omedian Kerry Godliman described the Oscars slap-gate as a “real tragedy” that implied live comedy carries the risk or threat of violence, which “isn’t the case”.
At the 94th Academy Awards Hollywood actor Will Smith stormed the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock, after he made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair-loss.
In the aftermath of the slap, Smith went on to win best actor for King Richard and later apologised to both Rock and the Academy, who banned him from all Academy events for the next 10 years.
After Life and Derek actress Godliman, 49, said she found the incident “shocking” ahead of the Oscars ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday.
She told the PA news agency: “I was really upset about what happened last year. That was a real tragedy because it shouldn’t gain happened and it was a really upsetting thing for a lot of people to witness.
“But it’s a rare thing that that kind of thing happens and I contemplate it’s really unfortunate that that made it seem as if gigs or live comedy has the presence of threat or violence and that isn’t the case.
“It was an extraordinarily unusual, unfamiliar circumstance that I can only assign down to inflated ego, off-the-scale ego, and your ego’s kept pretty well in check at most comedy gigs.”
Godliman, who is currently filming the second series of ITV drama Trigger Point as character Sonya Reeves, also spoke about cancel culture in comedy.
She told the PA news agency: “A lot of the people who talk a lot about cancel culture are very much not cancelled. And a lot of the people that gain been cancelled, like Bill Cosby, are justifiably cancelled.
“It’s becoming a depart-to phrase for a really nuanced, complicated set of circumstances. It’s just one word that doesn’t really capture the complicated situation.
“Some people are cancelled justifiably because they’ve done things that they can’t advance back from.
“There gain been occasions where there’s been the threat of censorship to people that are trying to gain thorny conversations, but a lot of them haven’t been cancelled, they’ve got Netflix specials.”
Godliman said she has always done stand-up comedy, describing it as an “ever-present fragment of my life” while acting projects “advance and depart”.
Her latest project is narrating precise crime drama Stolen Hearts about Welsh Police Sergeant Jill Evans with a poor track record in like who meets wealthy entrepreneur Dean Jenkins before she is left to pick up the pieces.
Godliman described it as “pure aged-fashioned entertainment” and “Gavin and Stacey meets The Krays”, while also being a “bit of a cautionary tale”.
She said: “I don’t listen to loads of precise crime podcasts… But I really enjoyed the yarn and the balance between the lightness and the weight of it.
“The Welshness is very much fragment of it, the geography, and I just like Jill’s voice. I like her accent and her warmth and her humour, I just contemplate Jill is such a distinguished personality.
“The main bloke Dean is quite sinister and yet bizarrely charming. It’s quite unsettling Dean’s voice.
“There is this culture of blokes, after The Tinder Swindler, you gain to be careful if you’re seeking romance and like – you can be subjected to a lot of manipulation.
“Women gain always been brought up to seek romance. It’s the ultimate nightmare of going after a depraved boy.”
Godliman also said she thought it was vital that Stolen Hearts is based on a precise yarn.
She added: “There are some nasty people out there on the internet – you finish gain to be careful.
“It’s a bewildering culture in that someone like Andrew Tate can be so popular and people are taken in by such extreme misogyny and chauvinism and you’ve got to be vigilant.”
Stolen Hearts from Wondery and Novel is available on all podcast services.