Sony hack may be fodder for Golden Globes hosts, but not the show
'The girls have been provided with quite some interesting fodder' awards show producer says
The folks behind Sunday night's Golden Globes show say they won't address the Sony hack during the big show, but the subject is fair game for hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
- Golden Globes 2015: Birdman leads with 7 nominations
- North Korea amps up anti-American rhetoric over sanctions
"I think that especially in the last couple of months, the girls have been provided with quite some interesting fodder," Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Theo Kingma said coyly outside the Golden Globes' ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Inside the venue — with scissor-lifts, boxes of cables and builders getting the place camera-ready — 20-time Globes producer Barry Adelman said he's leaving discussion of the Hollywood hacking scandal to the stars in the spotlight.
"I'm sure there'll be some comments this year about (the Sony scandal and the film The Interview at the centre of it, but we'll let that happen from the people who are on stage," he said. "Our focus is to provide the same prism that we always do, which is saluting excellence for the past year in both movies and TV, and whatever comes with that will come out naturally in the show."
Adelman won't see what Fey and Poehler have prepared until the weekend, and he expects the three-time hosting duo to make tweaks right up until show time.
"They want the material to be as fresh as it can possibly be," he said.
Fey and Poehler's third year hosting
This will be the third year in a row Fey and Poehler have hosted the show, and they've said it will also be their final time. Last year, they helped boost the Globes' TV ratings to the best they've been in a decade.
Birdman leads film nominees at this year's Golden Globe Awards with seven bids, including best picture (musical or comedy), best actor for star Michael Keaton and supporting actor nods for Emma Stone and Edward Norton. Other film front-runners include the coming-of-age story Boyhood and Second World War code-cracking drama The Imitation Game, which have five nominations each, including best picture (drama).
On the television side, the FX crime drama Fargo has a leading five nominations, followed by HBO's True Detective with four.
George Clooney, who called for an alliance to release The Interview in the name of artistic freedom after it was shelved by Sony, will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the ceremony.
Globes launch Hollywood's awards season
He'll be in starry company. Apart from the acting nominees — which include Julianne Moore, Ricky Gervais, Helen Mirren, Steve Carell and Jake Gyllenhaal — a spate of A-listers are set to serve as presenters. Bryan Cranston and supporting actress nominee Meryl Streep were announced Thursday. Other presenters include Robert Downey Jr., Kate Hudson, Channing Tatum, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Hart, Lily Tomlin, Salma Hayek and Chris Pratt.
With a mix of TV and film stars and a flowing open bar, Adelman is hoping for a festive launch to the industry's awards season.
"We've always tried very hard to live up to the label Hollywood's party of the year," the producer said. "And the way we do that is to let the party happen."