Inside the Oscars: Execs Explain In Memoriam Omissions, Playing Off ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Winners and Bringing Back Conan O’Brien as Host - Variety

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They weren’t kidding at the end of last night’s Oscars: Conan O’Brien, if you want it, the Academy Awards “host for life” job is yours — well, at least for the final two years of ABC’s deal.

“Oh, that is no joke, Conan is host for life, yes,” Walt Disney Television’s Rob Mills, the executive vice president, unscripted and alternative entertainment who’s in charge of the Oscars telecast, told Variety on Monday morning. “He hasn’t even accepted yet. He’s just being told. We’re assuming that was not a comedy bit. We’re going to treat that as if that was fact.”

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Variety got on the phone with Mills and others involved with the telecast on Monday to discuss some of the highlights and burning questions.

“It was one of the more ambitious things that we’ve done,” said one insider, who added that production took place within the last three weeks. “It took a couple of days to shoot. It was a lot.”

Said Mills: “Sometimes these jobs are like fantasy camp and to be working with Conan is always incredible. I remember those when he had special occasions, or when he hosted things like the Emmys, he would make these films, and they were great. When it was their 10th anniversary of ‘Late Night,’ he did one of those ones where he ran into the streets of New York, and literally, everybody’s following him. It was sort of similar to this bit. He’s always done these films that are great. And it also sort of reminded me of what Billy Crystal used to do. So it was great. It felt distinctly Conan, but also distinctly Oscar.”

Quite simply, said a source, “We found an animation company that could pull this off very quickly!”

These are real child actors who were brought in via a casting call.

That was truly Michael B. Jordan, who loved the bit and came in last week to shoot himself reacting in multiple ways. “Once he got the idea, he said he was into it, came in and we had him there for a short time, and had him composited!” a producer said.

Not at all! So forgive him for being a bit confused at first on how to react — but then he still figured out how to react! “I’m sure anybody over the age of 30 was confused,” quipped a source.

“One of my all time favorite award show things was when Conan did the ‘You Got Trouble’ number when he hosted the Emmys,” Mills said. “Last year he did the “I Won’t Waste Time” song. He loves a musical number. So, yeah, he thought of that. Remember, he did a film, he did a monologue. The song was so short that it was great. Conan clearly thought about this, because by the end of that, that first act, by the time you got to Zoe Saldaña, you did not feel like this has already been long. It moved. The film was brilliant, the monologue brilliant, and that song was brilliant. And very quick. He got the joke and then got right out.”

Yes, Matt Berry was in London — and the technology is now at the point where there wasn’t a delay. But why? “I think they like the idea of this being so international. God bless him, he was at every rehearsal. I can’t imagine all the different times he must have been up. I don’t know exactly why he wasn’t here, but I think they thought it was kind of cool that somebody was all the way across the ocean.”

Berry was supposed to appear one more time on camera — but it was cut for time. Like his previous old timey reference to Basil Rathbone, this time he was going to shout out Cyd Charisse.

The producers were big on some of the pretapes this year. “The vertical video thing was smart too,” said a producer. “Ideas come up, and we used a lot this year. There happened to be a lot more pretape things.”