Conan O’Brien will host the Oscars ceremony on Sunday night and is joking about the real reason he took on the gig.
Previewing the 97th annual Academy Awards, the former late-night talk show host joked at a press conference, “I only hosted so that I could be invited to the Oscars.”
“You’re supposing that I’m the perfect person. We don’t know,” O’Brien said.
The comedian joked that he was “probably the greatest entertainer” the producers have ever worked with.
After producers said that working with O’Brien has been “a delightful experience,” the stand-up comic said, “Well, let’s see what you’re saying on Monday.”
“It has been a really lovely experience,” O’Brien said about collaborating on hosting the award show. “The Oscars team, they’re just incredible professionals. They know what they’re doing. They do beautiful work and it’s been a thrill for myself and for my head writer, Mike Sweeney, and also my lawyer as well.”
O’Brien said that one of the things that has him the most excited is the tuxedo he’ll wear on Oscar night. He added, “It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever put on in my life.” He noted that High Society made the outfit and it was important to use them “because these are people that make incredible wardrobe here in Los Angeles. I didn’t want to just go with whatever designer. We wanted to do something that was from the community, and so they made this incredible tuxedo.”
Another reason why O’Brien accepted the hosting job was due to the “incredible lighting.”
“I said yes to this happy because I wanted to be part of this magical machine and have — for the first time in my life — incredible lighting,” O’Brien joked. “Because when I see people in a mall, all they say is, ‘You look so good in person. What’s wrong with you on television?’ And this is my chance. So let’s get that lighting together.”
This is the first time O’Brien will take on Oscar hosting duties, so he leaned on past hosts, like Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel.
“I’ve spoken with Billy Crystal, who I think is the all-time great and mastered the hosting of the Oscars, in my opinion, defined it and will always be the top,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said Kimmel and his wife, Molly McNearney, reached out to him and met at a restaurant. The comedian joked Kimmel picked an expensive restaurant and ordered “tons of appetizers that I don’t eat. I don’t eat shellfish. He ordered it and then stuck me with the bill, while Molly gave me all of the pitches and the things that I should know. Molly’s the genius in that equation.”
“They’ve been very supportive and very helpful,” O’Brien said on Kimmel and Molly. “And so, that’s nice because I came up in a very different era of late-night when not everybody was chummy and friendly, and you didn’t just pick up the phone. So this new era where people are so lovely to each other is something I don’t take for granted.”
