Neil Patrick Harris: 'I don't know if my family or soul could take another Oscars'

this year’s host claims ‘it was fun’ to present but isn’t counting on returning to the hosting duties next year. There was a great deal of anticipation for multihyphenate star Neil Patrick Harris’s role as Oscars host and, despite a great deal of goodwill towards the star, reaction was lukewarm at best.

Reviews were damning and ratings were at their lowest since 2009 leading most to believe that he won’t be making a return to the ceremony in 2016. It’s something that the star of Gone Girl and How I Met Your Mother has suggested in a new interview with the Huffington Post.
“I don’t know that my family nor my soul could take it,” he said. “It’s a beast. 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.”
 He confesses that he didn’t keep up with the feedback to his performance “obsessively” but that he wants people to know more about what happened behind the scenes.
“It’s so difficult for one who’s simply watching the show to realise just how much time and concession and compromise and explanation has gone into almost every single thing,” he said. “Every joke. Wording of joke. Placement of joke. Cancelling of joke. Embellishment for just one line. And I’m not saying that to defend everything I said as if it was the absolute best choice, but it’s also an award show, and you’re powering through 14 acts filled with 20-plus awards. So my job was to try and keep things as light and specific to this year’s set of films as possible. And if people are critical of that, it’s a big giant platform, so I would assume that they would be.”
He also felt that things went down well at the Dolby Theatre and ultimately, that’s what helped him get some satisfaction out of the event. “I felt while we were doing it that people were enjoying themselves more and more, so for that I’m happy,” he said.
During this year’s ceremony, audiences saw Harris engage in a song and dance number with Anna Kendrick and Jack Black and recreate Michael Keaton’s awkward case of public nudity from Birdman.