Remember When a War in the Middle East Completely Disrupted the Oscars?

The United States and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb. 28, 15 days before the 98th Academy Awards. For people who’ve been following the Oscars for a long time, the timing brought vivid memories of March 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq the week before the Oscars ceremony.

There are dramatic differences between the two years, of course. In 2003, the war began only three days before the Oscars, prompting immediate talk of canceling the show and leading to a decision to eliminate the red carpet lined with fans and press; in 2026, there was no outcry to cancel or delay the ceremony. When the war in Iraq started in 2003, it was the main – in fact, the only – topic of conversation in Academy Awards circles. But on the weekend when hostilities began in Iran this year, the big awards news was that “Sinners” had beaten “One Battle After Another” at the Actor Awards.

But a few of the same people were involved with both shoes: Kate Hudson was a presenter then and is nominated now, and Joe Letteri won the visual-effects Oscar in 2003 for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and is nominated again in 2026 for “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” And above all, both shows have raised qualms about celebrating entertainment at a time when bombs are falling, and both raised obvious security concerns, this year’s focusing on a threat of Iranian drone strikes on California, something far beyond the scope of Oscars security.

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In that atmosphere, it seemed to be a good time to take a look back at how the 2003 show played out behind the scenes.

In the fall of 2002, as producer Gil Cates got to work on what would be the 11th Academy Awards show of the 14 he would produce, the administration of George W. Bush had been talking about removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power, forcibly if necessary. The president spoke of ties between Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorist organization responsible for the previous year’s 9/11 attacks on America, of the dictator’s record of brutality and violence within his own country, of the likelihood that he had or was preparing weapons of mass destruction. 

After the first of the year, as Oscar voters produced a slate of nominations headed by Rob Marshall’s “Chicago,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Gangs of New York” and Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist,” military action seemed increasingly likely. On March 6, two and a half weeks before the Oscars were scheduled to take place on March 23, President Bush gave a press conference in which he pushed for a United Nations vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. 

The same day, about 100 Oscar staffers met for a production meeting at which Cates promised the show would go on. Then the Oscars’ longtime security chief, Kirk Smith, delivered some final advice for the room. “Security will be tighter than ever this year,” he said. “We ask that you tell your folks, please empty out your trunks before you come to the theater. We will be searching cars, and we don’t want to have to go through your vacation stuff every time you drive into the building.”

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A week later, Cates did a series of radio interviews to promote the show, then shook his head when an ABC staffer asked him what he thought the chances of war were. “I think we’re going to war,” he said. “I only hope — and I know this sounds awful — I hope it either starts Monday the 17th, or March 24th.  If it starts anytime between the 20th and the 23rd, we’re f—ed. We are f—ed.”

On Monday the 17th, Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to relinquish power and leave Iraq. On Tuesday, Hussein rejected Bush’s ultimatum. Inside the production, fears grew that if the war began Thursday or later, blanket news coverage would make televising the show impossible. 

Backstage at the Kodak Theatre, Cates hung a sign on his door that read, “WHEN THIS DOOR IS CLOSED, PLEASE DO NOT COME IN.” Dannette Herman, the show’s longtime talent booker, who had been working for weeks to persuade former winners to return for a 75th anniversary reunion, hung one on her door that read simply, “THE BUNKER.”

Midweek, Will Smith’s publicist called to say that the actor no longer felt it was appropriate for him to be on the show as a presenter. Herman quickly replaced Smith with Brendan Fraser. Increasingly, Cates and Herman fielded phone calls from reps for actors who were uncertain about walking the red carpet, who said they’d rather quietly slip in the back way. 

“These were intense times,” Danette Herman said. “As Gil and I quickly learned from our many phone calls with participants, they had sensitivities about what was going on in another part of the world and the impact it could have here. Keeping that in mind was at the forefront of our discussions.  And there were many.”    

At lunch on Wednesday, a group of production and Academy staffers met at a restaurant in the Hollywood & Highland complex to go over their options. The idea of hanging onto the theater for an extra week was discussed but eliminated; it would have entailed buying out the run of an incoming Scooby-Doo musical, an expensive proposition. Cates suggested doing away with the fans along the red carpet, saying that it wouldn’t be appropriate for celebrities to run that shrieking gauntlet. 

“If you do that but keep the press there,” his press aide Chuck Warn said, “they’re just going to keep asking about the lack of fans.”

“Well,” Cates said, “then maybe we should get rid of the press, too.”

