Neil Patrick Harris Hosts The 61st Emmy Awards
The Actor Discusses the Show and His Role
This year, the Emmy Awards are doing things a little differently. Instead of presenting all the awards live, they are “time-shifting,” meaning they are going to edit the writers’ awards and show the highlights of those acceptance speeches during the show. This is meant to cut down on the actual air time of the show, which usually runs well beyond its scheduled time slot.
Time-Shifting During The Emmy Awards
This is something that the writers are not pleased about. Neil Patrick Harris told the Television Critics Association, “Well, I think the writing is uber-important. I have the utmost respect for them. I think there is a bit of a miscommunication about what the time-shifting thing means. I mean, it's not like they're happening on a different evening and they're all going to all just be montaged together. We're just trying to edit down the standing and the hugging and the getting through the aisle and the walking down the aisle, and quite frankly, the writers' speeches are some of the best ones of the night.”
The awards will be given out before the start of the broadcast then the highlights will be played for the audience during the program.
“So we'll be able to highlight them … there are some boring parts of that that we're just trying to trim down.” Harris said, “It's certainly not out of a lack of respect or anything. It's just so that we can show the best show we can to the audience. … We really just want to show the best of the TV season, and then, while we're at it, honor the shows that have been nominated. So I don't think that the writers will be getting any more short shrift than actors or the two directors or the two other awards that are getting time-shifted, but it doesn't seem even like that much of a slight. The only slight is that everyone is going to have to get there 45 minutes earlier and walk the red carpet about an hour early. Otherwise, it's the same show.”
Neil Patrick Harris Enjoys Hosting Awards Shows
Neil Patrick Harris is not only the host of the show, he is also a producer. “The producing element of it is just so that I have a little bit of creative control, just so that I can help come up with ideas as opposed to just have writers send stuff that I just approve or don't like. I kind of wanted to be involved in it from the [start]. And having had so much fun on the Tonys and being involved creatively with all of that, it just seemed like I didn't want to take a step backwards and have to do the Emmys on a different playing field.”
Harris has had experience hosting awards shows. He says he knows what the audience wants and he has learned how to give it to them. “I think the key really is you have to sort of try to win the audience there, live, over, because they'll in turn get your back and have your support for the rest of the show and for their laughs and their attention. But you also are talking really uniquely and specifically to the one person that's at home, watching the show live. So that's a weird sort of faction.”
Neil Patrick Harris explained, “It's a lot of teleprompter reading and a lot of preparing yourself for exciting spontaneous things that can happen and writing witty jokes and things, but you want to keep it fast. I've never been a fan of the shows where the hosts are constantly trying to entertain. I just don't feel like it's that show, so I will actually, probably lean towards serious and boring over whacky and crazy, because it is a big night for all these people. All these people are dressed -- this is their big night of the year, and I think it's important to honor that and not be drunk,” he says with humor.
The Glamour and the Fun of the Primetime Emmy Awards
“I want the show to be as classy as it can be. My whole thing with hosting a show like that is to be as sharp. It's like you're hosting a big joint dinner party sort of Dean Martin style. So I feel like it's not an opportunity for the host to show everyone how funny he is or how talented he is. It's really to represent the show and to keep things at a tight clip and to let's the audience see all these famous people in a different context, so I like the glamour element of it very much.”
The 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards airs Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 8 PM ET and will be delayed on the West Coast, on CBS.
Neil Patrick Harris Hosts the 61st Primetime Emmys
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