Benedict Cumberbatch also struggled with the teleprompter. The Rock did not.
For their presentation of Best Film Editing, Benedict Cumberbatch and Naomi Watts first ran through their copy by reading it from the main teleprompter on a big screen at the back of the theater. For their second take, a stage manager asked them to try reading from a much smaller teleprompter mounted on the top of a Steadicam.
“In that one?” Cumberbatch said. “Do the whole thing in that one? Hell’s bells.”
The voice of the telecast’s director, Hamish Hamilton, boomed over the loudspeakers: “You can do it, Benedict!”
After giving the Steadicam a good college try, however, Cumberbatch and Watts huddled with a stage manager expressing their concern that they would look strange trying to squint to read their copy from the small screen. Finally, to resolve things, Watts asked, “What’s the better shot?” For their third go-round, the pair was back to the main prompter, as they were during the actual telecast.


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