A couple of hours later, Cates and Academy president Frank Pierson gave a small press conference. “For some months now, Gil and his crew have been preparing for our show on Sunday while the clouds of war were gathering around us,” read Pierson from a page in front of him. “We always knew there were some changes we would make if we needed to … We need the show to reflect a kind of soberness and seriousness we are all confronted with.”

Cates then announced the changes that would be made: The portion of the red carpet that ran along Hollywood Boulevard between bleachers filled with press and fans would be eliminated. Interviews on the red carpet would not be permitted, and only a few crews would be allowed to photograph arriving stars. The pre-show broadcast would be scaled back, and its tone changed to reflect events in the world.

Privately, they ordered a brown carpet to replace the red carpet, but then decided that red would be OK without the fans and the press.

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In the production office inside the Kodak, five laminated, blown-up pages went up on the wall. Three of the pages deal with the protocol on handling bomb threats, two with handling suspicious mail. A film sequence originally planned to open the telecast – a satellite photo that started in space, then zoomed in on North America, then on the west coast, on Southern California, on Los Angeles and on Hollywood, all the way down to a tight shot of the roof of the Kodak – was quietly eliminated, because it was disturbingly similar to aerial reconnaissance photos and to shots seen during the first Gulf War of “smart bombs” taking out specific targets.

On Thursday, the war began in earnest. Rehearsals went on as usual, but the monitors inside the Kodak that normally showed show footage were turned to CNN and ABC News. Jim Carrey, Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie joined the quiet stream of presenters who pulled out.   

At one point, Cates walked to the production table in the orchestra section of the theater, sat down and sighed. “It’s been a very strange year,” he said softly. “Very strange. I was literally on the phone with Annette Bening, and the second I hung up the phone it rang again, and somebody was calling me to say, ‘Did you hear Annette Bening cancelled?’ I do not know where the rumors come from, but you cannot control them.” (Eventually, Bening did cancel.)

Host Steve Martin and his writers kept adjusted the opening monologue – but in truth, most of his cuts were to save time, not to reflect the stormy times.

By Saturday, bombs were continuing to drop as the “Shock and Awe” campaign picked up, and most of the networks kept up their nonstop coverage of the hostilities. But in the Kodak, with dress rehearsal looming, staffers no longer gathered to watch CNN and see if events would affect the show; instead, they glanced at it as they worked, assuming that the Oscars would take place as scheduled.

The performers of the nominated songs – Paul Simon, U2, Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Lila Downs and Caetano Veloso — were asked not just to dress as they would on the night of the show, but to be in full makeup at the dress rehearsal as well. If they asked why, stage manager Garry Hood was honest with them: “It’s so that we have it in case something happens.”

Before dress rehearsal, Cates took part in a conference call with ABC executives to discuss how to handle the war coverage during the Oscars. ABC’s news division asked for four minutes of time in the show to update viewers on any developments from Iraq. In addition, Alex Wallau, the president of ABC Networks, wanted a hotline phone installed at his seat in the twelfth row of the Kodak, so that he could be notified in the case of events so momentous that the show would have to be taken off the air. The production was growing frustrated with the network’s requests, but they agreed.

The afternoon of the show, the scene was markedly different than the usual Oscar day. Stars who arrived on Hollywood Boulevard would pass one small bleacher with a dozen camera crews but no interviewers, while most guests would enter off Highland Avenue, through the back of the mall and well out of the way of any cameras. Both paths led to metal detectors, and to tables where photo I.D. was checked. 

Upstairs at lunch, Cates tried to relax.  “The only way I’d call it off now,” he said, “is if a nuke goes off.”

He turned to director Louis J. Horvitz.  “Just one comment,” he said. “If someone makes a speech that’s very political, cover both sides. Like you did with the Elia Kazan [when the controversial director received an honorary Oscar in 1998], so we don’t get accused of favoring one side. If somebody says something political, show both sides.”

For the first couple of hours of the show, politics didn’t intrude much. ABC took its newsbreaks, but there wasn’t any real news and they didn’t even use the full four minutes they’d asked for. Best Supporting Actor winner Chris Cooper (“Adaptation”) ended his speech by saying, “In light of all the troubles in this world, I wish us all peace,” and Gael Garcia Bernal introduced a performance from the movie “Frida” with some lines that weren’t on the TelePrompTer: “The necessity for peace is the world is not a dream, it is a reality, and we are not alone. If Frida was alive, she would be on our side, against war.”

