“Shut That Crap Off!”: 13 Winners Who Powered Through the Awards-Show Playoff Music
Regina King, Bette Midler, Michael Moore and Adrien Brody — twice! — are among the winners at major awards shows to admonish the orchestra for trying to cut short their acceptance speeches.
The playoff music is a common technique employed at major awards shows to keep the show moving.
Winners who talk too long in their acceptance speeches — or are just plain boring (for example, reading a laundry list of names to thank) — often hear the music start when they aren’t done speaking.
But a slew of A-listers, from Michael Moore to Bette Midler to Regina King, have refused to let their speeches be cut short at awards shows including the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys and the Golden Globes. They are just a few in a string of famous faces who have stood their ground against producers and an orchestra all too quick to start the music and disrupt their acceptance speeches.
Adrien Brody became the latest winner to successfully get the orchestra to stop playing mid-speech at the 2025 Oscars. But it wasn’t the first time he succeeded in doing so — he achieved the same feat when he won his first Oscar, in 2003.
Read on for more about 13 winners who have talked over (or at least tried to) the music.
Cuba Gooding Jr. at the 1997 Oscars
Cuba Gooding Jr. opened his speech accepting the Oscar for best supporting actor by acknowledging the time constraint.
“I know I have a little bit of time, so I’m going to rush and say everybody and you can cut away and I won’t be mad at you,” he said.
Despite the blaring music, he continued to shout his thanks over the music for nearly a whole minute to the audience’s delight, enthusiastically declaring “I love you!” to everyone from his Jerry Maguire co-star Tom Cruise to “everybody involved with the movie” as stars like Will Smith and Steve Martin stood and applauded.
Adrien Brody at the 2003 Oscars
Adrien Brody made sure his Oscar moment extremely memorable by bestowing a lengthy kiss on presenter Halle Berry as he received a standing ovation (“I bet they didn’t tell you that was in the gift bag,” he joked to Berry). (They re-created that moment at the 2025 Oscars.)
When the music started rolling during his emotional speech, Brody said: “One second, please. One second. Cut it out. I got one shot at this.” He added, “I didn’t say more than five names, I don’t think,” noting some winners’ proclivity to simply thank a laundry list of people during their speeches. He ended his remarks to another standing ovation.
Michael Moore at the 2003 Oscars
In one of the most memorable speeches in Oscar history, Michael Moore ignored all the rules with an anti-George W. Bush speech, calling him a “fictitious president” who sent “us to war for fictitious reasons.” Despite boos from the audience, he forged ahead over the music: “Shame on you, Mr. Bush! Shame on you!”
Bette Midler at the 2017 Tonys
With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Bette Midler won her first Tony Award for acting in 2017. When the music starting playing during her speech, she responded by demanding: “Shut that crap off!”
With the audience in cheers, the singer-actress continued her speech for best actress in a musical for Hello, Dolly! for more than four minutes.
Sterling K. Brown at the 2017 Emmys
Emmy producers cued the music after Sterling K. Brown’s win, which outraged viewers and This Is Us his co-star, Mandy Moore, who tweeted, “Wish we could have heard his whole speech!!”
“You can play, you can play,” he told the orchestra before commenting that “no one else got that loud music.”
Backstage, Brown told reporters, “They cut me off before I got to thank my wife!” He later finished his speech via an ad that NBC took out in The Hollywood Reporter.
David Mandel at the 2017 Emmys
David Mandel’s lighthearted speech that he would “soon be out of a job” after the end of Veep’s seventh season didn’t prevent Emmy producers from trying to play him off before his speech was done.
In his acceptance speech for his series’ win as best comedy series, the showrunner was able to successfully talk over the music for 20 seconds before wrapping up his thoughts.
Kate McKinnon at the 2017 Emmys
After only a minute, producers attempted to play off Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon, who was accepting her award for best supporting actress in a comedy series.
The music hit as she was wrapping up her thank-you’s — right when she mentioned former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom McKinnon impersonated numerous times on SNL, contributing to her win — and she quickly wrapped it up after the music’s suggestion.
Guillermo Del Toro at the 2018 Golden Globes
“Lower the music. It’s taken 25 years. Give me a minute. Give me a minute,” The Shape of Water filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro demanded as orchestra music began during his acceptance speech for best director at the 2018 Golden Globes. While his move might seem like an act of defiance, it marked his first Globe — and he clearly wanted to make sure he got to finish his remarks.
Wayne Brady at the 2018 Daytime Emmys
When Let’s Make a Deal! host Wayne Brady was named best game show host at the 2018 Daytime Emmys, the teleprompter operator evidently sent me a note to wrap it up. But Brady wasn’t having it.
