Before the Oscars‘ dust has completely settled, first-time host Conan O’Brien dished behind-the-scenes secrets from the March 2 telecast on a new episode of his SiriusXM podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.
“People seemed very happy with how it went,” O’Brien stated at the top of the Oscars recap podcast, which replaced a typical fan interaction episode in the weekly slot. “I had a blast doing it, and one of the reasons I think I was able to enjoy myself so much is I knew we worked very hard to get material that we liked.”
Joined by his head writer and creative collaborator of 30 years Mike Sweeney, O’Brien recapped that hard work by detailing the sketches that got cut, the Academy’s notes that blew his mind and what he’ll miss most. Below are highlights from the episode.
“It Was Not on Our Radar”
O’Brien revealed that the call to host the big show came in late November, a day after he and Sweeney arrived back from Spain where they had been shooting an episode of their travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go. “I said, ‘I’ll do it, but you got to be on board,’” O’Brien said directly to Sweeney. “You just laughed really hard. You laughed really hard for a long time.” O’Brien asked his pal why he was so amused by it. “Just because of the timing of it,” he answered. “We were so busy. You got really sick in Spain, along with a few other people, and also just, it just seemed random, out of left [field].” O’Brien finished the thought: “It was not on our radar. … It was as if I had got a call that said, ‘We want you to be the new Miss America. It was that random and from left field.”
He Said Yes — And Tragedy Struck (Three Times)
O’Brien agreed to take on the hosting job, and his bosses at HBO Max “very kindly” said yes to letting him fit the gig into his busy schedule with one caveat. “‘Can you knock this other travel show [episode] off very quickly?’” O’Brien recalls the executives asking him. “So we immediately dash to Austria and we’re shooting a show in Austria when I get the call that my father had passed away.” O’Brien rushed home to be with his family, only to experience more tragedy. “While I’m home, I see that my mom is going, too, and she went three days later. That was an experience that was very intense.” Then came the Los Angeles wildfires, which forced O’Brien to evacuate his home in Pacific Palisades. He said on the podcast that he’s still living in a hotel.
O’Brien Was Game to Be Green for ‘Wicked’ Bit
The telecast featured a cold open inspired by the Demi Moore-starrer The Substance that featured O’Brien taking the powerful green elixir and then emerging from a woman’s back like in the body horror pic. But that segment actually replaced a longer version that would’ve seen O’Brien spoofing many of the year’s top films while being painted green a’la Wicked. “It was basically hammered out before the fires,” Sweeney detailed. “Then even after that, we kind of honed it and it would’ve been like three or four minutes long.”
O’Brien picked up the story from there: “It starts with me and I’m in Wicked and I’m all green, finishing ‘Defying Gravity’ or one of those songs. 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. Then you go on to Conclave and you see people voting with their ballots and one of the hands is still green.” The bit would’ve continued with Dune 2 and Nosferatu and actors from those films acting surprised that O’Brien’s face was still green. “The whole thing is that the dye wouldn’t come off,” he said, adding that they had one day to shoot the conceptual idea only to realize that it was complicated and required too many setups. The Academy brass informed them that they wanted to open with a musical tribute to Los Angeles, which ended up featuring Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Academy Notes “That Blew My Mind”
At multiple points during the podcast, O’Brien and Sweeney went to great lengths to praise the team from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, ABC and the telecast producers, saying how excellent and wonderful everyone was to work with. But he also spilled some tea on their notes, including the “real behind-the-scenes” education that came with working for the Academy for the first time. “They’re very serious about certain things,” O’Brien said, including the image of the Oscar and how it’s, ahem positioned. “There was a giant Oscar statue, and I shot something with it. It was really fun.” He detailed an idea that would’ve found him and the Oscar sharing an apartment as a couple but they don’t get along. “At one point, I thought, oh, this would be really great if the Oscar was just on the couch. Let’s lay it on a really big couch. And I’ll be vacuuming and say, ‘Could you at least lift your feet or could you at least get up and help load the dishwasher?’ We wanted to do it, and they just said, ‘No, no, no, that can’t happen.’” The reason “blew my mind,” O’Brien said: “One of the people from the Academy came forward and said, ‘Oscar can never be horizontal.’” He also learned that they couldn’t put an apron or any clothing on the statuette as it must always be naked.
