Via the fantastic Used FAQs, the TV Guide Oscar FAQ, including:
- Question: Can I become a seat-filler for the Oscar ceremony?
- Answer: Only if the Academy knows you and thinks you’re worthy. A couple hundred well-dressed men and women are utilized every year to fill in for celebrities and other guests who leave their prime seats during commercial breaks; the idea is that empty seats don’t look good on camera. But because the job is a delicate one — you’ve got to look like you belong, be fast and diplomatic, and know enough not to bother the stars — it goes only to people the Academy can trust. Years ago, an outside company handled the seat-fillers and annually sifted through thousands of applications; these days, it’s handled internally.
Is it lame that this answer effectively dashes one of my long-held dreams?