Comedian fulfills a goal in becoming Oscars host

For comedian Kevin Hart, the Tuesday announcement that he will host the 91st Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 24 came as the fulfillment of a longheld dream.

“I am so happy to say the day has finally come for me to host the Oscars,” he posted on Instagram on Tuesday. “I am blown away simply because this has been a goal on my list for a long time.”

“Welcome to the family,” the Academy tweeted.

Hart, a 39-yearold actor-comedian, recently starred in two box-office smashes, “Night School” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” and is in the midst of an Kevin Hart international standup tour. Now, he will add hosting the Oscars to his plate, always a difficult task but especially so at a time when the ceremony has struggled with poor ratings and political controversy.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences faced a forceful backlash after black actors and films that focused on black characters were overlooked in 2015 and 2016, sparking the OscarsSoWhite outcry and efforts to make the academy more inclusive. This year’s Oscars ceremony was a galvanizing moment for women in Hollywood amid the #MeToo movement, which was ignited by allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in the film industry.

Hart will become one of just a handful of African-American hosts in the show’s 91-year history. Previous black hosts included Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg and Richard Pryor.

He had said for years that he was up for the job.

“If I can start the campaign now and get them into it, I’m all for it,” he said in 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported. “I would just jump at the opportunity.”

In 2016, he told The New York Times that he believed he would host the Academy Awards “sooner than later.”

“I’m patient, and I’ll wait for it,” he said. “But there’s not a doubt in my mind that it’ll happen.”

On Tuesday, he called it “the opportunity of a lifetime” and promised to make next year’s ceremony special.

The academy has planned several changes this year, including shrinking the run time from four hours to three.