Janet Yang, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says Will Smith was welcome to get an engraved nameplate added to his Best Actor Oscar statuette, despite him being banned from the events from the Academy for a decade after he slapped Chris Rock at last year’s ceremony.
Last month, Smith dueted a video on TikTok that asked viewers to pick up an object and ask him what he thinks of you. A woman in the original video claimed, “you will get an answer in your mind from your intuition.”
Smith then held up his Oscar statuette, which he won for his performance in King Richardclearly showing that the sentence had not been engraved.
Typically, Oscar winners attend the Governors Ball after the ceremony and there they will have their nameplate added to the trophy. But Smith never made it to prom last year – after slapping Rock on stage at the awards show – and has since been banned from attending Oscars and Academy events for 10 years. coming years.
During the last episode of The Hollywood ReporterIt is Awards Speech podcast, Yang said THR‘s Scott Feinberg that she thinks Smith should have his name engraved on the Oscar when asked what she would say if the actor reached out for his nameplate.
“He won the Oscar,” she continued in the interview posted a day before the 95th Academy Awards. “He should have his name engraved on it. I don’t know if he should come personally. But yes, we can arrange.
When explaining what went through her mind seeing the actor punch the comedian, Yang said, “Really, we were numb.”
“Like everyone, at first when Will comes on stage, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s kinda funny. He’s gonna pretend to slap him, and then Chris is gonna act dumbfounded,'” she added “And then it was like, ‘Okay, well, that’s over.’ And then he goes back to his seat and then he starts screaming — that’s when, of course, everyone goes, “Oh my God, this is real.”
Yang said that before she and Academy CEO Bill Kramer arrived on board, Rock was apparently asked again about accommodations and he declined. Rock addressed the slapping incident last week on his new comedy special, Chris Rock: Selective outrage, which was streamed live on Netflix.