Cate Blanchett would prefer awards shows not to be aired on television.
The two-time Oscar-winning actress made a recent appearance on the Las Culturistas With Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang podcast, where she suggested that the Oscars should “go back to the day when it wasn’t televised.”
The conversation started when Blanchett noted that there are “so few spaces that you can go now, where you are private,” without phones and the risk of someone recording you.
“That’s what I loved about the late ’80s [was] going to all of the dance parties in Sydney for Mardi Gras. People were just there,” she recalled. “They were so present, you know, they were just together, collectively, having a great time. It was non-aggressive. No one was being recorded. No one cared what anyone did.”
Hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang proceeded to note how privacy is even more difficult in the era of TikTok, especially with the viral trend of lip readers analyzing celebrity moments during televised awards shows and other events.
“But now it feels like that chasm between that kind of event, that ideal, is widening from the thing that’s very common now at, like, an awards show where you’ve got lip readers, you’re being photographed,” Yang said before a confused Blanchett interjected, “Lip readers?”
The co-hosts explained the trend, which sees TikTokers trying to guess what celebrities are saying to each other at awards shows. “And it looks like it could be exactly what they’re saying, in a way that’s a little bit odd,” Rogers said.
Yang added that the lip-reading trend makes Hollywood events feel more “treacherous,” to which the Black Bag actress agreed.
“I mean, I say, I know it’s blasphemy, go back to the day when it wasn’t televised,” Blanchett suggested. “Bring that back and just have a great party where people can just let go. I mean the industry is so scattered and at such a point… which I think potentially could be exciting or could really be depressing, but it’s at a pivot point, and so we need to gather together and celebrate what it is that we do, without it having to have any public-facing.”
She continued, “I mean, the fashion is great, and all of that stuff. We’ll find out in the end who won or who didn’t win. But it would be so nice that that happened behind closed doors. [It would be] absolutely a very different evening.”
Having won the best supporting actress Oscar in 2005 for her performance in The Aviator and best lead actress in 2014 for Blue Jasmine, in addition to six other Oscar nominations, Blanchett knows a thing or two about awards shows. However, it’s safe to assume the Academy Awards likely have no plans for a non-televised ceremony in the future.
The first televised Oscars ceremony was the 25th ceremony in 1953.