Sir Tim Rice has lashed out at Oscar-winning actors for taking the ceremony too seriously.
The 75-year-old composer is fed up of hearing Hollywood stars use their speeches at the Academy Awards to share their views on politics and the environment and wishes they would just shut up.
Speaking to the Daily Mail newspaper’s Sebastian Shakespeare column, he said: "It’s just got worse and worse. You get every boring actor trying to make some speech about changing the world and you think, ‘Leave it out, mate. We don’t want to hear your views.’"
Rice – famed for his collaborations with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber on musicals such as ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ – won three Best Original Song Oscars in the 1990s for his work on Disney movies ‘Aladdin’, ‘The Lion King’ and for ‘Evita’.
Rice insists the Academy Awards were much more fun during that decade and the years before because the stars were far less earnest.
He added: "At least people had a laugh, back in my day. And if you look at some of the Fifties and Sixties Oscar ceremonies, they’re wonderful. People didn’t take it too seriously."
Although he is now not a fan of the Oscars, Rice did enjoy the 2020 Golden Globes due to host Ricky Gervais’ roasting of the A-list audience.
The 58-year-old comic – who was helming proceedings for the fifth time – ensured no one was safe from his tongue as he ridiculed the guests in attendance and celebs who were involved in the most shocking moments of the past year, such as Kevin Hart, Felicity Huffman and R. Kelly.
Although some of the celebrity guests were shocked by his gags he raised a smile from Leonardo DiCaprio when he mocked the 45-year-old actor for his penchant for dating much younger women.
Rice said: "Ricky Gervais was brilliant at the Golden Globes in January – absolutely superb. He nailed it completely."
Sir Tim Rice blasts ‘boring’ Oscar winners
