(CNN) — The Academy doesn’t want another incident like Will Smith’s slap to Chris Rock at the Oscars last year. So prepare for the unexpected.
In an interview with the magazine Time, Academy CEO Bill Kramer said they will now have a crisis team available on Hollywood’s biggest night. In fact, he described the move as “something we’ve never had before.”
“We have considered multiple incidents and possibilities,” he said. “So we expect to be prepared for anything that we can’t anticipate right now, but will deal with if it does happen.”
During the 2022 ceremony, Smith took the Oscars stage and slapped Rock, who was hosting the event, after he made a joke about Smith’s wife’s shaved head.
Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, an autoimmune condition that can cause hair loss.
Will Smith apologized after the slap, but the Academy sanctioned the actor and banned him from attending the Oscars for the next 10 years.
“Because of what happened last year, we have opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars. But these crisis plans — the crisis communication teams and the structures that we have in place — allow us to say that this is the group that we have to get together very quickly,” Kramer told Time.
“This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement, ”he said. “And obviously depending on the details of the crisis, and hopefully something doesn’t happen and we never have to use them, but we already have frameworks in place that we can tweak,” he added.
Jimmy Kimmel will host the 95th Academy Awards on March 12.
