Neil Patrick Harris has revealed that he has no plans to present the Oscars again. The actor received mixed reviews when he hosted the Academy Awards in February, and admitted that he doesn't know if "my family nor my soul could take it" if he took on the role again.
"It's a beast," he told The Huffington Post. "It was fun to check off the list, but for the amount of time spent and the understandable opinionated response, I don't know that it's a delightful balance to do every year or even again."
The 41-year-old said that he didn't follow the feedback from the show "obsessively" but was naturally interested to know what the public perception was.
Neil Patrick Harris hosted the Oscars in February
"It was interesting to see just what people thought landed and didn't. It's so difficult for one who's simply watching the show to realise how much time and concession and compromise and explanation has gone into almost every single thing."
He also revealed that he expected some criticism because such a huge global audience tuned in to watch the awards.
"My job was to try and keep things as light and specific to this year's set of films as possible. And if people are critical of that, it's a big giant platform, so I would assume that they would be."
Neil Patrick Harris received mixed reviews for his Oscar performance
Although it still attracted 36.6 million viewers, the Oscar viewership dropped 16 per cent from 2014 when Ellen DeGeneres took over hosting duties. But despite the mixed feedback, the father-of-two said that ultimately he is happy with how the Oscars went.
"I'm glad we got through it, and I thought that those in the audience at the Dolby [Theatre] seemed to be enjoying themselves more as the show went on, when I was told that the opposite would be true," he revealed, adding: "I felt while we were doing it that people were enjoying themselves more and more, so for that I'm happy."
