Getty ImagesNeil Patrick Harris may not want to return as host of the Oscars, but Octavia Spencer thinks he should.
"I hope [he does]," Spencer told me on Saturday while she was promoting her new movie Insurgent (in theaters on March 20.) "I absolutely do."
Spencer found herself in the spotlight at the start of the ceremony when NPH asked her to keep her eyes on his predictions box during the almost four-hour show.
"I think he's one of the best hosts we've had in a long time," said Spencer, who won an Oscar three years ago for her work in The Help. "He was reminiscent of the Johnny Carsons and the Billy Crystals. He was amazing. I had a ball playing with him."
Harris talked candidly to the Huffington Post last week about his reluctance to host again.
"I don't know that my family nor my soul could take it," he said. "It's a beast."
He also said, "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."
While Harris stripped down to his underwear during the telecast for his parody of Birdman, he told me after the show it was the opening musical number with Anna Kendrick and Jack Black that had him most worried.
"The hard part was the anticipation of getting it right," he said. "There were so many moving parts that the anticipation and the worry were killing me."
Ratings were down 14 percent from the 2014 show, which was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. However, Oscar watchers agree that the lower turnout in viewership probably had more to do with smaller indie movies sweeping awards season than it did with Harris' hosting abilities.
In Insurgent, the second movie in the four-film Divergent franchise, Spencer plays Johanna, leader of the Amity faction. "It's my first franchise!" Spencer said. "And it's important to me because we're lead by this beautiful young talented actress and there are so many wonderful viable female roles...And I'm a fan of the books, so it was a huge moment for me when I got the offer."
However, she was more than happy not to take part in any of the action sequences. "I'm glad where I was," Spencer said, laughing. "I was really glad to be over here and not there."
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