Host Jimmy Kimmel on his wish for more Oscars goofs, getting political and son Billy

WABC logo
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Kimmel says another Oscars goof 'would be funny'
Late night's Jimmy Kimmel sat down with ''Good Morning America'' ahead of his hosting gig at the Oscars and opened up about his wish for the show to have more goofs this year, about why he thinks comedians should speak out about politics and about his son Billy.

There's at least one person wishing for a repeat of the most famous moment of last year's Oscars ceremony: host Jimmy Kimmel.

"I'll be honest, it would be funny if it happened again," Kimmel told Good Morning America ahead of hosting again this year.

"You don't want things to go perfectly?" Paula Faris asked him.

"No," Kimmel confessed.

"You secretly want the wheels to fall off, a little bit?" she asked.

"At least one wheel," Kimmel joked.

Kimmel says he can laugh about the Best Picture being incorrectly announced because no one was hurt.

"People don't even realize this, but during our rehearsal on the day of the Oscars, the whole set fell down," he said of last year's show. "And I'm not talking about a little piece of set. I'm talking about a huge wooden structure came crashing down to the floor. If that had happened during the Oscars, that could have been a tragic occurrence. By comparison to that, this didn't seem like such a big deal."

Whether or not something unpredictable happens, Kimmel hopes to dole out quite a few laughs on purpose. He said it's quite the process to whittle the jokes down.

"I go from thousands to 30," he estimated.

But it might not all be jokes. Kimmel said, in general, he finds it that in the current political climate it's appropriate for comedians to give their commentary.

"I think that, I'm still doing a comedy show and I need to be funny and entertain my audience, but I also think that we've matured enough to the point where we can accept a late-night talk show host speaking about a serious subject," he said. "And I think that it's almost necessary now."

Despite this, Kimmel said that the focus of the show won't be entirely on the Time's Up and #MeToo movements, but rather on the awards themselves.

"Here's the thing, this show is not about reliving people's sexual assaults," he said. "It's an awards show for people who have been dreaming about maybe winning an Oscar for their whole lives. And the last thing I want to do is ruin that for someone who is nominated for Best Leading Actress, or Best Supporting [Actress] or Best Director or Cinematographer or whatever, by making it unpleasant. That's not what I want to do. I'm not going to stop any bad behavior with my jokes."

Given all of this, Kimmel is doing his best to strike just the right tone. He said he worries about getting it right.

"I have a tendency to not strike the right tone in my life. So I do think about that," he said.

One more thing that's changed since the last time Kimmel's hosted came in his personal life. His son, Billy, was born with a heart defect and had to undergo surgery. This led Kimmel to become a vocal advocate of children's health care reform on his show.

"He has no idea what happened," Kimmel said of Billy. "Sometimes I look at him and go, 'You don't care what we went through, do you? You just want oatmeal.'"

Don't miss the Oscars this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET | 5 p.m. PT on ABC.