Awards ceremonies are always chock-full of surprises and unexpected moments, but Anne Hathaway and James Franco’s infamous cohosting stint for the 83rd Academy Awards might take the cake for the most awkward of all time.
Fifteen years ago this month, on February 27, 2011, the unlikely duo took the stage at Los Angeles’ Kodak Theatre — and what ensued was a cringe-inducing show made clunky by their mismatched energies and lack of chemistry.
“Can I dish some tea? I turned that gig down, and James is the one that convinced me to do it,” Hathaway, 43, revealed about the incident in 2019. “When all the dust settled, I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. Your first instinct is usually the right one. … All the reasons why I turned it down came true.”
Yet, their ill-fated experience is by far the most interesting thing about the iconic awards ceremony. Ahead of the 98th Academy Awards — which will air on ABC and stream on Hulu on March 15, 2026 — Us Weekly (as seen in our latest print issue) is breaking down some fun facts about the Oscars:
1. Tickets for the first Academy Awards in 1929 cost $5.
2. The official name of the iconic gold statue is the “Academy Award of Merit,” not Oscar.
3. Legend has it the name “Oscar” came from a librarian who declared that the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar.
4. Hathaway revealed in 2019 that she actually turned down the Oscars hosting gig, until Franco convinced her to do it.
5. Prolific composer John Williams is the only individual to be nominated in seven consecutive decades, from 1968 through 2024.
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6. The Oscar statuette, standing at 13.5 inches tall, weighs 8.5 pounds.
7. It took 81 years for a woman to win Best Director, which finally happened in 2010 for Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker.
8. In nearly 100 years, only nine women have ever been nominated for Best Director, and only three have won.
9. The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) are the only sequels to win Best Picture.
10. The infamous Best Picture mixup of 2017, when La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner instead of Moonlight, allegedly occurred because the man responsible for the envelopes was distracted by Twitter backstage.
11. Winners don’t actually own their statues. Since 1950, they’ve signed a special agreement stating they can’t sell or get rid of their trophies without first offering to sell them to the Academy for $1.
12. A Black filmmaker has never won Best Director.
13. Adrien Brody’s much talked-about Halle Berry kiss following his Best Actor win for The Pianist was not staged — nor was it consensual.
14. Rita Moreno became the first Hispanic woman to win an acting Oscar in 1962 for playing Anita in West Side Story — and Ariana DeBose became the second 60 years later, for the same role
15. Only three films in history have won the “Big Five” Oscars (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay): It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
16. Will Smith was banned for the Oscars for 10 years after slapping Chris Rock on stage at the 2022 awards ceremony.
17. The 50,000 square foot Oscars red carpet costs approximately $24,700.
18. Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Ben-Hur are tied for the most number of Oscar wins at 11 each.
19. Shrek was the first winner of the Best Animated Film category, which was introduced in 2001.
20. Beatrice Straight won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Network, in which she appears for only five minutes and two seconds — the shortest winning performance ever.
21. All three times Jack Nicholson won an Oscar, his film’s female lead also scored a trophy.
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22. For four straight years from 1978 to 1981, all four Best Supporting Actress winners had the initials “M.S.” (Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Mary Steenburgen and Maureen Stapleton).
23. 1964 is the latest ceremony where there are no living winners.
24. Only one film has ever won both an Oscar and a Razzie: 1987’s Wall Street.
25. In 2025, the Oscars ceremony cost $57.7 million.
