Oscars producer speaks out on 'KPop Demon Hunters' speech moment

So this is from Rob Mills, the executive vice president of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, who produced the Oscars show. It looks like the response is from a longer interview in Variety: [https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/oscar-producers-in-memoriam-explained-conan-obrien-return-1236689787/](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/oscar-producers-in-memoriam-explained-conan-obrien-return-1236689787/) The full response was to the question: **"What happened to the “Golden” songwriters? It seemed like the orchestra didn’t know another w***** was about to speak, cutting him off."** Mills' response: >“One thing, as we post mortem for next year, will be to look at how we’re handling speeches,” Mills said. “You win the Oscar, you know you go on stage, it could be one person, it could be five or six. Immediately you’ll see the sort of allotted time we have for them. Do we need to look at it and say, okay, designate one person to speak. Maybe you continue it backstage, and we have a feed on social or something like that. We look at everything and figure out what is the most elegant solution, because it is difficult, especially when you’re cutting somebody off and it’s their one moment. We talk about it at the award luncheon, that you have this designated time to speak, and it’s difficult. I don’t know what the most elegant solution is, but it’s obviously something we should look really, really long and hard at.” Even though they do cut speeches short often at the Oscars, it seems very distasteful to have done it two times in the same ceremony to both of the KPop Demon Hunters winners (Best Animated Feature and Best Song). It also seems distasteful because they incorporated KPDH into a lot of the publicity for the Oscars show and a lot of younger viewers may have tuned in to see the KPDH winners. It seems counter to viewership goals to 'use and abuse' the KPDH creators in this way. Even if they didn't mean it, it makes the Oscars come across as very dismissive of Asians, in the sense of they will watch their stuff but not interested to hear them speak. I wonder if there is any truth to this.

Maybe cut out the presenter lame banter and recoup that time.

Why do the Oscars producers think we need bits from the presenters? Just come out and say the w***** and we can get to the actual point of the ceremony. I wouldn’t mind an occasional bit from a comedian like John Mulaney who can actually land a joke, but otherwise let’s cut the bits. The Pullman father and son “banter” was excruciating.

I just didn’t understand the abruptness of how they were cutoff— it’s one thing to gently start playing music to indicate that time is running out. It’s another thing to cut the lights and lower the microphone and aggressively play music simultaneously. It just felt so harsh and unnecessary. Even Conan has the host seemed thrown off by what was happening the first time it went down.

Maybe having fewer unfunny bits that go on forever would allow more time for viewers to see the people being honored. Isn’t that what the show is about?

I think some of the bits are okay like Anne Hathaway and Anna Wintour, that bridesmaid bit was stupid and went on too long. I'd rather hear from the actual winners.

Year 90 of looking at how speeches are done?

It was awkward, Im sure they can cut and reduce some skit time

It's asinine that they cut off the speeches. People tune in to hear half-drunk celebrities ramble on and on. This one minute limit is absurd and self defeating. All the great memorable Oscar clips are from the crazy acceptance speeches. Let people embarrass themselves!

Other speeches were cut off too, but then they let them continue. This was the only one they didn’t do that for.

That bridesmaids skit could have been deleted from the show. What a painful slog …

Easy, if this is a first Oscar w***** then give them more leeway but if this a repeat w***** then be more stricter. First win will always be more emotional and shocking so let them bask on the glory.

She took a long time and didn’t allow her fellow collaborators to speak.

This was the most disrespectful shit ever and I was horrified for that poor gentleman who will more than likely never have an opportunity like that again. All while they made time to let us watch extended walks off stage and skits like the Conan award one which were dumb AF and nobody needed.

Not realistic but I wish another w***** or the host invited them back up to finish. Im not familiar with KPDH but it was truly disgusting to watch a heartfelt moment like that get ruined. And Conan had a mind numbingly pointless skit at the very end that no one would have missed.

I care more about hearing an acceptance speech more than anything…it’s why I’m watching. I want to see who wins and what they have to say. They need to stop worrying about speech times and place the hard time stops on everything else or just stop trying to do all this other shit that’s wasting time and just focus on the awards and the speeches. This is their moment. Their moment to thank whoever or say whatever they want. They allow some to speak for an hour and others to speak for 10 seconds…not cool. If anything just throw a blanket timer for all the awards and leave it at that and the timer doesn’t start until the person walks up the stage because some folk damn near gotta walk down the whole aisle so that’s eating into their time too.

“What did you want us to do? Cut down that interminable Bridesmaids sketch?”

They are just trying to be polite in this answer and the longer answer below. They have a modus operandi already. If the w***** is not a celebrity, they expect them to know not to take too much time,. I'm sure they tell them a bazillion times and have people signalling etc.  They aren't going to change anything. 

if you have multiple people wanting to talk you should make a plan. she spent the majority of their time saying nothing important. the second person wasn’t ready to talk either. it’s entirely their fault they got cut off.