Ahead of the 98th Oscars on March 15, the telecast’s executive producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan — who are serving in that capacity for the third year in a row, having won the live variety special Emmy for their work on the 2024 show and been nominated for it for their work on the 2025 show — dished about their plans to The Hollywood Reporter.
Among other things, the duo provided interesting new details about the way in which they are approaching the inaugural presentation of the best casting Oscar; how they plan to address the unusually high number of deaths of film legends since the last Oscars; and more. A transcript of that conversation, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appears below.
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Like host Conan O’Brien, you guys signed up to return for this year’s Oscars very soon after last year’s. How soon were you actually back to work? And how helpful is it to have an early start?
KAPOOR We started maybe a month after the 2025 show. We came together, talked about what worked, what we could do better, some of the changes we wanted to make, and almost immediately dove into design. That was one of our first things — “What do we want this show to look like?” We are working again with Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley, who have won two Emmys already for their work on the show [best production design for a variety special in 2024 and 2025], but this year we were starting with a fresh palette.
One of the benefits of working with a consistent team is them really understanding the flow of the show, the fundamental restrictions and benefits of a venue like the Dolby, and how it can be captured on camera by our brilliant director, Hamish Hamilton. So lots of that becomes a shorthand, and we’re all able to do our jobs a little bit better. We’re really excited for when people first walk into the room this year, and when people see it on the broadcast, because it’s an all-new visual statement. It’s beautiful, modern, organic, soft and timeless, and it all looks like it’s been touched by hand. There’s hundreds of artisans around Los Angeles who have done all the work, from scenic painting to fabrication, and the set is absolutely stunning.
Raj referenced you guys doing a post-mortem after last year’s Oscars, as occurs after every big event. Can you offer a little insight into what you were happiest with last year and what you most want to improve this time?
MULLAN Honestly, you’re in a bit shellshocked after the show, so it takes a little while, but for that meeting afterwards, every single person brought something they critiqued of their own that they’re pushing further this year. And that’s the joy of working with such a professional team.
We had a feeling before last year’s show that Conan was going to crush — we saw the amount of preparation that went into it — and then after seeing him go out and do such an incredible job, we were like, “Please, can we book him for next year immediately?” We didn’t even want him to come down from the adrenaline high of the show! And he has been working for months on the material for this show. The variety of what the show had last year felt really good, and felt relevant to the night — it wasn’t just pre-scripted, so it kept that live feeling — and we want to make sure that it feels the same this year. With the music performances, we’re constantly trying to innovate; we took the learnings from what worked and what could be improved, and I think this year with our music performances, we’re going to try and push even further and do a celebration of not just the best songs, but the movies that have had an incredible cultural impact and got people going to the cinemas, whether it was at an IMAX with Sinners or at a sing-along with KPop Demon Hunters. They reinvigorated the movie industry this year in such a joyful way.
You guys got an uptick in the ratings and very good reviews for last year’s Oscars, but one criticism was that some of the speeches — Adrien Brody’s, in particular — went on a little long. Is there anything that you can do about that, or when it’s your best actor winner and he’s a bit long-winded, do you just have to roll with it? In other words, would you deal with that differently if it happened this year?
MULLAN Such a good question.
KAPOOR It’s always challenging. We try to be equitable to everybody. We tell everybody at the Nominees Luncheon that you have just 45 seconds. We want these speeches to resonate, to have emotional impact, to really hit the right mark. Sometimes when speeches run a little long, it becomes a tough choice of letting people finish and live in that moment, or being able to move on to the rest of the show, because otherwise, as we get to the end, we don’t have enough time. So yeah, it is a tough call. But ultimately we hope that all the nominees are respectful and try to live within that timeframe.
One of the things that you have teased about this year’s show is that it “will celebrate humanity as the soul of cinema.” As opposed to what, A.I.?
MULLAN We’re in this moment where technology is everywhere. Things are becoming faster and more automated. There are real conversations around A.I. And there’s huge amounts of anxiety. But I think when you look at these movies, it’s clear that they are about people making creative choices, about instinct and imagination, and about craft in a way that no A.I., computer or machine could ever replicate. So we were really interested in, “What makes human creativity irreplaceable? Where does the creative spark come from? How can we show that these movies are the result of people taking risks?”
At the Berlin Film Festival and a number of other recent film-related events, some people have been pushing filmmakers to comment on political events. At the same time, I know that the Academy has stats that show that the minute people get political on the Oscars, a lot of viewers turn off the show. So what guidance would you offer a nominee who asked if it would be appropriate for them to engage with politics on the show?
KAPOOR We really want people to feel like we are there to uplift and celebrate, but also give people the ability to express themselves and their viewpoints. It really is that fine line of setting the right tone, and I think Conan does that so wonderfully — he makes that room feel joyous, and you have a smile on your face whenever he is on stage. Hopefully nominees remember that when they speak from the heart, it resonates, and it can become part of their legacy, because sometimes great speeches go down in television history.
I’m very curious about how you’re approaching two unusual challenges this year: how to present a new award, best casting, in an exciting way; and how to handle the In Memoriam segment after a year in which an unusually high number of film legends died.
KAPOOR There’s a lot of excitement around the casting category. We really want to tell a story that makes people understand what this category means to the rest of the filmmaking community. And we decided that we were going to do a “Fab Five” [having a different individual introduce each nominee] with them this year. We have five really amazing presenters that all have their own individual stories, but will also shine a light on the importance of casting directors and their contributions to film.
MULLAN Yeah. And like you said, it’s been an unimaginably hard year where we’ve lost a lot of icons and titans of the film industry. So yes, we are going to expand the In Memoriam because it feels so important that we do a tribute that is worthy of the people that we’ve lost this year.