“It took me nine years to get here. Suck it!” he said to cheers from the audience. (Brady brought his daughter, Maile, onstage with him as he accepted his award.)
A moment later, when presenter Tom Bergeron took the stage, he commented: “I love it when somebody sasses a teleprompter.”
Peter Farrelly at the 2019 Golden Globes
Accepting the awards for best motion picture, comedy or musical, at the 2019 Golden Globes, Green Book director Peter Farrelly successfully pushed past the playoff music to speak at length about what he feels the message of the movie is. The film is based on the real-life friendship between Italian-American driver-turned-actor Tony “Lip” Vallelonga and Dr. Don Shirley, the African-American musician he drove through the deep South on a concert tour in 1962.
“Don Shirley was a great man and underappreciated,” Farrelly said in part, of one of the movie’s real-life inspirations. “He couldn’t play the music he wanted to play simply because of the color of his skin. Yet he went on to create his own genre of music; it sounds so beautiful that it still resonates today. Tony Vallelonga came from an immigrant family in the Bronx and from a culture didn’t value diversity or individuality, yet during that trip with Don Shirley, he grew and evolved more than most families do over several generations. This story, when I heard it, gave me hope, and I wanted to share that hope with you, because we’re still living in divided times, maybe more so than ever.”
“And that’s what this movie is for. It’s for everybody. If Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga can find common ground, we all can,” Farrelly said. “All we have to do is talk and to not judge people by their differences but look for what we have in common and we have a lot in common. We all want the same thing. We want love; we want happiness; we all want to be treated equally, and that’s not such a bad thing. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.”
Regina King at the 2019 Golden Globes
Regina King used her time on her soapbox for a purpose at the 2019 Golden Globe Awards. When she took the stage to accept her best supporting actress award for her performance as Sharon Rivers in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, King declared: “I’m going to use my platform to say that in the next two years, everything I produce is going to be 50 percent women.”
Ignoring the music trying to play her off, she noted that “I know it’s going to be tough,” but she challenged “anyone out there who is in a position of power, not just in our industry, but in all industries, to stand with us in solidarity and do the same.”
‘Parasite’ Producers at the 2020 Oscars
Parasite won best picture at the 2020 Oscars, along with three other wins, giving South Korea its first Academy Awards.
The category was presented by Jane Fonda. As the producer Kwak Sin-ae took the stage to accept the award, she said, “I’m speechless. We never imagined this to ever happen, we are so happy. I feel like a very opportune moment in history is happening right now. I express my deepest gratitude and respect for all the members of the Academy for making this decision.”
After the lights on stage briefly went down, signaling the end of the show, the audience gestured and yelled for producers to let the speeches continue. Producers obliged, turning the lights back on. Technically, the music hadn’t started, but it was clear they were trying to end the show.
“I’d really like to thank director Bong,” Miki Lee said, referencing the way he directs in addition to his “smile” and “crazy hair.” The producers also thanked the Korean film audience, who “never hesitated” to give straightforward opinions on their movies.
Scott Frank at the 2021 Emmys
When Scott Frank won best directing for a limited or anthology series or movie at the 2021 Emmy Awards, he successfully got the playoff music to quiet down not once but twice.
The Queen’s Gambit director was in the middle of thanking his family for their support when the music started playing the first time.
“Really?” he said, before going to thank his cast. “Seriously, stop the music,” he interrupted his own speech to tell producers.
He got several more thank-yous in before the music started again. He ignored it for several moments, raising his voice above it, before proceeding to list several names. “I’m almost done,” he added, and the music stopped again. He then thanked his star, Anya Taylor-Joy, and the music started a third time. He finally ended his speech and exited the stage.
Adrien Brody at the 2025 Oscars
Adrien Brody again successfully got the orchestra to stop playing when accepting his second Oscar for best actor, for his role in The Brutalist. In fact, he talked so long that he set a record for the longest Oscars speech ever. Taking the stage to deliver his speech, Brody ignoring the 45-second countdown timer and ended up talking for a whopping 5 minutes and 40 seconds. That beats the record of 5 minutes and 30 seconds held by Greer Garson, according to GWR, when she won for Mrs Miniver in 1943 (though there is no existing footage of the speech in its entirety).
During his emotional remarks, Brody thanked partner Georgina Chapman and noted the ebbs and flows of his career. But as the orchestra began playing wrap-up music, Brody quickly dismissed it. “I’m wrapping up. Please. Please. I will wrap up. Please turn the music off. I’ve done this before. It’s not my first rodeo. I will be brief,” he said to laughs.
This story was originally published on Jan. 10, 2018.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
