Patton Oswalt Returns For Second Year As WGA Awards Host
For the second year in a row, comedic multihyphenate Patton Oswalt will host the Writers Guild Awards Los Angeles-based show on Sunday, February 19, at the Beverly Hilton. In recent years, Oswalt has hosted a number of awards season ceremonies, including the ACE Eddies and the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards, lending his wry, sarcastic and biting wit to what are often three-hour-plus un-televised events. Or as Oswalt cracked last year at the WGAs, “Welcome to four hours of cringing.”
Nonetheless, if there’s a prime time to roast Hollywood and play blue during awards season and get away with it, it’s as the host of the WGA Awards.
It just so happened on the day of the last WGA Awards ceremony on Feb. 13, controversial, right-wing Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia passed away. Oswalt quipped then, “I’m not making any jokes about the worst Supreme Court Justice in America. Antonin Scalia was born in 1936 and stayed there. No word from the Game of Thrones table who is going to replace him”.
Emmy-winning writer-producer Hugh Fink will also return for his third consecutive year as EP of the ceremony.
“Writing is the goodest thing for movies when you watch the movies the writing is what makes the actors go I like writing,” said Oswalt in a statement today.
“Despite Patton Oswalt’s brilliant performance hosting last year’s Awards, FiveThirtyEight predicted there was a less than 20% chance that he would agree to host this year’s show. Fortunately, Patton has proved all the pundits wrong and will make the Writers Guild Awards Great Again,” added Fink.
Oswalt collected a Primetime Emmy last September for variety special writing for his Netflix comedy special, Talking for Clapping. Last year, along with co-writers Gerry Duggan, Wayne Federman, and Erik Weiner, Oswalt received a WGA nom for the 2014 Indie Spirits. Oswalt’s feature credits include Young Adult, Big Fan, and Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille in which he voiced the lead character Remy. Upcoming, he’ll co-star opposite Tom Hanks and Emma Watson in the EuropaCorp thriller, The Circle, on April 28. Oswalt’s TV credits are numerous. He was a scribe and actor on Mr. Show, played Spence Olchin on King of Queens, is the narrator on The Goldbergs and shined as VP aide Teddy Sykes on HBO’s Veep in which he took to groping Tim Simons character Jonah Ryan a little too much.
EP Fink’s recent credits include writing for this fall’s Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe. He shared a 2002 Emmy for outstanding writing variety, music, comedy program for his work on SNL as well as a 2001 nomination. Fink has received three WGA noms as an SNL writer from 2001-2003. He helped create and EP’ed Comedy Central’s The Showbiz Show with David Spade, as well as NickMom’s Parental Discretion.
Other key talent returning to the 2017 WGA Awards production team:
–Producers Tara Power and Joselyn Allen, the duo who head up Decoupage Productions and whose clients include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Vuguru, AOL, Conde Nast Entertainment, and more.
–Co-producer Kelly Brock, whose awards show credits include the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, Critics’ Choice Television Awards, and American Cinemateque Tributes to Robert Downey, Jr., Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts.
–Head writer Joe O’Brien, whose credits include The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and The Showbiz Show with David Spade, as well as co-producer on the Critics’ Choice Television Awards and producer on Candid Camera.
The WGAW’s Awards Committee includes Writers Guild members Karen Harris (Chair), Steve Chivers, Patrick Doody, Shelly Goldstein, and Scott Saltzburg.
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