But then came Michael Moore, who won the feature documentary award for his incendiary “Bowling for Columbine.” The audience greeted the filmmaker with a standing ovation as he launched into a denunciation of the U.S. policy in Iraq. “We like non-fiction,” he said, “and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time when we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president.” 

Cheers for Moore continued, but one audience member shouted, “no!” and a smattering of boos began to come from the back of the theater. 

“We have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons!” Moore shouted, as the boos grew to about the same volume as the cheers. “We are against the war, Mr. Bush!  Shame on you, Mr. Bush!”

In the wings of the stage, stagehands began shouting at Moore.  “That’s bulls—!” yelled one. 

“Get him off!” shouted another. 

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Standing nearby, show writer Bruce Vilanch looked at the angry stagehands and made an immediate beeline for the other side of the stage, where he’d huddle with Martin in a small writers’ room when the host wasn’t onstage. A few minutes later, Martin returned to the stage with the line that had just been crafted in the wings. “It was so sweet backstage, you should see it,” he said.  “The teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.”

(In truth, Moore was back there posing for photos with Diane Lane, who’d approached him to say she was inspired by what he said.)

Later in the show, U2’s Bono changed the final verse of the nominated song “The Hands that Built America,” which initially ended with lines about September 11. Instead of “a dark cloud on the New York skyline,” he introduced a timelier image: “Late in spring,” he sang softly.  “Yellow cloud on a desert skyline/Some father’s son/Is it his or is it mine?”

Not long after U2’s performance, the Best Actor and Best Actress winners both addressed the conflict. Adrien Brody won for “The Pianist” and gave the longest acceptance speech of the night (though not nearly as long as the one he gave last year after winning for “The Brutalist”), culminating when he decried “the sadness and the dehumanization” of war and then said, “Whether you believe in God or Allah, may he watch over you, and let’s pray for a peaceful and swift resolution.” Nicole Kidman then won for “The Hours” and said, “Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil?  Because art is important, and because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that.” Then she came into the wings with a dazed look and said, “I don’t know what I said.”

The acting awards were followed immediately by the reunion of past winners. Before the 95th Academy Awards in 2023, Danette Herman wrote a piece for TheWrap that covered a few highlights of her long history with the Oscars. Part of that piece focused on the reunion of past winners and the effect of the war:

We all watched [the war] on monitors in our Kodak backstage dressing room offices. Music director Bill Conti and the orchestra were on stage rehearsing the songs that would be used as entrance music for our presenters. One of the songs was “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which was quite ironic …

The phones never stopped ringing and Gil and I encouraged participants to “stick with us.” After getting exactly 70 past winners on stage at the 70th anniversary show, we really wanted 75 for the 75th. We didn’t get there, but it was a stellar group and I’ve always been a firm believer that whomever is on the show is meant to be there.    

Among those who did attend were five strong, courageous women who traveled long distances to honor their commitment. One was [Olivia] De Havilland, who would be traveling from Paris. I called her after the war began and she recognized my voice immediately. “Danette, I know why you’re calling,” she said. “I’ve been through war. Nothing is going to stop me from being there. I’ll look forward to giving you a hug when I see you”.  (She did.) 

Luise Rainer traveled from London, alone. Nothing was going to stop her, either. (She was seated on stage next to Julia Roberts, who was very gracious with her). Celeste Holm, Patricia Neal and Teresa Wright also traveled alone from various parts of the U.S.  

When Ms. De Havilland returned to Paris, she sent me a beautiful typed letter on very thin blue paper, thanking me. I still have it. 

At the end of the show, Best Director went to the absent Polanski and Best Picture went to “Chicago.” Then Martin returned to the stage. “To our young men and women who are watching overseas, we are thinking of you,” he said. “We hope you enjoyed the show, it was for you.”

The ratings, though, were not good.  The average viewership was just over 33 million, the smallest audience ever recorded for an Oscar show and a drop of more than 20% over the previous year’s lackluster totals. (For the record, the last nine shows in a row have all been lower.)  The numbers were attributed largely to the war, which had given CNN and Fox News almost four times their usual number of viewers.

Still, it had to sting that the Oscars, which even in down years had always remained the most-watched entertainment show of the year, couldn’t even beat the numbers from the final episode of Fox’s tawdry reality show “Joe Millionaire.” 

Much of this is adapted from my 2005 book “The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards” (Faber and Faber, 2005).