Oscars Introduce Drastic Changes To Keep Winners’ Speeches Short

Interminable Oscar speeches with pages of “thank yous” will soon be confined to the history books.

The organisers of the Academy Awards have revealed plans to drastically overhaul how Oscar winners make their speeches in order to keep them under 45 seconds long.

This year, nominees will be asked to provide a list of names of the people they wish to thank in their speeches. If they win, the Academy will then broadcast that list of names scrolling across the bottom of the screen, freeing the talent up to say what they want and not worry about forgetting to thank their husbands and wives. The list of gratitudes will also be displayed at the Dolby Theater where the awards take place.

Hopefully this means we’ll no longer have to see the winner’s speeches drowned out by music when they start prattling on for too long.

“As you probably are aware, and we don’t want to embarrass anybody, but there is a long list of winners who have totally forgotten their directors, their husbands, their wives, their children and their animals,” said producer David Hill at the Academy nominees luncheon yesterday.

“It’s a permanent record which could be kept, even framed and kept in the family forever. How cool is that?”

We wonder if Leonardo DiCaprio will remember thank the bear in his list?

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Matthew McConaughey currently holds the record for the longest winner’s speech in Oscar history with his 549-word speech at the 2014 awards, while Joe Pesci has the record for shortest.

In 1991, his acceptance speech for winning best supporting actor in ‘Goodfellas’ was the short but sweet: “It’s my privilege, thank you.”

The 2016 Oscars will take place on Sunday 28 February.

Image credits: PA