Oscar Winners Thank Steven Spielberg More Than Anyone Else, Including God
We all watch the Oscars for different reasons. Some watch for the sheer spectacle. Some watch to see if the movies they like actually win something. Some watch so they can drunkenly criticize what everyone is wearing. But in the end, it all comes down to all viewers doing the exact same thing: watching people thank other people for upwards of three hours. But which people have been thanked the most in 86 years of Oscar history? Someone with a lot of time on their hands decided to figure that out.
According to a post over at Vocativ, the most thanked human being in the history of the Academy Awards is Steven Spielberg. Of the 1,396 acceptance speeches archived online, 42 of them mention the Jurassic Park director. A number of those thank-yous surely come from cast and crew who took home statuettes themselves for films like Schindler’s List and Lincoln, but some of them come from admirers, winner who simply cite him as an inspiration.
To put that in perspective, only 19 winners have thanked God. Now we know who has the real power in Hollywood.
Other names on the list of the top 10 most thanked people are fairly self-explanatory. There’s Harvey Weinstein, the former head of Miramax and current head of the Weinstein Company, who has successfully shepherded countless films to Oscar gold. There are also filmmakers like James Cameron and Peter Jackson, whose films have won plenty of awards over the years, leading to individual winners to thank them personally. Here’s the complete top 10:
1. Steven Spielberg (42)
2. Harvey Weinstein (34)
3. James Cameron (28)
4. George Lucas (23)
5. Peter Jackson (22)
6. God (19)
7. Fran Walsh (18)
8. Sheila Nevins (17)
9. Francis Ford Coppola, Barrie Osborne (16)
10. Martin Scorsese, Saul Zaentz (15)
The 2015 Oscars will air this Sunday, February 22. Take notes. If only two people inexplicably thank writer/producer Fran Walsh, she will become more popular than the Almighty in the eyes of the Academy.