Neil Patrick Harris to Host the 2015 Oscars
While this will be the versatile performer's first stint as the Academy Awards show emcee, he's an established fixture when it comes to hosting awards shows. He's hosted the Emmy Awards twice and the Tony Awards four times, winning four Emmys for his Tony shows. He also has performed on the Oscar show. Harris will also have a rooting interest in one of this year's awards hopefuls, since he's currently appearing in David Fincher's Gone Girl.
Harris' selection comes after what sources say was a relatively brief search. Last year's host, Ellen DeGeneres, passed on returning, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was offered the gig and turned it down.
Date of Birth: 15 June 1973, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Nickname: NPH
Height: 6' (1.83 m)
Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. While tagging along with his older brother of 3 years, Harris won the part of Toto in a school production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
His parents moved the family to Albuquerque in 1988, the same year that Harris made his film debut in two movies: Purple People Eater (1988) and Clara's Heart (1988), which starred Whoopi Goldberg. A year later, when Neil was 16, he landed the lead role in Steven Bochco's television series about a teen prodigy doctor at a local hospital,Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), which launched Harris into teen-heartthrob status. The series lasted1989-1993 and earned him a People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Series (1990) and a Golden Globe Nomination (1990). Harris attended the same high school as Freddie Prinze Jr., La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Neil acted on stage in a few plays while there, one of which was his senior play, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), in which he portrayed Lazar Wolf the butcher (1991).
In 1999, Harris returned to television in the short-lived sitcom Stark Raving Mad(1999), with Tony Shalhoub. He was also in the big-screen projects The Next Best Thing(2000) and Undercover Brother (2002), and he can be heard as the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the newest animated Spider-Man (2003) series. Harris has continued his stage work, making his Broadway debut in 2001 in "Proof." He has also appeared on stage in "Romeo and Juliet," "Cabaret," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), and, most recently, "Assassins." In 2005, Harris returned to the small screen in a guest-starring role on Numb3rs (2005) and a starring role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005). Neil played the title role in the web-exclusive musical comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), widely downloaded via iTunes to become the #1 TV series for five straight weeks, despite not actually being on television.