Don't turn off the Oscars this year once the Best Picture trophy has been handed out! Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have enlisted Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth to join host Seth MacFarlane in a grand finale at this year’s awards, which they've described as a “big, can’t-miss” musical number.
“We want to have an actual ending,” Zadan told The Hollywood Reporter, although the producing duo is trying to keep the running time of the show as close to three hours as possible. “But we’re trying to make that time fly by with lots of entertainment,” he added. Hey, if you give us some Chenoweth, we’ll stick around until midnight!
As previously reported, Chenoweth will also co-host the Academy Awards pre-show alongside Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle and Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts and Lara Spencer. “We have newspeople there, but we also wanted somebody who is not a newsperson, who is a star and who is friends with all these people so that the conversation can be different,” says Zadan. "It’s more like old friends seeing each other and getting together."
The closing number won't mark Chenoweth's first outing at the Oscars. Watch her perform "That's How You Know?" from Enchanted during the 2008 telecast.