Anthony Hopkins ‘offered to accept his Oscar on Zoom but was denied by the Academy’

Hopkins won Best Actor for his role in Florian Zeller’s ‘The Father’

Anthony Hopkins reportedly offered to accept his Oscar for Best Actor via Zoom, to no avail.

Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor during Sunday’s ceremony for his role in Florian Zeller’s The Father. The actor didn’t attend the ceremony in person in Los Angeles, nor at one of the remote hubs set in other parts of the world. This means that the 2021 Oscars ended without an acceptance speech on his part, although Hopkins later shared a recorded speech from Wales.

According to The New York Times, Hopkins had offered to participate via Zoom should he be announced as the winner of the Best Actor category, “but the Oscars nixed that plan”.

IndieWire also reported that Hopkins’s reps had “pleaded” for him to be allowed to join through Zoom.

The Independent has contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, for comment.

Ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony on 25 April, organisers had originally announced in March this year that there would be no option to Zoom into the show for nominees who were unable to travel to attend the event in person.

That rule was then relaxed, with “hubs” being set up in places such as London and Paris to allow some of the nominees to attend remotely.

The arrangement enabled Zeller, for example, to accept the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (also for The Father) from Paris.