Though it’s been less than two weeks since Conan O’Brien made his Oscars hosting debut, the famously self-deprecatory comedian is already discussing how things could’ve gone differently. During a recent recording of his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” with Oscars head writer Mike Sweeney, the former late-night host went into detail about attempted jokes that were cut down by members of the Academy. For a promo that involved O’Brien “fighting about things couples fight about,” but with the gold Oscars statue, he was told directly that he couldn’t lie the statue on its side.
“One of the people from the Academy came forward and said, ‘Oscar can never be horizontal.’ And that blew my mind,” said O’Brien. “Like, wow, this is like the thigh bone of St. Peter. This is a religious icon.”
For the actual show, O’Brien wanted to take more inspiration from Billy Crystal’s years hosting by inserting himself into a bunch of the nominated films. He was able to do so with “The Substance” at the top of the show, but plans to do more had to be cut away,
“It was the idea that, ‘Oh, Conan’s now going to goof on all the movies,’” O’Brien said. “It starts with me and I’m in ‘Wicked’ and I’m all green, finishing ‘Defying Gravity’ or one of those songs. And I finish it and then you cut to the next thing, which is ‘Gladiator II’ and ‘clang, clang, clang’ with swords and you see that I’m a gladiator but then you notice that I’m still green. And then you go on to ‘Conclave’ and you see people voting with their ballots and one of the hands is still green.”
Eventually, O’Brien was to end up in “Dune: Part II,” where, in character, Javier Bardem would make note of the fact that he was green and how he should’ve shot “Wicked” last instead of first.
“The whole thing was that the dye wouldn’t come off and we had to shoot it in one day,” said O’Brien.
They’d also planned to feature characters like Count Orlok from “Nosferatu” ridiculing him for his appearance. Unfortunately, after the Southern California wildfires took place in January, the Academy insisted on starting the show with a “Wizard of Oz” musical tribute led by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
Listen to the full recap on “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” below.
SOURCE: IndieWire