Backstage Encounter With Rock Legend
Mick Jagger made a surprise appearance at the Oscars to present the award for best original song. And just before he went on stage, O’Brien got to meet the legendary Rolling Stones member. “I’m sitting there, stage left, and I’m looking at my monitor. I’m just aware of a presence to my left, and I kind of just look over and it’s this guy. I immediately see that it’s Mick Jagger, who I’ve never met. Mick Jagger looks at me and he starts nudging me,” he explained. “And in kind of a comic American voice, he’s like, ‘Hey, hey, how’s the crowd? How’s the crowd?” O’Brien replied that it was a good crowd only to find out that Jagger always wonders about the audience despite his level of experience. “He said, ‘I always worry about the crowd. I said, ‘Wait a minute. You’re with the Rolling Stones and you’re in Buenos Aires, and you’re getting ready to come out and start the show, and you’re going to start off with ‘Satisfaction’ and you’re anxious that the crowd isn’t going to be good?’ He said, ‘Oh, no, definitely. I wear an earpiece and I listen to the crowd, and sometimes I can tell the crowd isn’t quite there yet, and I have to give it a little extra and upfront.’ I was so relieved. I realized, obviously, he’s 35 levels beyond me, but nothing ever goes away.”
‘Dune’s Sandworm Was Set for Bigger Role
The sandworm from Dune 2 got plenty of screen time while seated at the piano performing along with the orchestra. But it was primed for a bigger part. “There was one idea where the sandworm comes out with an envelope,” O’Brien said, suggesting the worm (whose costume was built in three days) was going to present an Oscar. “It’s going to have lines. So, there’s a whole lifeline to these things. There’s a whole evolution.” That evolution also saw him bouncing around the stage. “We had different ideas for who should be behind the piano, and it wasn’t quite working out, and we couldn’t quite figure it out. Then finally it occurred to us, the sandworm should be the person on the piano, and then the sandworm can show up again on the harp as a callback. … We realized it was that Friday [before the Oscars] that yes, the sandworm should come out on the piano first and then show up later on the harp, because he’s a multi-instrumentalist.”
People Keep Asking If He Wrote That Drake Joke
O’Brien and Sweeney generously shouted out all the writers that helped put the show together, praising them as a “murderer’s row” of talent. He credited one, Skyler Higley, for that viral quip referencing the Drake versus Kendrick Lamar feud. “We’re halfway through the show, which means it’s time for Kendrick Lamar to come out and call Drake a pedophile,” O’Brien said at the midway point. “Don’t worry, I’m lawyered up.” The veteran host then revealed that the dig has proven to be so popular that people keep asking him who wrote it. “This has happened to me a couple of times, but I walked to some store this morning to get a cup of coffee, and this young Black gentleman came up to me and went, ‘Conan, I got to ask you, did you write that joke about Drake?’ And I said, ‘I did not. That is the handiwork of Skyler Higley.’ I got to give it up. I’m not that well-versed in the rap battles, but I got major props from this gentleman.”
“It’s Gone Now Because Someone Else Did It”
Like so many awards show hosts, O’Brien took some of his material out for test drives at local comedy clubs. “I mean, the audiences were very nice because I would go out and say, ‘Please don’t record this.’ And they wouldn’t, which was really nice because all they’d have someone would have to do is put that online and you’re completely screwed.” O’Brien said the other “landmine” that he didn’t consider before taking the gig was how many awards shows there were during the months-long season. “Once we were going to go to a club, and they’re like, ‘You’re going on after so-and-so who’s hosting,’” he said, leaving space for any number of events, like Judd Apatow hosting the DGA Awards. “We can’t even be there when he does his because we don’t want to hear something. We can’t be influenced.” He admitted that there were a couple of instances when they list material because it came up on stage already. “It’s gone now because someone else did it.”
O’Brien Revealed What He’ll Miss Most
“The thing I keep going back to is, what I miss most about it is the lighting I had. It’s the best lighting I’ve ever had. It’s the best lighting I ever will have,” O’Brien dished. “I looked at myself in a monitor at one point in rehearsal, and I’m like, who’s that guy? It’s not me. I know online people were speculating — did Conan get some work done or something? It’s called lighting.”
Watch the full episode of SiriusXM’s Conan Needs a Friend below.