ever give a performance such as this again. This may be our last time to give Hopkins his due, and the second most gut-wrenching aspect of this why-didn’t-you-give-it-to-Chadwick moment is that there may sit some lingering resentment towards Hopkins or The Father because of it.
Please, don’t blame Anthony Hopkins. And go see the Father.
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