Jimmy Kimmel Prepares To Improvise At The Oscars
Award shows are very noticeably scripted by those who can’t read teleprompters well (cough couch, Kendall Jenner) but also very
Victoria Liotta
Award shows are very noticeably scripted by those who can’t read teleprompters well (cough couch, Kendall Jenner) but also very well improvised by people like Jimmy Kimmel. The night host, who will be hosting the Oscars for a third time on March 12, says “I like to go in 75 percent prepared and leave some room for improvisation and reacting to the show as it’s happening.”
He recalled a previous hosting experience when improv was vital, saying, “I remember hosting the American Music Awards and Missy Elliot was very late for her award, and Dick Clark came bounding up to me backstage and said, ‘Missy Elliot isn’t here. You’ve got to fill!’ … I had to stand out there and BS my way through of few minutes of nothing until Missy pulled in.”
He continued to share, “I don’t remember what I said, but I remember really feeling alive at that moment and enjoying it!”
Bloopers?
With the abundance of award shows and tons of personalities who attend, there’s always something expected to happen that’s a little out of pocket.
To list a few…
- Kanye West storming the stage during Taylor Swift‘s acceptance speech for Music Video of The Year
- Accidental envelopes swaps with the wrong name being read as the winner
- Last year’s infamous Oscars slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock
In fact, Kimmel discussed the moment of the slap while talking to PEOPLE.
Under Jimmy Kimmel’s Watch
Literally watching on his television.
When referring to the moment that Smith rushed the stage and slapped Rock for his comment towards Jada Pinkett-Smith, Kimmel noted, “It was a very intense and confusing end to what was otherwise a pretty great night.”
“In some ways, it feels like an episode of a TV show I watched and then put out of my head,” Kimmel says about watching from home.
“It’s still shocking that that happened,” says Kimmel, 55, who was in disbelief. “To see something like that happen outside of like The Maury Povich Show is shocking. And then for it to happen on the Oscars magnifies it by about a million times…. I think it’s something that everybody regrets and that we will move past. One day it will be looked at in the same way as that guy running onstage naked is looked at: a weird moment that we all talked about and we hopefully learn from.”
Kimmel added, “I mean, to be slapped in the face and to stay that cool is something that Chris should be proud of,” he says. “Chris’s grandchildren, I hope, will still be proud of that when he’s dead and gone.”
The Oscars air live on ABC on Sunday, March 12, at 8 PM EST. And Kimmel is “going to give it 110 percent.”